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Britpop was a 90's musical movement, centred on Britishness, and producing some of the best alternative rock bands. Britpop was built off the back of the US-led grunge scene, including such bands as Nirvana, and the UK's own shoegaze music culture. The Britpop movement exposed alternative rock to the mainstream and led to the larger pop-culture movement: Cool Britannia.
Britpop was ultimately a term for bands emerging from the indie music scene of the early 90's. The term was viewed as a cultural movement and marketing tool rather than a musical genre and its bands typically drew from the British pop and rock music of the 60's, 70's and 80's. Britpop bands used lyrics that were relevant to young British people, leading to their rapid growth. Local identity were common to Britpop groups, as well as cultural references in lyrics, the imagery associated with Britpop was both a mixture of British and working class stereotypes.
The Union Jack also became a prominent symbol of the movement and its use as a symbol of pride and nationalism. Unfortunately this emphasis on British references and culture made it very difficult for the genre to achieve much success in the US.
Some of the most successful bands linked with Britpop were Blur, Oasis, Suede and Pulp, nicknamed the movement's "Big 4". Britpop is generally considered to have started around 1993, its peak year to have been around 1995, where a chart battle between Blur and Oasis (The Battle of Britpop) brought the movement to the forefront of the British media. Many argue Britpop even played a part in national politics, with Tony Blair and New Labour aligning themselves with Britpop ahead of their landslide 1997 general election.
The Battle of Britpop in 1995 is, as many view it, the peak of Britpop. It was a chart battle between Blur and Oasis, and brought Britpop to the mainstream. The bands had initially praised each other but over the course of the year tension between the two increased. Spurred on by the media, they became engaged in a chart showdown with the pending release of Blur's single "Country House" and Oasis' "Roll with It" on the same day. The battle pitted the two bands directly against each other, with the conflict as much about British class and regional divisions as it was about music. Oasis representing the working class North of England and were nicknamed the 'Working Class Heroes', while Blur represented the middle-class South and were, as said by Oasis, 'art school wa**ers'.
It was billed as the greatest pop rivalry since the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, spurred on by comments thrown back and forth between the two groups, with Oasis dismissing Blur as "Chas & Dave chimney sweep music", while Blur referred to their opponents as the "Oasis Quo" in a mocking of their alleged unoriginality. On 20 August 1995, Blur's "Country House" sold 274,000 copies against "Roll with It" by Oasis which sold 216,000, the songs charting at number one and number two, respectively. Blur went on to perform their single on the BBC's Top of the Pops, with the band's bassist Alex James wearing an 'Oasis' t-shirt on live TV.
However, as is commonly said, Blur may have won the battle but Oasis won the war, as in the long run Oasis became more commercially successful than Blur, at home and abroad, with their famous album: "(What's the story) Morning Glory?", including such songs as "Don't Look Back in Anger" and "Wonderwall". Blur sold only 7 million records throughout their history, Oasis sold around an incredible 75 million records.
Overall, Britpop was an incredibly important period in British musical history, it influenced much of British culture and politics and led to one of the greatest chart battles of all time.