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Was Britpop Mod?
I don't know much about the Britpop scene at all (So excuse my naivety), but was it Mod? You hear people say that's its related to Mod but I don't see how the clothes or the music were. The only things I can think of that are related to Mod (the mod revival really) are the fact that Liam Gallagher wore a parka a few times, one of the band members of Ocean Colour Scene wears a parka on the back of the Moseley Shoals C.D (which is a good album) and the haircuts of Liam and Noel Gallagher? And I don't see how Blur were anything to do with mod what so ever! I don't mean to cause any offence to anyone who loves Britpop stuff, I would just like to be enlightened as to why its related to Mod? :D
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bobby Charlton on
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I wouldn't say it was Mod but it certainly turned a lot of people on to it.
Brit Pop, as it was called, was, if anything, a reaction against American Grunge and the Rave scene and so a lot of people turned to UK music and style as an antidote. Mod, being originally a UK youth cult was one of the handful of references Brit Pop used.
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Permalink Reply by Mod Goddess on -
Well put, Bobby. I had mentioned almost the same thing a couple of years ago only on a similar topic. I've never related Britpop to Mod, but how and why I got into the Mod scene to begin with is exactly how you've described it.
Also, Blur did use Phil Daniels as a part of their Parklife single - don't know if that really counts as Mod.
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A reaffirmation of Britishness.
I was part of a scene in Camden back in the early to mid 90s playing in a group.
Being a mod during the mid to latter part of the 80s it was a natural way to progress the mod style during those baggy, craggy Grunge/Rave years. Mod by the back door if you like.
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Permalink Reply by Carlos Perez (Mod Male) on
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Oh man, back in the mid-90s, on the first internet Mod forum, the Modslist, I used to get into crazy arguments with people about britpop. I was not a fan and did not see it as a 'Mod' thing.
These days, I'm more mellow about it and respect people's viewpoints (for the most part) and understand why people like it, but it's still not really my bag.
Here's what I remember about when we first were exposed to this. Back around '94 or '95, we were looking through an issue of Q and reading an article on Paul Weller. In it, he mentioned being into an album by this new 'mod' band, Blur. I think there was a train on the album cover. Anyways, we were excited about this! See, back then, Mod wasn't reviving itself every 2 years and we were interested to see if this new band would spur a resurgence. Plus, we were interested in what these guys sounded like.
A few months later, we were up watching 120 Minutes on MTV and they announced the debut of a new video by Blur. We stayed up and waited. Finally, the video for 'Girls and Boys' was shown. Afterwards, we were perplexed. We were trying to figure out why these guys were hailed as a 'mod' band. Well, one guy did wear a Fred Perry... but the song itself sounded way too dancey/new wavey for our tastes. We went back to our sixties records after that video played.
I'm still not really a britpop fan and never really got the Mod connection other than the fact that these guys were influenced, somehow, by Paul Weller. I did like Cornershop, Kula Shaker, and Supergrass though!
And, like I said before, I understand that a lot of others do love Britpop. I respect that. After all, who am I to judge? I kinda like Snoop Doggy Dogg!
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Permalink Reply by Chad Worsley on -
Well I guess that's fair enough. It just annoys me that people can relate Brit Pop to Mod in such a crude way, like you said, one of the guys was wearing a Fred Perry so that must automatically make Blur a Mod group. Oh well I guess I'll have to get over it...
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Permalink Reply by Kai Ahland on -
Well I thought just like Acid Jazz, it was a progression in mod tastes, necessary to take it into the future. I´m one for evolution, not for mod being a period costume ball. Where the Rolling Stones Mods? The Pretty Things? Were the Chairmen Of The Board Mods? The Buzzcocks (yes- the Buzzcocks)? What about the Brand New Heavies or Galliano? They all were not- but they all played a role in forming my mod universe. Same goes for BritPop which brought in a breeze of fresh air in the mid- nineties.
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It's funny, Kai, back in those Modslist days, I used to argue that if Mod was 'moving forward,' then acid jazz was the direction that made more sense, not britpop. I used to be into acid jazz and thought it made more sense based on its jazz/soul roots. For me, britpop sounded more like new wave-inspired music. I liked new wave enough, but didn't see the mod connection, necessarily.
But, again, britpop did introduce a lot of people to mod stuff.
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Permalink Reply by Kai Ahland on
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Yes, it gave new impetus to the scene! I liked the clubs of that time, in the UK and in Germany as well, playing 60´s on one floor and the Britpop of the day on another! In fact, plenty of good club nights back then in my area.
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Permalink Reply by Niall Gilly Gilmartin on -
Hi Carlos,
The Blur Album that Mr. Weller was referring to was 'Modern Life is Rubish', which came before the Parklife and 'Girls & Boys' stuff. But the 'Modern Life' album was quite good and had that Mod influence feel to it in their music and in their videos it was all Fred Perry's and Sherry's 3-button suit jackets and Harringtons.....as opposed to them actually being Mods.
It's all in the context really; we have to remember that the music scene in the early to mid 1990's was Dance/Rave and Grunge/long hair blah blah so if you have a handful of bands dressed in levi's, Fred Perrys and Harringtons and are citing The Who, Kinks and Jam as key influences then the media go nuts for it and call is some type of 2nd Mod revivial.....unfortunately someone called it Britpop, whatever that means. Also, remember Weller was at his height in terms of his solo stuff was "in" again among the media and musical newspapers.
Check out some of these Blur ealry numbers from Modern Life;
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Permalink Reply by Kai Ahland on
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Didn´t look that bad (´cept Coxon, maybe...) and came along at the right time:
Somehow I preferred them to the Gallaghers, who keep on playing the very same old song over and over again to this very day ( though it´s a good song, mind you...)
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Permalink Reply by Patrick from Parka Avenue on -
Coincidentally enough, as this topic sprang up, I was just reading page 49 of Paolo Hewitt and Mark Baxter's new book The A to Z of Mod.
In B for Britpop, they seem to credit Ocean Color Scene as being the most Mod of all the Britpop bands from that era. "In fact, if there was one band that displayed their Mod influence and heritage proudly, then that was surely Birmingham's Ocean Color Scene."
This is what they wrote about Oasis: "Oasis were never a Mod band band per se but they did avail themselves of its principles..."
FYI, the book is an interesting read and worth a look.
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Permalink Reply by Steve Brown on -
To sum up certain bands of so called BritPop era had MOD influences and covered some Mod tunes. Some Might Say= Ocean Colour Scene, Blur,Oasis. I liked them all. I also liked Shed7 not Mod but great Guitar/Live band.
They created interest in Mod and no doubt brought in some new blood=3rd generation Mods!
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