Love-Hate Affair With Britpop

Looking out of the window, I saw haze that reminded me of the mist of England in 1996-1997 era when I was there. Upon stepping on the soil of England, it was like being in heaven with the ability to tune in to the good old BBC Radio 1 (outside London, I didn't have XFM's radio reception) to be able to listen to alternative music bands rather frequently. Malaysia had Time Highway Radio (THR) playing a bit of those stuff then but they were insufficient.

After 3 months I began to feel sick of day-in day-out listening to something they called Britpop especially bands such as Oasis, Blur and Pulp (the sequence is based on my hate priority) that I would not hesitate to turn off the volume whenever I heard them on the radio. You could hear these bands on the airwave more than 10 times per day. To make the situation worse, sometimes the same songs were being repeated multiple times per day. Soon, the Britpop phenomena turned worse as Oasis and Blur started their stupid childish verbal wars on each other. These news were all over the media (radio, newspaper & music magazines) in England. Soon, I added bands such as Suede, Echobelly, Menswear, Dodgy, Sleeper, Supergrass, Ocean Colour Scene, Cast, The Verve, etc into my hate list. Manic Street Preachers, Elastica and Ash were not in my hate list because Manic had that American rock sound and the other two bands had the punk sound as well as the right punk attitude. The Boo Radleys also escaped my hate list because they sound very refreshing, catchy and unique in their own way despite being labeled as Britpop. Those days I missed non-typical British sound so badly. So bands like The Cardigans, The Wannadies, Sepultura, Smashing Pumpkins, 3D's, The Fall, etc were very refreshing to me.

Today, I don't hate Britpop as I used to anymore due to the fact that I have started to miss my former number one hated bands Oasis and Blur after returning to Malaysia for more than a decade. I guess when you have been overfed with similar sounding music, you tend to choke, vomit and tend to stay away from them. As you take them away for decades, you may start to miss what you have not heard for a long period.