was a high point for British guitar music: that time when Blur, Pulp, Suede and Oasis thrilled the world with wit and brio. Others argue it has aged worse than Loaded magazine: blokey, beery, conservative and still clogging up the charts. Indeed, there’s perhaps something a bit dismal about the fact that James and Shed Seven have both had No 1 albums in 2024.
Tabloid sensations … Blur in 1995. From left, Graham Coxon, Dave Rowntree, Damon Albarn and Alex James.The BBC 6 Music presenter Stuart Maconie is credited with coining the term in a 1993 feature for Select magazine’s Yanks Go Home! edition. It described a hyperspecific period when a wave of bands arrived with a similar eccentric British sensibility, seeming like an antidote to US grunge.
‘Using the flag is a celebration – taking back this thing and saying: you can’t get rid of me’ … Rachel Chinouriri.Though jungle was also an upsurge of new British music, which happened at pretty much the same time as the explosion of guitar bands, it wasn’t part of the Britpop conversation. Nia Archives connects the dots on her debut record, which pairs jungle with songwriting inspired by the Beatles, Blur and Oasis. “Jungle was the punk of dance music – it’s rebellious.
Chinouriri, however, decided to use the St George’s Cross as an act of reclamation. “For Black people and POC, that flag’s not something people are proud of,” she says, adding that some people around her discouraged her from using it on her album cover. But on her single The Hills, Chinouriri sings about rediscovering her British identity after feeling lonely during a period spent in Los Angeles.