Original subtitles

We're gonna have a good time. We're gonna have a party.

MAN: Just what is it that you want to do?

2ND MAN: We want to be free.

We want to be free to do what we want to do.

And we wanna get loaded and we wanna have a good time.

That's what we're gonna do. 3RD MAN: Away baby, let's go.

We're gonna have a good time. We're gonna have a party.

In the early to mid '90s, British pop music went through a sea change,

which was reminiscence of the swinging '60s.

Independent pop groups, most of them from working-class backgrounds,

invaded the pop charts by creating a musical identity

which was both optimistic and quintessentially British.

The celebratory atmosphere this created

was in stark contrast to the era of social conflict of the 1980s

under the government of Margaret Thatcher.

These were the Britpop years.

It was a point in time you just felt the music's right,

the politic is right, and the football's right,

all at once, it all seemed really cool.

A new generation wanting to steal the thunder of the people who'd come before.

That stuff is absolutely vital. It's the very heartbeat of what, uh,

makes the rock'n'roll cycle tick.

The whole climate in the UK was changing, you know.

Imperceptibly really, but it was.

It was changing. And then, all of a sudden, everyone thought,

"We're on a roll," you know. It's like...

Britain's back.

# Oh, we were born within an hour of each other

# Our mothers said we could be sister and brother #

It's not imaginary, it's not exaggerated,

it's not romanticised, it's woodchip on the wall.

# With woodchip on the wall

# When I came round to call #

One thing we're really good at making in this country is intelligent pop music.

You know, it doesn't have to be lowbrow, you know, it can be really,

you know, witty and sharp, and intelligent, and I was...

If you look at the kind of the bands that came through in that period

of Britpop. I mean, you've got some very, very good songwriters.

Suddenly, their moment had arrived.

# London ice cracks on a seamless line

# He's hanging on for dear life #

Just as had been the case in the 1960s, when the Beatles confronted the Rolling Stones,

two groups found themselves at the heart of this cultural revolution.

Blur, a group from the nation's capital locked horns with Oasis,

a group from Burnage, a working-class suburb of Manchester.

Blur seemed very good at making mainstream pop

really exciting and more accessible.

Oasis just felt like a juggernaut coming through the house.

Oasis felt like when the Sex Pistols arrived,

it felt, uh, like nobody saw it coming.

And they had a singer, Liam Gallagher,

that looked like a proper rock star.

And they had total gang attitude.

# Tonight

# I'm a rock'n'roll star... #

The popularity of both groups gave rise to a bitter rivalry between them.

Who of Blur and Oasis would prove to be the major pop group of their generation?

In 1995, the story gripped the nation.

But it was only the last stage of a cultural upheaval which started almost a decade earlier.

Right about '94... '93, '94, '95, there was this huge

momentum of change going on in Britain.

Um, but it went all the way back.

As the 1990s dawned,

Britain was in its tenth of a Tory government led by Margaret Thatcher.

Economic policies had led to a country deeply divided between rich and poor

and a situation where certain cities of the North, such as Manchester,

were more or less left to rot.

Despite the fact that in 1990, Margaret Thatcher was forced by her own party to step down,

the Conservatives continued to rule the country.

Ladies and gentlemen,

we're leaving Downing Street for the last time

after eleven-and-a-half wonderful years.

And we're very happy that we leave United Kingdom

in a very, very much better state

than when we came here elven-and-half years ago.

The Conservative government, it changed personnel,

but the Conservatives themselves had been governing the country

for something like 15 years.

And...there was this sense of, like,

we're gonna have to do it ourselves cos they're not actually gonna help the people.

For young people, the only answer to a society which offered them no future was to party.

The way forward was shown by an independent record label owner and TV presenter in Manchester,

called Tony Wilson.

His passion for music and for his own city

led him to reinvest the profits from his label, Factory Records,

whose recording artists included Joy Division and New Order,

back into the youth culture of the city.

The centre of this strategy was the opening of a club called The Hacienda.

This is The Hacienda. You know, it may not look much,

but it is the cathedral to house music in Britain.

Life-size picture of Tony Wilson's head inside there. Yeah.

In a real sense, it was here on the dance floor of The Hacienda

that the cultural revolution in the 1990s took flight.

This is the gateway to the dance floor.

The musical soundtrack of this new cultural revolution was acid house

and its drug of predilection, a new and euphoric one called ecstasy.

(ACID HOUSE MUSIC)

In the early '90s, The Hacienda was to spread its message nationally

resulting in a wave of illegal open-air parties throughout the country known as raves.

There's a great saying about the '60s.

It was two people who are having a party and everyone else trying to find it.

And I think the '90s, everybody found the party.

Instead of going to a shit nightclub with a big plastic palm tree

and somebody playing a set of records that they played every single week,

there was this sense of you would drive, not knowing where the rave was.

And this was going on all over the country.

You would find yourself in a field

out in the home counties, or in a field outside Blackburn

with these huge lasers projecting across.

Suddenly, it felt like young people could create control

and own their own entertainment.

The audience and the DJs became the artists.

# Oh, is this the way they say the future's meant to feel?

# Or just 20,000 people standing in a field

# And I don't quite understand just what this feeling is

# But that's OK cos we're all sorted out for Es and whizz

# And tell me when... #

BROWN: Lots of things changed.

Drugs no longer became the domain of just rock stars and junkies and the privileged.

They became, after ecstasy, something that became part of the social life.

Part of the social fabric.

It was Manchester which remained the epicentre of this new tide of optimism.

Manchester thus became known as Madchester,

as a sort of creative frenzy took hold of the city.

The one group who came to symbolise this popular creative upheaval were The Stone Roses,

a band from Manchester whose music

made the connection between acid house

and the guitar-based pop music which was to follow and be baptised Britpop.

I think the Roses were never actually an acid house band.

The reason people bought their records is cos they were kind of psychedelic-ish.

They're going to these clubs, they understand this culture,

they're making the music, the soundtrack's in.

# Any time you want me

# Any time at all #

Remember that their manager at the time

would go around Afflecks Palace, the clothes shop,

giving out cassettes of the Roses. People started playing 'em.

You started hearing the Roses in Manchester, coming out of bedsit windows.

It became part of the fabric of the music of the city.

And it kind of merged into this kind of trippiness. Manchester seemed to be glowing.

It was psychedelic. It was like San Francisco in the '60s.

But it was a working-class version.

Normal kids dressing up in sort of hippie-ish clothes.

# Show me your vision, your wild apparition

# And sink to the depths of your soul #

That Stone Roses album was a very uplifting record, you know. It was...

It kind of harked back to the '60s in lots of ways but in another way,

specially with Fool's Gold, you know, it showed that this kind of

thing of sampling loops and integrating and matchmaking.

People who used to like guitar bands started going clubbing

and started enjoying themselves.

That was where the main shift happened. This was like, you know, a celebratory,

all-encompassing thing that happened.

# The pack on my back is aching

# The straps seem to cut me like a knife

(WHOOPING)

# I'm no clown... #

The Stone Roses were a rock band, quite a conventional rock band,

but they also had a kind of dance dimension to what they did.

So the Spike Island concert was not only a traditional rock festival,

but also a rave, a gigantic rave.

And that was a key change, I think.

The Stone Roses concert at Spike Island on March 27th 1990,

sometimes referred to as the Woodstock of the '90s,

was a statement of intent from a generation looking forward to a brighter future.

was a statement of intent We want to be free to do what we want to do.

Soon, London was to pick up the torch lit by the Stone Roses.

In the first months of the new decade,

an incredible number of young pop bands

with a semipsychedelic guitar-based sound

could be heard playing in clubs and pubs around the city.

STREET: At that time, the early '90s, after the initial acid house explosion,

there was a bit of a kind of comedown.

Things just kind of mellowed out for a little while.

Everything kind of went a little bit back to being

kind of like grungy and, you know, introspective again.

Um, and out of that scene, really, came

this next wave of groups, you know, including Blur,

that actually then, you know, took that and then progressed to something else.

For the small, independent labels looking for new bands,

this was a rich hunting ground.

Talent scouts were out and about almost every night,

taking in as many concerts as possible

in the hope of finding THE group who could take the pop charts by storm.

One of those doing the rounds was Andy Ross, head of Food Records,

an independent label who finally set up shop in Camden,

a popular district of North London.

I'd be going to up to five different shows a night, looking for bands,

cos I was, um, very enthusiastic at the time.

And so around that time, uh, I found this little group,

uh, called Seymour.

I had meetings with the manager who brought a cassette to me.

The cassette had four songs on it,

two of which were pretty rubbish, really.

And, uh... But two were really, really interesting, and so, uh,

I went to see them at, uh, Dingwalls in Camden.

And after that, full steam ahead. We signed them almost immediately after that

in February 1990.

The two problems, uh, we had with Seymour,

was firstly, didn't like the name.

There were too many bands around at that time like James and Raymonde

and Seymour just sounded like a hairdresser's name to me.

I really didn't like it and so we had to address that situation.

Everyone chucked their ideas in a hat

and we'll see what comes out best.

Blur won. So they became Blur.

In those days, unless you were uh, Depeche Mode,

it was very unusual for indie bands to make any impact on the UK charts.

So, uh, we bided with our time and the first single,

She's So High, reached 48.

It was big success for us, we thought at the time.

That was a good start, and then we thought, 'Where do we go next?'

And we had some recordings by Stephen Street.

Um, one of which was a song called There's No Other Way.

So I went uptown to meet them at a pub in the West End and we got on great

and we booked a studio for the following week

and went in and recorded two songs as a kind of test session.

And one of those songs was, uh, There's No Other Way.

At that time, there was still an overhang of the kind of dancing,

kind of overhanging into the indie clubs and things that these kids would kind of go to.

Um... And, um... So I definitely wanted to make sure

that There's No Other Way, if it could, could work on the dance floor.

But let's not overemphasise that too much.

For me the killer thing is the guitar riff that kick-starts it.

(GUITAR RIFF)

You know, it still has that uplifting, you know, power.

# You're taking the fun out of everything

# You're making me run when I don't wanna think

# You're taking the fun out of everything

# I don't wanna think at all

# There's no other way, there's no other way

# All that you can do is watch them play

# There's no other way there's no other way

# All that you can do is watch them play #

Had a meeting with the band. Damon's very vocal, and he still is.

But at the time, he was sort of saying,

"There's no other way." And I said, "Look, that's a hit." He was like, "No, that's a B-side."

I was like, "You're wrong, it's a hit." And...

because we were the record label, uh, eventually, we could just

put our foot down and say, "It's a single."

And so they were a bit grumpy about that.

Um, less grumpy when it was in the top ten.

Blur were not, however, to savour the taste of success for very long.

An unexpected wind blowing in from Seattle on the West coast of the United States

gate-crashed their party. Grunge music had arrived.

In short, Nirvana. Nirvana. Everywhere Nirvana.

America had found a voice, and a face capable of expressing its anxiety and self loathing.

An angelic face amongst the shopping malls.

When Nirvana arrived - and with Kurt Cobain, as well,

he had this kind of iconic thing about him,

this look and this kind of deep down desire and...and integrity -

it did kind of make a lot of bands

in this country kind of go, "Wait a minute, what are we dealing with here?"

# With the lights out, it's less dangerous

# Here we are now, entertain us

# I feel stupid and contagious

# Here we are now, entertain us #

I think this really affected Blur most probably more than anyone else

because they were touring the States at the time

on the back of their first album.

And there was this shift, definitely in America anyway,

where really, all of a sudden, you know, Nirvana was it,

and all that grunge thing, the Seattle kind of a sound.

It kind of put Blur a little bit on the back burner.

The came back from that tour

where people were saying, "Hey, are you guys from Manchester?"

And, you know, and kind of like, they didn't really know what Blur were about.

And I think they felt isolated.

They kind of spent a long time over there trying to crack America, as it were,

and came back pretty much with their tail between their legs.

It all ground to a halt around that period,

and we went away and thought, "What do we do next?"

And they went in to the wilderness for a little while.

At the time, Blur were very much not flavour of the month.

I think you'd find that Suede were much more popular at that particular time than Blur,

and they were kind of big rivals.

In 1993, Suede were the most popular band in Britain.

Their fans were loyal diehards who identified with the lyrics of their songs.

And particularly with the lead singer, Brett Anderson,

whose sexual ambiguity and enigmatic character

fascinated more than one or two teenagers in search of an identity.

Suede, inadvertently, became part of that scene because of the press.

But Brett really kept to himself. He really didn't, you know,

become part of anything. He was quite enigmatic

and he did what he did with his own friends.

He didn't go to all the parties at all or anything like that.

They would distance themselves, in that respect.

They were a bit, you know, a bit cool.

# Oh, it turns you o-o-on

# O-o-on

# And now he has gone #

Damon Albarn was not indifferent to the size of Suede's following.

Having himself tasted success,

he had his own ideas of who should be the public's favourite.

I know that Damon used to be...

Liked to sort of know how well Suede were doing.

It wasn't like a sort of a, "Oh, my God, we must beat them"

but he definitely had one eye on what was happening with them

and what press they were getting and things like that.

At that time, Damon was writing a lot of songs that were character-based songs

like Colin Zeal and...and things like that,

where he's talking about a kind of character,

and I think that kind of tapped into that kind of linage of writing,

like, from Ray Davies or Syd Barrett,

where you get these interesting little English characters,

you know, these kind of strange people that, you know,

kind of inspire a...a song to be written around that person.

I think, you know, the best people can do that.

And very different to kind of, you know, the things that rock and grunge bands were writing about.

# End of a century

# Oh, it's nothing special

# We all say, "Don't want to be alone"

# We wear the same clothes cos we feel the same

# We kiss with dry lips when we say good night

# End of a century

# Oh, it's nothing special

# Oh, end of a century

# Oh, it's nothing special #

The period around the early '90s - '92, '93, '94, I think -

it was kind of a false dawn for British indie music.

Uh, Suede were extremely popular.

Blur were fairly popular. And, I mean, within our small world,

we were both big names, you know.

Then suddenly this band from Manchester

suddenly appeared on the scene - Oasis.

The group Oasis had formed in Manchester in the early '90s around two brothers,

Liam Gallagher, the singer, and his elder brother, Noel, who wrote the songs.

# I don't know what it is that makes me feel alive

# I don't know how to wake the things that sleep inside

# I only wish to see the light that shines behind your eyes #

Oasis just felt like juggernaut coming through the house.

Oasis felt like when the Sex Pistols arrived.

It felt like nobody saw it coming.

Nobody knew anything about this band.

And suddenly Creation were saying, "We've got the band."

# Because we need each other

# We believe in one another

# I know we're going to uncover... #

Creation Records was an independent label based in London

and founded by a certain Alan McGee.

Having had some success in the '80s

with bands such as My Bloody Valentine and the Jesus & Mary Chain,

he was in the early '90s still looking for the band

who would project his label to a higher level of success.

Fate was to take a hand on the 31st May 1993,

when he found himself at a concert in Glasgow.

The members of the band Oasis were in the hall,

but were not scheduled to play during the evening.

We want to be free to do what we want to do.

I showed up, and there was a weird licensing law change in Glasgow

cos it had been made City of Culture.

And, uh, they had decided to start the band at half ten.

So I was there at half eight. So I...

saw this kind of of weird atmosphere developing.

And it was because these kids from Manchester,

who were called Oasis, wanted to get on the bill.

And, uh, they didn't even want to let them play.

There were only two bouncers in the place and there was, like, 12 moody Mancs.

So, I think it was decided, let the moody Mancs have the four songs.

Nobody will care anyway. I think that was the vibe for the club.

And then I went upstairs just to check them out.

I don't know why. I just thought, "Oh, let's see what they're like."

And then, you know, they played and it was amazing.

# I need to be myself

# I can't be no-one else

# I'm feeling supersonic

# Give me gin and tonic

# You can have it all, but... #

I said, you know, "Who's the manager?"

And he went, "There is no manager but I'll go and get you the guy."

Then he brought the guy out and it was Noel Gallagher.

I went, "Do you want a record deal?" He went, "Who with?"

And I went, "Creation." And he went, "Yeah."

# In my yellow submarine

# You need to find out

# Cos no-one's gonna tell you what I'm on about #

The house where the Gallagher brothers had grown up is situated in Burnage,

a working-class suburb of Manchester.

It was here that they'd drawn up their plans to make it big through music.

Oasis are one of the examples of, you know, purely working-class acts.

They're utterly admirable, uh, with an immense commercial drive,

because they just wanted to get out of, you know, Burnage.

And, um, you know, working-class musicians have an enormous, uh,

drive to improve their lives.

Despite wanting to get out of Burnage at all costs,

the Gallagher brothers also used it as a source of inspiration.

We're outside Sifters, which is in Burnage.

Oasis made this record shop famous,

um, when they used it in the promotional video

for their second single, Shakermaker.

How that came about was that they were on the way to the studio,

Johnny Marr's studio in Altrincham, to record it.

On the way to the studio, Liam was panicking

because they had to take a verse out of the track

and he kept saying, "When you gonna write the new lyrics?" to Noel.

And as the taxi drove down the road here, it pulled up outside the lights

and Noel got his pen and paper out and wrote,

'Mr Sifter sold me the songs when I was just 16. Now he stops at traffic lights

but only when they're green.' He said, "Learn that."

# Mr Sifter sold me songs

# When I was just 16

# Now he stops at traffic lights

# But only when they're green

# Ah-h-h-h

# Shake along with me #

Noel Gallagher is really amazing at writing songs.

He had that knack of getting through to normal people

because he didn't seem he was from the elite.

He seemed like a normal guy with a guitar who could write brilliant songs

that everyone could relate to. They looked like the everyman.

And that worked, you know, his community, his camaraderie.

Noel can write songs that touch people's hearts.

He's the man, he writes the gear, he's got it sewn up.

He's wrote songs that... He's got hundreds and hundreds of songs

that are just mega. And they go different...

You know, totally different from what we're doing now.

Oasis in a way are the Pistols and the Beatles just stuck together, aren't they?

But also like a museum of British pop culture, I think.

There's so many British band influences in there.

You could hear Slade and T Rex and Bowie.

# We can work it out, we can work it out #

LIAM: I'd say the Beatles were at the top. If there is a top.

I'd say they were at the top. A lot of other bands were sort of like...

Just...not quite there, you know what I mean? I wanted to be like...

You know what I mean? Or like wherever. Depends.

Just like, what day is it today? Tuesday, yeah?

You know what I mean? People coming here tonight on a Tuesday. It's raining.

People are coming down here going, "Yeah, man.

This is gonna be a mega night." Giving it some.

It happened to me with the Roses.

I went there and I thought, "Yeah, man.

Top, man. I'm really glad to be a part of it."

# I would like to leave this city

# This old town don't smell too pretty and

# I can feel the warning signs

# Running around... #

Well, they're like, unique, really.

Compared to other things around, they're not like any other band.

A brilliant band. England's best band at the moment, I'd say.

Well, they're really new and they're really fresh,

and they don't really care what the critics say or anything.

They seem really confident.

Oasis' success with the public at large

was underlined by their first album Definitely Maybe.

Released in 1994, it sold 150,000 copies in its first week,

thus becoming the fastest-selling debut album in British musical history,

and going straight into the charts at the number one spot.

# So what do you say? You can't give me... #

NOEL: There's been people there since 11 in the morning.

We wanted to do that for them because without them we're nothing.

And, you know... It's like, if I didn't wanna be in this band

or if I didn't wanna sign autographs

or if I didn't want to, you know, live my life in a fishbowl,

I'd just get up from here and take my case out of the van.

I'd go to the airport, go to Brazil. Nobody could stop me because I've got the money.

But I don't because I want to be here.

We're playing the game, and we mean it, and we're honest.

And we've got the best songs. So that's why we're in everyone's face.

# Maybe I don't really wanna know

# How your garden grows cos I just want to fly

# Lately, did you ever feel the pain

# In the morning rain? #

The success of Oasis was about a connection with the audience...

..and the ability to really excite and inspire an audience and tap into a generation.

# We're gonna live forever

# We're gonna live forever

# We're gonna live forever #

Oasis were not the only group to release a successful album in 1994.

Blur made a more-than-staggering comeback album with Parklife,

a record which for many is the epitome of the term Britpop.

The songs on the album are a sort of homage

to the daily life and values of working-class London.

# Confidence is a preference for the habitual voyeur

# Of what is known as...

# Parklife #

ANDY: After Modern Life Is Rubbish, Blur were at a bit of a low ebb.

But the tide was turning. We didn't really appreciate that at the time.

But within a year, we had the release of Parklife.

So we got a kind of a slingshot reaction from the press, going from,

"We missed them then, but we're gonna go for it this time."

And so, suddenly the press were way behind them, you know, all the way.

And so when Parklife came out, it was like a done deal.

# All the people

# So many people

# And they all go hand in hand

# Hand in hand through their parklife #

I'm very proud of it. It's a very varied album.

You know, I mean, one of the things I always remember vividly is,

you know, working on Girls and Boys, um...

Damon kind of bought in a very basic demo that he'd made of it,

pretty much a home demo, and I remember saying to him,

"Look, this is great, and we should do it as a 120 bpm disco record because that's really..."

Cos he'd done it with a very simple kind of basic drumbeat at home.

And I said, "That's its power."

# Girls who are boys, who like boys to be girls

# Who do boys like they're girls, who do girls like they're boys

# Always should be someone you really love

# Oh, oh, oh, oh-oh-oh

# Oh, oh, oh, oh-oh #

That really set the ball rolling, and the album went in at number one.

And that started... That was the genesis of Britpop.

Guitar bands playing slightly '60s, slightly trippy-tinge music.

A lot of them in the template of the Stone Roses. You'd buy...

It took them five years to make their next album.

In that gap, everyone in the country had learnt how to be The Stone Roses apart from The Stone Roses,

who'd sort of forgotten. (CHUCKLES) Which is quite weird, innit?

So, um, Britpop was a continuation of Manchester.

But, geographically, it was more nationwide.

It was like the doors were suddenly opened, "Come in, you're welcome."

All these bands are out there playing guitar and doing their own national tours

and not really ever getting inside the top 30,

were suddenly welcome to the party.

# Because she stayed out late from Monday

# Till Saturday turned into Sunday

# And now we're back here on Monday

# We're gonna do it all over again

# And we go, "Aah ah ah, aah ah ah Aah ah ah, aah ah ah" #

And suddenly you get this situation where the acts that used to have platinum records

like the Eurythmics or Tina Turner,

suddenly...it wasn't just their domain,

it was the domain of these bands, you know, like Blur and Pulp and Oasis.

And it was just a wonderful thing because all of a sudden,

the music we were making... We weren't changing our music to fit into the market,

the market just adjusted to us and gave it the name Britpop.

# I know that her mind is made up

# To get rocked #

# We are young, we run green

# Keep our teeth nice and clean

# See our friends, see the sights and feel all right #

# Shopping for kicks, got the weekend to get through

# She's keeping the rain off her Saturday hairdo

# She stops for a coffee, she smiles at the waiter #

It became a time more of celebration, gradually, by osmosis.

Just the whole climate in the UK was changing, you know.

Imperceptibly, really, but it was.

The changes taking place in British society continued with the arrival

on the scene of a young Labour MP, Tony Blair,

who on 21st July 1994 became leader of New Labour.

BROWN: There was this MP arrived. Tony Blair, young MP.

And suddenly he understood that if he headed a football with Kevin Keegan,

who would go on to be the England manager, who was then manager of Newcastle,

he would look like a man of the people.

Tony Blair didn't really deliver policy, he just marketed himself.

Britpop was regarded as sexy and quintessentially English

and cool, and Tony Blair affiliated himself,

pretty much nailed his colours to the mast there, or wanted to appropriate

the scene and associate it with New Labour.

And certainly

I remember being in the Palace of Westminster

and I had a minute-long conversation with Tony Blair.

Shook his hand and talking rubbish about,

yes, it's really important and it's a great thing to be, blah, blah, blah...

So, yeah, I had an audience with Tony Blair.

I've got the letter of invitation back at home.

But he was very interested

in appropriating the scene to the cause.

In late 1994, Tony Blair

was one of the special guests at the Q Awards,

the music awards organised by Mark Ellen, founder of Q magazine.

You know, rock'n'roll plays such a big part in the lives of all of us

or has done certainly with me.

I mean, I remember those, you know, those opening bars of From Me To You.

That time when you realised that you could shock your parents rigid

by saying that Mick Jagger was a role model

when your mother was telling you about that nice man

playing the double bass with the glasses in The New Seekers.

Tony Blair was at the Q Awards because I had invited him. I was at college with him.

We were in a rock'n'roll band that played five or six concerts,

but subsequently became enormously well-known -

we weren't at the time - because Tony had been the singer and, erm...

Tony had... Tony really wanted to come.

And it was a complicated situation

because for a leader of the opposition

about to be the Prime Minister to attend an event like that,

obviously, the political lives are scrutinized

to the most extraordinary degree and it was big decision

to decide whether or not he could come to an event like that

and should be associated with rock'n'roll.

I got fed up with all the sex and the sleaze

and the backhanders of rock'n'roll.

(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)

As you can see, I graduated into politics and, erm,

I just wanted to say two things to you tonight - this afternoon -

first of all that rock'n'roll

is not just an important part of our culture,

it's an important part of our way of life.

It's an important industry. It's part of our lives.

There was a brilliant moment where he was leaving

and I was taking him up the stairs and Noel Gallagher ran down

and stopped in front of him and said, "Do it for us, man. You've gotta win it!"

Which was an extraordinary thing

and an extraordinary thing for Tony, too,

because Tony realised there were a lot of people of that generation,

represented by people like Noel, who really wanted Labour to get in.

I think New Labour were happy to sleep around

with the musicians of the time.

I don't think they had a particular preference for North or South.

I think Oasis or Blur, to them, probably equally usable.

And so they whored themselves around a little bit around the musicians

to make them cool by association certainly.

But at the end of 1994,

the political career of Tony Blair was the last thing on the minds of Blur and Oasis,

who found themselves vying for the role of Britain's biggest band.

The best LP of 1994...

And again, I'm sure our readers have got this right.

..is Parklife by Blur. (CHEERING)

Thank you ever so much.

It's nice to be respectable. Everyone wants to be respectable.

I suppose that's what it gives us - a certain air of respectability.

# Tonight, I'm a rock'n'roll star #

The Best New Group of 1994 are Oasis.

# OASIS: Live Forever

To the readers, I'd just like to applaud your wisdom. Thank you.

To the readers, I'd just like to applaud your wisdom. Thank you. We want to be free to do what we want to do.

As 1994 came to a close, Britpop was in full swing.

Everything seemed rosy in the world of pop music.

But soon the sun was to cloud over as it became clear there was

only going to be enough room for one band to achieve mega-stardom

and that either Blur or Oasis would have to step aside.

Thus, 1995 was to become the year of the battle of the bands.

# Today is gonna be the day

# That they're gonna throw it back to you

# By now, you should have somehow realised what you gotta do

# I don't believe that anybody

# Feels the way I do about you now #

But, as 1995 dawned,

there was still no sign of the future hostilities.

When you have a record label, you need to have a pub.

Because you don't want these herberts loitering in your office.

The reason we chose the Good Mixer to make our number-two office

was we came in here, it was empty, and we thought, "Well, this is home."

This where we're gonna be really based from now on.

And around that time, a very influential press office called Best In Press had moved in next door.

They were doing press for likes of Pulp and Suede

and Elastica and many more.

And we'd all be drinking in this pub.

Everyone. All the bands came in here. Everyone was getting along

and everything was going swimmingly well.

Oasis, certainly, were coming in here

and having beers with Blur and all of the various artists.

Blur were doing well with Parklife.

Their lead single, Girls and Boys, had done incredibly well.

And so had Oasis with their initial singles, as well.

So, suddenly, you had two indie bands

that normally would've been in the 10s and 20s of the chart,

actually regularly getting into the top ten.

And I think for the media, this is interesting, you know.

You've got this Mancunian working-class band,

really a bit rough and ready,

and then you've got the smart and witty, kind of, er,

art-school vibe, perhaps, inspired by Syd Barrett

and that kind of thing of Blur.

And it kind of created a rivalry as far as the press were concerned

rather than the actual bands themself.

Although I think Noel and Liam were always quick to have a good slag

of someone, if they could, within their interviews.

We wanna be the biggest band in the world... Big as we can be.

..and that is it, end of story.

And we want the things that go with it.

I want to be a big pop star and do loads of people's heads in.

They're going, 'Look at him.' And I'm going, 'Uhhh!'

I didn't work for either of them by then.

But the stuff that Noel said about

"I wish they'd die of Aids" and all that stuff. Ouch.

I remember going out with Damon and Alex one night in the West End and bumping into Liam

and Liam acting like a complete gorilla towards them

and being really, really quite awkward.

And I think, actually, that was the...

I always remember that night happening,

where Damon felt his feathers ruffled a little bit

and thought, 'We'll see. If that means we are in competition, we are in competition.'

Liam likes to be more in-your-face than I do.

But I'm harder.

Best band about today, on the planet. That's a fact.

# Some might say

# We will find a brighter day #

The rivalry between Blur and Oasis grew in intensity in April 1995,

when, for the first time, Oasis had a number-one single with Some Might Say.

To celebrate its success, a party was organised at a club in central London

and, surprisingly, Blur were on the guest list.

Yeah, they were there. We invited them.

And Oasis were tired.

I remember Noel saying, "Are Blur coming?"

And I went, "Yeah." And he went, "Uhh."

So he was... I don't know. I think he knew that Liam would have a go.

And then Liam had a go at Damon about being number one.

It's just the way life goes, you know.

There was now no turning back

and a head-on clash between the two bands seemed inevitable.

This was to take place when both Blur and Oasis would release singles on the same day -

14th August 1995.

Both bands had important singles coming out around the same time

and the boss of Parlophone, who we are affiliated to,

was very good friends with the manager of Oasis.

And for six months, the two had been in touch with each other

to make sure that the two singles did not clash.

They'd have their number one

and then two weeks later, we'd have our number one

and everyone would be happy.

And then we found out their release date was one week before ours

and we couldn't fathom that at all.

So we thought, "What do we do about this?" And we thought,

"Well, either we run and hide or we switch our release date

and go head-to-head with Oasis."

Basically, we released a single on the same day

because it was either that or a punch-up.

And we thought there'd be less bloodshed.

Once it became clear that these two singles

were gonna be indeed released on the same day,

it became like a... like pick your side, pick your team.

And it was amazing. I can remember going into HMV

and seeing the singles stacked right next to each other

and the media and the press picking up on it.

And when the BBC News picked up on it,

I just thought this is really going too far now.

The Manchester band Oasis and their arch rivals Blur have released new singles today,

each hoping to reach the number-one spot next week.

The music industry hasn't seen anything like it since the Beatles

and the Rolling Stones fought it out in the 60s.

Both singles, which I think were Country House and Roll With It,

were not representative of those groups at all.

They were actually one of the least important and the least effective

records that either group ever made.

Country House was a strange aberration

into a kind of faux-Cockney vaudeville. A bit of a knees-up.

# He lives in a house a very big house in the country

# Watching afternoon repeats and the food he eats in the country #

And Roll With It I don't remember anything about at all.

It was a completely uneventful song.

# You've gotta roll with it You've gotta take your time

# You gotta say what you say Don't let anybody... #

They both produced much better work but that was the moment

when they had to come up with the killer record

and the whole world would conspire to pit them against each other.

Blur v Oasis was essentially an NME cover. They put Blur v Oasis

with an old-fashioned drawing of a boxer between them.

It was very good front cover. That was it really, it became a good news story.

You know what probably happened. The probably both wanted to be on the cover

and they couldn't give them both the cover or neither of them would do an interview.

Now, it's being called the biggest battle in pop music for nearly 30 years.

Two of Britain's leading bands, Blur and Oasis, released singles on the same day last week,

backed by massive marketing campaigns.

The result was announced on BBC Radio yesterday,

with Blur going straight into the charts at number one and Oasis at number two.

(HORN HONKING)

Hello, we're Blur, we're number one

and we're gonna be camping it up later on Top of the Pops.

Tonight, Blur are Top of the Pops.

# So the story begins

# City dweller, successful fella

# Thought to himself, "Oops, I've got a lot of money"

# Caught in a rat race, terminally #

The reason that we got number one and they didn't

was so mundane, it's unbelievable.

It was because we had a better selection of formats than they had.

They had a seven inch. We went for a cassette.

# Blow me out, I am so sad

# I don't know why

# Blow, blow me out

# I am so sad

# I don't know why #

And then in the evening, we celebrated.

We were number one and Oasis was number two.

And it didn't feel like we'd beaten Oasis particularly.

It felt like we had a number-one record. That was exciting.

The main thing was that

Blur changed their release date and made it a competition.

But, erm...

Which was kind of pathetic

but brilliant in a way for us because it made...

Oasis suddenly as big as Blur when we never were.

We were about a quarter of the size of Blur.

We were 500,000, they were at two million. And suddenly...

we had this fight in public, we lost.

But then we put out Morning Glory and then we smashed it.

# And so, Sally can wait

# She knows it's too late as we're walking on by

# Her soul slides away

# But don't look back in anger, I heard you say #

Noel Gallagher's got a great quote, so I'll paraphrase him.

He said they set the stage up for Blur and the music press

and he goes, 'Then we turned up, they didn't want us but we took the stage.'

Cos it was never planned that a Manchester band

would kind of turn up and gate-crash its own party.

Cos the party was a Manchester party.

Blur had kind of taken over. They were the biggest band in the country.

Along turns up Noel, his little brother and his ragbag of a band from Manchester.

They ended up being the biggest band in the country. Completely not the plan,

but all the more brilliant for it.

With the release of the album,

(What's The Story) Morning Glory? in October 1995, Oasis, who had lost the battle of the singles,

finally wound up winning the war.

The album was to stay top three of the charts for seven months

and become the third-biggest-selling British album of all time.

Best singer, best songwriter. Best band.

How old are you? 14. How old are you? ALL: 14

On the crest of a wave, Oasis made 1996 their year,

playing concerts in front of huge audiences,

whether, it'd be the 50,000 fans who made their way to Knebworth

or those who filled Maine Road football stadium in Manchester.

The biggest band in Britain were the best band in Britain.

There was like 20,000 kids, teenagers, singing every word

and it felt like those films of the Beatles. I'd never seen that.

It felt like a victory.

# Some Might Say

I think it was a victory.

It was one of these victories that bemused all concerned.

I remember Noel and me going back

to see him in his little caravan after it

and he went, "I don't know what we do now."

He was confused, you know what I mean?

He looked...he looked...

..shell-shocked, to be honest.

There has to be something that comes after us

that's so far removed from what we're doing

and it has to go in a different direction.

If it doesn't, I'd be quite upset.

I'll probably have to do it myself.

You know what I mean? Cos everyone's so lazy and can't get off their arse.

I'll have to invent a new form of music just to do my own head in.

# PULP: Common People

The victory of Britpop was the victory of the man in the street.

In less than ten years, those who had previously been marginalised by society

were now role models in a rapidly-changing British social landscape.

Whether it'd be football, music or fashion,

street culture was no longer looked down upon

but rather seen as something to copy and aspire to.

# You want to live like common people

# You want to see whatever common people see

# You want to sleep with common people

# You want to sleep with common people like me?

# But she didn't understand

# She just smiled and held my hand #

On 1st May 1997, Tony Blair became Prime Minister of Britain

thus ending 18 years of Tory rule.

His landslide victory was in part due to a general sense of having had enough,

but also to a wave of optimism which had been sweeping the country

and which in part could be laid at the door of Britpop.

And yet in 1997, the press headlines no longer spoke of Britpop

but rather of Cool Britannia,

a marketing phrase concocted by media and politicians alike

to publicize this new, young, vibrant Britain.

The Cool Britannia thing was just opportunism

by the political parties involved

to try and latch on to this kind of popularity

that was currently being enjoyed by those kind of bands.

I think if you look at Damon and Noel,

they felt uncomfortable being involved with that anyway.

Even though Blur's success put them on top of the world,

they still felt the need to distance themselves from Tony Blair's Cool Britannia.

Leaving for Iceland, they there recorded their fifth album

in a style more reminiscent of American indie rock than of British pop.

The Britpop years seemed no more than a distant memory.

# Whoo-hoo!

# Whoo-hoo! #

It was a weird time in Britain, where the music got very insular

and we all got, you know,

very carried away with the idea of British music taking over the world

and stupid things like that, you know.

But was that something you were probably responsible for?

In part, yeah. But, erm...

I mean, it all seems a bit kind of ludicrous to me now, and juvenile.

A few weeks after his election, Tony Blair held a reception at Downing Street

for those who, in his opinion, best represented the ideology of Cool Britannia.

Amongst the guests, were both Noel Gallagher and Alan McGee.

In only two or three years, Noel Gallagher had moved from a bedroom in a suburb of Manchester

to the Prime Minister's private residence.

I don't regret that, going to Downing Street, because I knew I was never gonna be asked back.

Noel's working class and I'm working class and it's a bit like,

if somebody asks you to go to the Prime Minister's gaff

do you know what, you may as well have a little look.

So, whether that is cool or not, I really couldn't give a shit.

By 1997, Oasis had become the biggest band in the world.

Everything they did was henceforth, on a monumental scale.

Their third album Be Here Now was released in August 1997

to rave reviews.

However, despite huge sales of eight million copies before the year was out,

it came to be regarded as something of a failure, artistically,

and as symbolizing the end of an era.

The Britpop years had finally come to a close.

But once again, as in the '60s,

Britpop had shown the capacity of music to change radically the face of British society.

I'm not sure you're gonna see it again.

I think we're moving into a new dimension of musicality,

where people receive and consume music in a completely different way.

So, I'm not sure we are gonna see the same thing again.

That was the last time, I think, there was that white heat,

that intensity of a relationship

between the kind of rock'n'roll consumer, the fan, if you like,

and the rock band.

And that is what produces great legends

and produces golden eras, if you like, like the mid '90s.

My personal thoughts about Britpop is that everyone had a great time.

We had a lot of fun and any legacy, musical or otherwise, is a bonus.

# Come and play the tunes of glory

# Raise your voice in celebration

# Of the days that we have wasted

# In the cafe

# In the station

# And learn the meaning of existence

# In fortnightly instalments

# Come share this golden age with me

# In my single-room apartment

# And if it all amounts to nothing

# It doesn't matter

# These are still our glory days... #

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