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Uncommon People

Britpop and Beyond in 20 Songs

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Uncommon People

By: Miranda Sawyer
Narrated by: Miranda Sawyer
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When Miranda Sawyer interviewed Noel Gallagher in 1995, his gag wishing Damon Albarn would die of AIDS became front-page news. This fascinating pop history, exploring the mid-90s moment when British music suddenly meant everything, explains why. Picking out twenty key songs, delving into the surprising stories behind them and their unlikely creators, Uncommon People takes us back to when Jarvis Cocker became a national hero, Trainspotting was a global hit, fire-starting seemed like a good night out - and it felt as though the revolution was happening.

Initially a music press nickname, Britpop became an unexpected musical movement centred around outsiders and misfits, drop-outs and weirdos who refused to compromise on their ideas, even when they were thrust into the international spotlight. Not just a scene for white guys with guitars, but something wilder and more interesting, with songs that have proved timeless. Exploring the era's key artists - Oasis, Blur, Tricky, Pulp, Underworld, Manic Street Preachers, The Prodigy, Suede, Chemical Brothers, Garbage, Supergrass, Radiohead, PJ Harvey and more - through their definitive anthems, Miranda Sawyer transports us back to the beating heart of the nineties.

Uncommon People re-lives the mad exhilaration of what it was like to hear these songs for the very first time - and what it was like to make them. With amazing new interviews, and I-was-there insights, this book offers a backstage pass to all the most interesting bits of Britpop's Greatest Hits.

Forget New Labour, forget earnest trend theories, this book is all about the music, the people and being right there, right now.©2024 Miranda Sawyer (P)2024 Hodder & Stoughton Limited Europe Great Britain History & Criticism Music
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Took me back to the 90s and remembering the rush when this was all new. I'm still slightly perplexed about the inclusion of Garbage (an American band that recruited a British singer is Britpop?) but otherwise thoroughly enjoyable

nice bit of nostalgia

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loved how it took me back to the 90s in detail, it was very well executed.

really well researched

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Enjoyed the format. Great for bitesized listens. The era was when I was growing up so all the characters and tunes familiar. Enjoyed, would listen to future similar (it has a format that could be repeated).

Fun nostalgia trip

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Great intel well told - thanks for the memories and the new info.

Gonna listen to some songs now

Lovely fun

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Brilliantly written and narrated by a seminal and endlessly listenable, important writer who was there on the front line of 90s British music… knew all the protagonists and has documented the period peerlessly. Particularly loved the detailed poetic pieces about the Manics and Suede. Loved every moment of this book.

From the front line

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