The Best Songs: Brit Rock that didn’t Break America
I’m one of many fools who dreamed of fame. In my case, it was playing Super Mario with a friend and pretending to be Let’s Player. To those coming of age in the 90’s, it was being a Rock n’ Roll Star.
P.S. What a mid video. The only interesting things are the flashing images and Liam Gallagher’s signature leaning-with-hands-behind-him pose he does. A video much worse than the song, which is great.
Oasis’ success is incredible. With just two albums they cemented themselves as all-time greats in rock n’ roll. Definitely Maybe and What’s the Story Morning Glory? are both fantastic. Most American attention goes to “Wonderwall” and “Champagne Supernova”, but I prefer “Rock n’ Roll Star”. The song acts as a mission statement and a celebration of that mission’s success. It’s Noel Gallagher saying, “Man, it would be so great to be the coolest rock star in the world… oh wait, I am!” That message takes guts to pull off, and if Oasis had anything it was guts.
The Gallagher brothers, (Oasis’ singer and lead songwriter) were infamous for their arrogance, and that trait was around well before the number one hits. They acted like the hottest shit in the British isles, and that act became a self-fulfilling prophecy. But their style of rock n’ roll douchebag was different from their predecessors. The rock gods existed far above any average Joe. When they wanted to appeal to the common man, they usually attempted a grand political statement or a Springsteen-esque appeal to common people in small towns. In those songs, the city is usually some far off symbol of success, but here it’s the starting point.
The move from the small town to the city is a dream of progress. It’s usually the biggest step in a journey of many. “Rock n’ Roll Star” is solely focused on the end point. The song’s narrator lives his life for the stars that shine. He doesn’t care about a career, or that you judge him for not caring about a career. It’s 90’s slackerdom made into a grand statement. But despite Oasis dripping in the 90’s signature irony, the song relishes in its earnest message.
The lyrics are remarkably simple (Most of them are “I’m a rock n’ roll star”). They have preschool level rhymes, including the textbook example of a lazy rhyme, “I’ll take my car and drive real far”. In another context these lines would be embarrassing, but the narrator here is starting from the bottom, and the basic lyrics serve that. Even if he isn’t at the top, he sure as hell acts like he is. That inner triumph is realized in a simple, and powerful line, “in my mind my dreams are real.”
That one line encapsulates Oasis’ appeal. They were cool, above it all assholes from working class backgrounds. They didn’t reach superstardom because of rich parents, instrumental virtuosity, or supermodel looks. They simply knew they’d succeed, and in their mind their dreams were real. That’s how they debuted fully formed like Athena from Zeus’s head. They knew that loud, populist rock music was their calling. That belief made it true.
It is impossible to talk about Oasis without mentioning their iconic rivals who only reached America through indirect means. In the 90’s, British rock bands answered the alt rock revolution by looking back to classic British acts. While nearly every band takes influence from classic acts like The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, for these bands it was marketed as a part of national pride. Here was a movement specific to the isles, one that couldn’t be replicated by America: Britpop. To Americans, Damon Albarn is just the semi-anonymous voice behind “Feel Good Inc.” and “Clint Eastwood.” But the Brits knew him as the frontman of Blur.
P.S.S. the video for this song blows every other britpop video out the water. All of these bands had incredible images, why was Blur the only one who could put it into a good video?
Blur represented a higher class version of Britpop. While the Gallagher’s had a straightforwardly cool image that emulated The Beatles, Blur dripped with snark and sarcasm. Their album before Parklife (Parklife being the album to which “Parklife” is the title track) was called Modern Life is Rubbish. Their style evoked the classic satire of The Smiths and The Kinks. While Damon Albarn wasn’t the best looking, he was a model compared to the Gallaghers.
The biggest difference between the two was that the Gallaghers seemed the common man’s cocaine-fueled champion, and Albarn was an asshole who knew better than everyone around him. Parklife is the peak of that, and a hilarious song. I couldn’t tell you how the lyric, “I feed the pigeons, I sometimes feed the sparrows too, It gives me a sense of enormous well being” is hilarious and biting, but it simply is. Most of it comes through the delivery of guest vocalist Phil Daniels, who is a good thirty years ahead of the “True Brexit Geezer” meme.
Discussions of Britpop always come back to the influence of the 60’s and 70’s, especially The Beatles. I can hear a great deal of Lennon in both Blur and Oasis, but from very different perspectives. In Oasis you can hear the earnest man who wrote “Jealous Guy”, “Imagine”, and “All You Need is Love”. In Blur you hear the sarcastic douchebag who wrote “Revolution” (the version on the White Album, not the single), “Glass Onion”, and David Bowie’s “Fame”. While my favorite Lennon songs are the sweeter ones, I generally prefer his meaner songs.
Parklife’s joy is placing you above the dumbasses who seem to rule day-to-day life. It’s asserting that you, the listener, know far better than your shitty boss. By extension, it’s a statement that the youth know better. It’s not a story of working class heroism, it’s a story of working class revenge. And as the horns honk away, the guitars buzz, and the handclaps give a sardonic pop appeal, I struggle to think of a rock song that gives as fun a time as “Parklife”.
The narrative around the 90’s is that the decade didn’t truly start musically until Fall 1991, when Nirvana released “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (An incredible video of it being debuted live here). Overnight the halfway-still-the-80’s start of the 90’s with New Kids on the Block, Wilson Phillips, and Paula Abdul was out while irony and unwashed hair was in. Beyond those artists, the trends they represented fell off quickly as well. G-Funk and Grunge obliterated New Jack Swing and Alt Rock’s earlier trends. One trend that kept moving right along was Electronic Dance Music. There were a solid batch of electronic hits in the late 80’s and all through the 90’s, and rock bands took notice. The most iconic band to incorporate those elements was Nine Inch Nails, but there was another scene that mixed rock and dance. Named after its originating city, it was called Madchester. Named after its band's outfits, it was called Baggy. It was party music made by people who didn’t have the locks to be Hair Metal and preferred ecstasy to cocaine. Of that short-lived scene, the best band was The Stone Roses.
P.P.S.S. This video is quite bad. It’s just the band playing, and not even synced up to the music. The point of a video where it’s just the band playing is emulating the energy and awe you’d experience if you saw them live. Why have the recording of them playing this fast, upbeat dance song be slo-mo?
If you were judging by musicianship, you’d think The Stone Roses were on their fifth album, not their first. Their drummer Reni’s beats fit perfectly next to the drum machine dance rhythms that change the album from “funk” to “dance”. Mani’s bass lines are incredibly danceable. Every three songs you find an all-time great line, and every one grooves spectacularly. Add onto that John Squire’s ripping 80’s guitar and Ian Brown’s floaty lead vocal and you’ve got one of the best albums ever made.
“She Bangs the Drums” is a major highlight among major highlights. You can feel it from moment one with that driving bassline. It feels like traffic suddenly clearing up on the highway, taking you from a near standstill to 70 MPH just like that. And then the rest of the drums come in with those perfect-for-a-party crashes that remind me of “Return of the Mack”. Good shit! The soaring guitars provide such wonderful ambiance, giving a carefree psychedelic feeling that’s irresistible.
The vocals are not the song’s point - most of the song is just killer instrumental work - but the lyrics provide a simple idea of being blown away by a wonderful woman. Brown’s breathy delivery in the verses adds a desperation to the feeling. The best lyric is a simple sentiment that’s perfectly rock’ n’ roll, “the past was yours but the future’s mine”. Not since “it’s better to burn out than to fade away” has there been such a succinct encapsulation of rock’s attempt to catch youthful energy like lightning in a bottle.
But the song’s best moment comes in the chorus. Everything rises to a perfect roar of bliss. The drums seem to crash harder. The bass line rises and rises. The guitars twinkle like stars. And the cherry on top are the gorgeous harmonies which immediately evoke the Summer of Love. It’s one of the best moments in popular music.
Those Beatles-esque harmonies are what connect The Stone Roses to Blur and Oasis before anything else. Nearly every band is influenced by The Beatles, but few were as naked in their influence, and fewer were so singularly British. I couldn’t tell you exactly what makes The Stone Roses such a British album. Perhaps it’s Brown’s accent, perhaps it's the mixing of dance and rock being much more popular in the UK with bands like New Order, or maybe it’s some vague spirit of Britishness that makes me feel a baffling patriotism from all the way across the Atlantic. No matter what it is, The Stone Roses are essential British rock, and have one of the best albums of all time in their debut. (Choosing what song to pick between this one, “Waterfall”, “I Wanna be Adored”, and “Fool’s Gold” was nearly impossible. Listen to the whole album.)
There are a few songs you could call the British “Born to Run”. While Springsteen has an ethos specific to America, “Born to Run” is truly universal. No matter what kind of person you are, the fantasy of leaving behind all your worries for a world full of daring and love is magical. Springsteen’s beautiful arena rock sells it. For a few magical minutes, Clarence Clemons’ saxophone, Springsteen’s masculine wail, and those soaring keys make that world a reality. But eventually songs like “Born to Run” end, and you’re back in reality. I don’t know how to live in that world, but it has to start with the dead-end towns everyone wants to escape. Springsteen was born to run, and that means it’s up to us to change this Town Called Malice.
P.P.S.S.S. For the early days of MTV this video isn’t terrible, and I guess their silly-looking suits are meant to reflect their 60s obsession, but why is there so much glare? Also, the audio quality sucks. Here’s a better version. The Jam - Town Called Malice (1982)
If you read the lyrics to “Town Called Malice” it would seem incredibly sad. It bemoans the fact that life will never be the same as a mythologized past. The dream of middle class life and all of its cliches is impossible. Life will never be simple again, lonely housewives won’t be having affairs with the milkman because there are no milkmen. Money is tight enough for food insecurity, and the ghost of steam trains circle around and around, going nowhere. If you only heard the instrumental to “Town Called Malice” you’d think it incredibly cheerful.
The Jam debuted alongside The Clash and Sex Pistols, but while The Clash declared there’d be “no Elvis, Beatles, or The Rolling Stones in 1977”, The Jam, like this article’s other subjects, were obsessed with the 60’s. As their contemporaries moved onto synthesizer music or ska, The Jam looked back towards the British Invasion, outright yanking the bassline of “Taxman” for “Start”. “Town Called Malice” looks in the same timeframe as The Kinks and The Who, but from sources much further away.
Northern Soul is a phenomenon I’m not sure how to talk about beyond the facts. In the North of England, obscure uptempo 60’s and 70’s soul records caught on as music people would play and dance to. Calling songs from that scene Northern Soul feels weird - Gloria Jones was dubbed “The Queen of Northern Soul” despite being born in Ohio, and her iconic song “Tainted Love” having no connection to the U.K. before catching on years after its release - but the scene was incredibly influential on popular music. Most obviously through covers like Soft Cell’s rendition of “Tainted Love” alongside stylistic homage such as “Come on Eileen” and “Town Called Malice”.
“Town Called Malice” has a beat that wouldn’t sound out of place next to classic Motown pop. It’s infectious, the exact kind of rhythm that gets you on your feet. The Jam use a keyboard where Motown artists would have used horns, anchoring the song in an organic, live feeling. The scratchy guitars keep up the momentum, only dipping into the darkness at the verse’s ends. Key to the song is the bass. While it opens with that immediately iconic driving line, during the verses the bass leaves a great deal of space. It gives a feeling of melancholy to the song, as though you went to a former hang-out only to find it shuttered. But then, as the verses turn the corner to their end, the opening line returns, pushing everything forward and bringing back hope.
This perfectly ties it to the song’s lyrics. The song spends much of its time bemoaning the state of things, but the music makes the turnaround the point. Yes, we’ll never know “the quiet life”, yes people struggle with poverty, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Much of punk has an air of hopelessness, the idea that the future was robbed from us already so we should live like we’re dying tomorrow. If there’s no future, then there’s no need to maintain a dignified reputation, so say what you mean without giving a damn what anybody has to think. If there’s no future, there’s no need to impress people with fancy outfits or phony personas, so wear what you have and be who you are. If there’s no future then don’t bother waiting until you know everything there is to know about the guitar, get up there and play!
But, if there’s no future, where does that leave politics? For some, it left politics as another thing to flip off and move on from. If nothing matters, then tell the truth that politics made your life bullshit and move on. But, of course, there is a future. That’s the reason why so many bands leave punk behind. It can feel revolutionary to burn down the world, but it ignores how many people still live in it. “Town Called Malice” is about how (as Blur would later put it) modern life is rubbish, but its most important point is almost anti-punk. We have a responsibility to the small, shitty, towns we left behind.
It sucks. These places never treated us well. Their foundations were built on paper mache. But people grow up there. People live there. People die there. If we want those people to be nice, then we need to make deep, lasting change. I hope that one day all towns called Malice across the world are a better place. I’m glad The Jam gave us the perfect song for that sentiment.
Like many people, when I was first really diving into music I was recommended an album with a banana for its cover, self-titled The Velvet Underground and Nico. It’s an incredible recommendation, but the standard critic line about the album may confuse someone new to music. It’s (rightly) considered highly influential and innovative; it was an album very few bought, but everyone who did buy it started their own band. I could say a lot about this. The ways it both created and subverted the dark psychedelic rock of its era, its immeasurable influence on punk rock, or a dozen other things, but nothing made me immediately realize the Velvet Underground’s influence than a song released nearly twenty years later called “Just Like Honey”.
P.P.P.S.S.S. I actually talk about the video in the main segment, so I’ll let you read that when it comes up. It’s a good video!
The very first thing to note about “Just Like Honey” is its distant drumbeat. It’s ripped straight from Phil Spector’s legendary “Be My Baby”, and that choice isn’t just an homage to 60’s pop masterpieces. Phil Spector (despite being a murderer) is best known for his “wall of sound” technique, where he’d layer dozens upon dozens of musicians to create a powerful force through the entire spectrum of bass and treble. On The Velvet Underground and Nico, the group attempted to create a wall of sound on a shoestring budget. Instead of a massive horn section, it was Lou Reed scratching away on a guitar with every string tuned to D, or clawing at a clattering piano. Contrasting further, the group shied far from Roni Ronnete’s pretty pop vocals with Reed’s Bob Dylan-esque sneer and Nico’s inhuman characteristic.
On “Just Like Honey”, The Jesus and Mary Chain achieve a wall of sound with just a guitar, and contrast it with a vocal emulating The Cure’s Robert Smith. Also like Smith, the melody is gorgeous and pop-friendly. The song truly is like honey, it’s sugar-sweet but incredibly viscous. Those guitars give me a headache even when listening to it at a reasonable volume. Even a little bit of it will stick to you.
But listening to this song at a reasonable volume almost defeats the point. This song is meant to be loud. The distinct mix of abrasiveness and popiness is what first reminded me of The Velvet Underground, but a few listens and seeing the video helped me realize another: The Jesus and Mary Chain have Lou Reed’s cool. Lou Reed seemed like he didn’t try at anything he did. There was no effort to him, he was the coolest person imaginable and he just woke up that way. The Jesus and Mary Chain engage with that laid back cool in a different way. Reed was loose, up front, and despite being detached in some ways he was engaged in the ways you’d expect a performer to be.
If you watch The Jesus and Mary Chain’s video for “Just Like Honey”, you’ll see the band outright refuse to engage with you. They hardly give the camera a vague glance - they’re far more interested in their instruments and feet. This style of performance is the origin of the term “shoegaze”. Acts would back away from the audience entirely to focus fully on the music (or the pedals they were using for the genre’s signature avalanche of effects), and some who went expecting a more traditional rock show were pissed they seemed to care more about their shoes than the people who paid good money to see them. There’s an arrogance to the style that’s beautifully subversive.
“Just Like Honey” is a Rosetta Stone of influence. Albums like Loveless make more sense to me after hearing it. Up the song’s intensity and make the vocals sound like they hurt to sing and it’d be a dead ringer for Nirvana. Despite being released in 1985, imagining “Just Like Honey” in the same time period as “Take on Me”, “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” and “We Built This City” is mind-boggling. I couldn’t imagine what it’d be like listening to it at the time. It’s a song that borrows heavily from the past, was ahead of its time, and is somehow still timeless. What a song.
