Britpop

Britpop was a 1990s British music and cultural movement. Musically, Britpop produced bright, catchy alternative rock, drawing significant influences from British guitar pop of the 1960s and 1970s, with lyrics that emphasised British national identity and offered commentary on British culture and society. Britpop was considered a musical reaction to the darker lyrical themes and soundscapes of the American-led grunge music of the time, and Britain's own shoegaze music scene. The movement brought British alternative rock into the mainstream and formed the larger British popular cultural movement Cool Britannia, which evoked the Swinging Sixties.

Britpop was a phenomenon that highlighted bands emerging from the independent music scene of the early 1990s. Although often viewed as a cultural moment rather than a distinct musical genre, its associated bands typically drew shared inspiration from British guitar pop music of the 1960s, glam rock and punk rock of the 1970s, and indie pop of the 1980s. Manchester-based indie bands such as The Smiths, The Stone Roses, and Happy Mondays are often cited as key early progenitors of Britpop's musical development.

The most successful bands linked with Britpop were Oasis, Blur, Suede, and Pulp, known as the "big four" of the movement. The timespan of Britpop's popularity is generally considered to be 1993–1997, and its peak years to be 1995–1996. A chart battle between Blur and Oasis (dubbed "The Battle of Britpop") brought the movement to the forefront of the British press in 1995. While primarily a music-based phenomenon, Britpop also influenced fashion, art, and politics, with Prime Minister Tony Blair and New Labour aligning themselves with the movement.

During the late 1990s, many Britpop acts began to falter commercially or break up, or otherwise moved towards new genres or styles. Commercially, Britpop lost out to teen pop, while artistically it segued into a post-Britpop indie movement, associated with bands such as Travis and Coldplay.