Cool Britannia

I lived in London during Cool Britannia.

Cool Britannia is defined as a period of increased pride in the culture of the United Kingdom through the mid and second half of the 1990s. It loosely coincided with the end of John Major's conservative government and the 1997 landslide general election win by Tony Blair's New Labour.

In retrospect I was incredibly lucky to have been in London for that moment in history. The 90s was the time of Britpop - with Oasis, Blur, Suede and Pulp all hugely successful. Those rock bands drew consciously on the tradition of melodic, guitar based popular music established by the Beatles. The UK in the mid 1990s also gave us The Spice Girls, The Verve, Radiohead, The Prodigy, Fat Boy Slim, Robbie Williams’ solo career and Jamiroquai. Towards the end of the 90s Coldplay and Travis emerged. There were clubs like The Ministry of Sound, movies like Trainspotting, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Sliding Doors. The first Harry Potter novel was released in 1997 and I remember reading Bridget Jones's Diary and Nick Hornby's High Fidelity and About a Boy on the tube. Damien Hirst was dominating the art scene with his shark in formaldehyde. Culture was at the forefront.

I arrived in London at the end of 1996 and left at the end of 2000. It was definitely the coolest place on earth. I loved living there.

When I first got to London I dossed (slept in the living room) in a kiwi flat. I love a good dance and I went to raves every weekend at clubs like The Fridge and The Laser Dome with my flatmates. I also went to one all night rave in a Camden warehouse. Raves were also called UMEs (unlicensed music events) and the warehouse rave I attended was probably illegal.

My first year in London was all about saving to go travelling. I did most of my travelling in the first 12 months - Russia, Paris, Italy, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary and the Czech Republic. However, I also attended a lot of live comedy and gigs. When I worked for Eagle Star my boss’s brother managed bands including Bush and because of that link there were invitations to music industry parties and tickets to all kinds of things.

I attended the Fleadh at Finsbury Park in 1997 and 1998. There were acts to curb homesickness like The Mutton Birds and Midnight Oil and there was also Van Morrison, Suzanne Vega, David Grey, Sinead O’Connor, The Corrs, Billy Bragg, Dr John and Shane MacGowan and the Popes. It is funny what sticks in my mind. I attended the 1997 Fleadh with my flatmates and my boss, Stephen. Stephen dragged us all around the High Street trying to find a specific type of ATM because he didn’t want to spend £1 accessing his cash from the wrong type of money machine. In the end we begged him to take a £1 coin from us so he could access the nearest ATM and we could stop aimlessly wandering about.

My favourite group from the era was The Verve and my favourite song is Bitter Sweet Symphony. I watched some of the music video for Bitter Sweet Symphony being shot in Hoxton in 1997. The song was the subject of a long copyright dispute because although Richard Ashcroft wrote the brilliant lyrics, the song’s instrumentals leaned heavily on a version of The Rolling Stones’ The Last Time, specifically an orchestral arrangement recorded in 1965 by the Andrew Oldham Orchestra, a side project of the Stones’ manager and record producer at the time, Andrew Loog Oldham. The Verve obtained permission to use a few notes of the string melody from the record label that released the orchestral album in exchange for half of The Verve’s royalties. However, Allen Klein, who managed the Stones and controlled their copyright through the 1970s sued The Verve for plagiarism shortly after Bitter Sweet Symphony was released. Oldham separately sued The Verve in 1999 for songwriter royalties. As a result of the two law suits all royalty payments for Bittersweet Symphony went to Oldham, Jagger and Richards. In 2008 Ashcroft joked he had purchased “a pretty presentable watch strap” with his share of the song. In 2019, more than 20 years later, Mike Jagger and Keith Richards granted all future royalties for Bitter Sweet Symphony to Richard Ashcroft.

I have been feeling quite nostalgic since Oasis announced they were reuniting and touring. I have been beside myself since Oasis announced that Richard Ashcroft is their supporting act. Urban Hymns is one of the defining albums of my time in London. I agree with Noel Gallagher who has described Ashcroft as a “genius” and Chris Martin of Coldplay who said Ashcroft is “the best singer in the world”.

Speaking of royalties, this is a random subject change, Spotify recently gave me this song by Ava Max which has sampled this song from 2000 by ATC, a Eurodance group containing my hugely talented (and handsome) school friend, Joe.

In the summer of 1997 I left my job at Eagle Star and flew to Rome to meet my friend Nicola and backpack around Europe. I missed my flight which caused Nicola some stress. She had travelled from NZ to meet me in Rome and when she went to bed that first night, I had not materialised. I arrived at the Youth Hostel in the middle of the night, so was there when she woke up in the morning.

I met my ex, the subject of the post We met on a London tube train - Part 1 when I returned from Europe at the end of 1997. It was just before Christmas. It is funny looking back at my 26 year old self. I have always been pretty sensible. That however went out the window when it came to boys, where my motto appeared to be “the more soap opera and drama filled the better”. I excelled with “Steve”. More on that will follow in a later post, when I can muster up the courage to reexamine it. Until then let’s enjoy a Britpop medley which has chosen another of my favourite songs from the era (which I have also touched on in another post) as their number one.