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#1
19-12-2013, 18:47
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Is Everything Must Go a Britpop album?
Well, the manics have often occupied a space away from britpop, more that kinda alternative area that Radiohead were occupying in the early 90s. They talk in I think the THB 10th anniversary interview about enjoying being separate from the whole movement.
But with EMG, they do go mainstream, and the themes going through the album do share some similarities with that view of British life that other bands at the time have. Elvis Impersonators I suppose is the most glaring example on the album, ADFL also being deeply rooted in British working class culture. Enola/Alone obviously sounds a bit like Oasis, and although very introspective, there's lines about the statue of liberty on tv, walking on the beach etc, all very britpop... and Further Away is the cheesy love song mixed in. Mr Carbohydrate is also reminiscent of themes of lazy days in etc It's just been so easy to see the manics as separate from the key players of the scene, but were the manics, for this brief spell at least, part of Britpop? Thought it was an interesting idea...
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#2
19-12-2013, 19:06
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Not for me.
I don't really hear any of the main influences on Britpop on EMG, like post punk, Small Faces, Kinks etc. I don't think there's much romanticism of British culture either (or the tedious irony of something like Girls and Boys by Blur); Elvis and ADFL are pretty scathing and pessimistic really. Britpop was just deeply horrible on so many levels.
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#3
19-12-2013, 19:23
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I'd disagree - I'd think it's 'of the time' and will forever be lumped in with what was happening then, in much the same way as The Stranglers were seen as a punk band, as were Wire, that Nirvana were grunge.
It'll forever be part of that mid-90s glorification of British music. Blur themselves were critical of society, as were Pulp and Suede, all of whom are of the same era.
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#6
19-12-2013, 21:43
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EMG is the anti-Britpop for me! I was trying to escape from Oasis and Blur at the time but the Manics flew under my radar somehow in 1996 until I picked them up in 1998!
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#7
19-12-2013, 21:55
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It walks Britpop. But doesn't talk Britpop. And that's why the Manics are still going today. Ocean Colour Scene are still releasing records. They don't seem to be getting the coverage the Manics are getting. (For all the good that does them with their singles!)
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#8
19-12-2013, 22:18
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It's an album with their most radio friendly guitar driven rock/pop songs so in that sense it does have the aspects that below whatever "ideology" the NME were trying to attach, were intrinsic to "Britpop bands". In common with most albums of the Britpoppers, the production and guitar tones are very clean and push the hooks of the songs to the fore.
EMG's main difference to the bulk of Britpop acts was of course that the sound was not so obviously indebted to 60s and early 70s British music, which soon sounded the deathknell (or at least a draining of their powers) to many of those groups who strictly adhered to that Beatles/Kinks/Glam template by the turn of the Millennium.
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#9
19-12-2013, 22:49
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No.
Brit pop incorporated a time and a place More than the music it was a collection of bands tied by a romantic view of England, new labour and fashion and the manics still had a very English quality but it was more resigned than a celebration and rather than embrace new labour and go about kissing the babies with tony like blur and oasis did they viewed new labour as the better of two evils - a d while embracing elements of the fashion there is still something different - would bone head or the gallaghers don a dress like wire did during that period such as nynex.
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#10
19-12-2013, 23:15
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Quote:
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#12
19-12-2013, 23:49
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I do see your argument Bobafettish, but I'd say that Everything Must Go was more of a continuation of the polished guitar rock sound of GATS, which I guess links to what Gutless was saying of them being unsure of their identity following Richey's disappearance. It certainly catered to the Britpop fan crowd, but only because it wasn't them trying to sonically re-create another The Holy Bible.
As for the lyrics, well, thankfully there are no references to tea on Clapham Common or champagne at the Derby or whatever.
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#14
20-12-2013, 18:16
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Quote:
the English are more pessimistic, emg is imbued with a sense of pessimism, rebuilding but being unsure which is an English sensibility. Much the same as rtf is very welsh as it has that beautiful wistful poetic quality prevalent in much of the valeys
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#15
20-12-2013, 01:00
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Quote:
I'm not sure I'd consider it britpop, and there are reasons, but it does seem like a lot of the reasons here boil down to 'of course not, because the manics were good and britpop was shit', when the Manics share some of the elements of britpop. There be no mention of them on the wikpedia britop article, so that settles it 
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