Britpop’s Back. But What Happened to Cool Britannia?

The comebacks have acquired euphoric evaluations, however they’re occurring at a starkly completely different second for British pop music, in contrast with the ’90s. Although Britpop by no means reached the identical heights of recognition within the United States that it did in Australia, Canada, Japan and continental Europe, it coincided with a excessive level for British smooth energy. In 1996 Newsweek declared London the world’s coolest metropolis. In 1997, Vanity Fair devoted 25 pages to the bands, artists, cooks and designers making Britain “the place we must all look to.” The similar yr, The New Yorker known as Britain’s music scene “a scary paradise.”

Today, nonetheless, neither British nor world news media are portraying Britain because the musical place to be — regardless of it giving the world present stars like Ed Sheeran, Adele and Harry Styles. Instead, news articles in regards to the nation’s music scene usually tend to contact on venues shuttering — at a charge of 1 per week this yr, based on the nonprofit Music Venue Trust — or the nation’s bands, DJs and rappers struggling to tour overseas after Brexit introduced in a tangle of crimson tape. Local news retailers have additionally lamented the British authorities’s cuts to arts funding, and warned in regards to the decline of music instructing in faculties.

Sitting in his West London recording studio not too long ago, Albarn mentioned some issues hadn’t modified since Britpop’s heyday. He was nonetheless “completely obsessed with this country,” he mentioned, and writing songs with lyrics that had been “chipped out of that blue stone of Stonehenge.”

But there have been additionally huge variations, he added. He was now 55, and wore knee helps onstage. And the challenges dealing with the nation’s pipeline of musical stars had been clear: “The soul of the nation is in danger, if you want to get dramatic about it,” he mentioned, including that music was “pivotal to our international place.”

Chuva, the Portuguese music fan, mentioned he felt a change, too — not simply in Britain’s music, however within the nationwide temper. “The weather here’s always been gray,” he mentioned. “Now everything is.”