|
|
Subscribe to our show at gcast.com (RSS), more information at podcast.w♥m.com.
BRITPOPCAST #6: THE GIRLS OF BRITPOP (wave 2)
The show was actually longer, but I'm including more Jarvis-stalking
festivities until next week. This week is all about the second wave of
girls of Britpop (the first wave consists of Powder, Sleeper, Salad,
Echobelly, Elastica). Since we've talked so much about them already, I
thought talking about the second wave was a little more interesting.
Second wave:
Honorable mentions:
BRITPOPCAST #6: THE GIRLS OF BRITPOP (wave 2)
Second wave:
- Kenickie (Lauren Laverne - all girls band)
- Kenickie, believe it or not, was the only all-girls Britpop
band. There was another band called Fluffy around this era, but they
were more hard-rock than brit-pop. While Fluffy's ultimate was branded
with "eight tits no talent", Kenickie was more loved in general. While
their music is often more polished punk/pop early on, they shifted
their sound to more lounge for their second album. Obviously the band
was still in their infancy ... but eventually broke up shortly after
the second album.
- Lush (Miki Berenyi & Emma Anderson)
- In early Lush's history, they were two best friends, Miki
Berenyi & Emma Anderson. They were fanzine producers, and started
their own band based on their love of shoegazing music with their EPs
and debut album Spooky. You can hear their love of melodies as
they sing in and out. Of course, when you have two songwriters, they
often clash if they have other interests. In this case, at the time Split came out in 1994, some of the songs were clearly "britpop"esque. Even the naming of the album (Split)
was an indication, between aggressive pop songs like "Kiss Chase" and
"Hypocrite" - the britpop songs would later continue with "Ladykiller"
and their ultimate britpop moment with Jarvis Cocker on "Ciao!" While
I did tend to like the Miki songs, Emma did coin a few great pop gems
like "Shake Baby Shake" (which is about the love of her car).
- When we heard that drummer, Chris Acland committed suicide by
hanging himself, we all knew the band would be split up after this.
And it's true, they never quite recover. I was lucky enough to catch
them before the tragedy and continued to follow to see what the band's
been up to. The last I heard, Emma is in Sing-Sing, which had a great
pop song called "Feels Like Summer".
- Catatonia (Cerys Matthews)
- Since we previously talked about Catatonia in our previous Welsh Britpop bands, I'll only briefly mention them here. The thing with Catatonia for me was that each of their song was either a hit or miss... no inbetween feeling. I either hated or love it. But the songs I really love, I really love, so that makes up for them. I love the way Cerys sings, in fact, all Welsh people have a particularly weird accent to them and it's always a nice earful when you do hear them sing or talk. It's like they're speaking English, but learned it from another planet.
- Favorite songs: "Mulder & Scully", "I Am the Mob", "Karaokee Queen", "Road Rage", "Dead from the Waist Down"
- Theaudience (Sophie Ellis-Bextor)
- This was a very brief band from 97-99, fronted by Sophie
Ellis-Bextor - who went on to have a series of very successful
Eurodisco releases. I must admit, I never followed the band that much
- they arrived a little too late for me. I didn't buy their debut
album (it was never released in the US), but managed to get their debut
single, "I Got the Wherewithal". The song is quite good, and even
their b-side "Penis Size and Cars" is amusingly catchy.
- Bis (Amanda MacKinnon)
- I love this Scottish band. Although they were far too
"kiddish" in their cute unreadable spellings and anime-influence, they
were pretty damn cute and catchy. Songs like "Kandy Pop" topped many
playlist around this time, although in retrospect, looking back, it was
a pretty mindless dum (dumb as in DUM) song. Unfortunately, many
people, including myself, didn't regard Bis as a Britpop band, but
they're often grouped in. My favorite song: "Action & Drama"!
Honorable mentions:
- Black Box Recorder (Sarah Nixey)
- Very catchy/dancey, but not Britpop. Their bassist is Luke Haines, formerly of the Britpop band The Auteurs.
- Dubstar (Sarah Blackwood)
- This British act came out during the birth of Britpop, but they
were far too alternative-dance/electronica to be considered Britpop.
The singer is Sarah Blackwood, who, I reckon the band ditched toward
their later music releases.
- Sneaker Pimps (Kelli Dayton)
- Fluffy
- Republica (Saffron)
- Fat Les (Lily Allen sings on their last single???)
12/30/2009 03:45:48 ♥ vu (
) ♥weheartmusic.com♥twitter.com/weheartmusic♥news.weheartmusic.com
Oh, wow... it's still Tuesday. I thought it was after midnight already but it's not. Whaddya know about that?!
Loathe:
- People who return to work after a vacation with as much asshole attitude as when they left
- Other stuff
- A feral/semi-feral kitty has been playing on the roof and in the attic crawlspace, just like Moshi did before I tamed him. On Sunday night, I heard a commotion but thought it was my cats fighting in the bedroom. Last night I was in the bedroom when it happened and it was distinctly coming from the roof and/or attic and I was sure I heard something jump on the water heater cover (again, cause Moshi used to do that). But I didn't know what type of animal it was because I have a decent sized ficus tree next to the heater so something could have been using the tree to get up/down. And there where lots of other noises that sounded like branches being gathered, and stuff being banged around. I figured it probably wasn't an opossum because they're usually more stealth. Around 2am, I got up for a Tylenol (brain wouldn't shut up; partial fail on the sleep med kicking but better than using prescription drugs) and came back to Espressa staring out the window. I thought she saw my reflection but when I turned of the light, I saw a "teenage" looking kitty run across the neighbor's roof. Although it was dark, I thought it looked like a grey kitty - also like Moshi.
- Tomorrow... Wednesday, Dec 30... is CRANKYPANTS birthday
I still haven't mailed your present and I'm too lazy to look for cute art to include in this post.
[15 min later] Huh... whaddya know... I lied:
- 22:05 How come you never hear about kids getting their tonsils out anymore? Did they stop doing that #
