Seeing as my defense of Del Amitri was so universally well received, I've decided to press on with another new installment in a series unofficially titled: "Trying to Find Something Good About the Shit Music I Quite Liked as a Child".
This time around it's the turn of mainstream Britpop. Specifically, I'd like to suggest that one quite good thing about Britpop, to put beside the many, many flaws, was its (relatively) positive gender politics.
I mean, okay, you could argue that a lot of the female lead singers in the videos below were objectified in the familiar manner, and there was obviously something pernicious about the rise of the "Ladette" archetype.
But on the whole these figures represented a culture that comes off pretty well with the modern trend for female solo singers who are basically talent school session musicians, "fashion icons", "divas" and puppets of sinister Simon Cowell-esque managers / record producers.
Anyway, the bottom line is that these were all cracking choons, I reckon.
This time around it's the turn of mainstream Britpop. Specifically, I'd like to suggest that one quite good thing about Britpop, to put beside the many, many flaws, was its (relatively) positive gender politics.
I mean, okay, you could argue that a lot of the female lead singers in the videos below were objectified in the familiar manner, and there was obviously something pernicious about the rise of the "Ladette" archetype.
But on the whole these figures represented a culture that comes off pretty well with the modern trend for female solo singers who are basically talent school session musicians, "fashion icons", "divas" and puppets of sinister Simon Cowell-esque managers / record producers.
Anyway, the bottom line is that these were all cracking choons, I reckon.
Oh wow - I have a piece I've been meaning to post here on (vaguely) women in Britpop, and their eclipse by predominantly male landfill-indie, for a while now. I may just do it.
ReplyDeleteGood choices, by the way. I'd forgotten Dubstar.
Great stuff Rhian, your piece is miles better. Some of my videos were questionable I thought!
ReplyDeleteOh and I tried hard but failed to find any Biz videos ...
ReplyDelete*Bis
ReplyDeleteScratch that, found and added!
ReplyDeleteCheers! It's always interesting (and occasionally frustrating) to see what online material there is of non-canon 90s bands. I was trying to find Shampoo doing 'Shiny Black Taxi Cab' for my post, since it does a slightly better and less obvious job than 'Trouble' of demonstrating some of what I was trying to get at, but it's nowhere to be found...
ReplyDeleteboring
ReplyDelete