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Faster Than A Cannonball: 1995 and All That
Decades tend to crest halfway through, and 1995 was the year of the peak Britpop (Oasis v Blur), peak YBA (Tracey Emin's tent), peak New Lad (when Nick Hornby published High Fidelity, when James Brown's Loaded detonated the publishing industry, and when pubs were finally allowed to stay open on a Sunday). It was the year of The Bends, the year Danny Boyle started filming Trainspotting, the year Richey Edwards went missing, the year Alex Garland wrote The Beach, the year Blair changed Clause IV after a controversial vote at the Labour Conference.
Not only was the mid-Nineties perhaps the last time that rock stars, music journalists and pop consumers held onto a belief in rock's mystical power, it was a period of huge cultural upheaval - in art, literature, publishing and drugs. And it was a period of almost unparalleled hedonism, a time when many people thought they deserved to live the rock and roll lifestyle, when a generation of narcotic omnivores thought they could all be rock stars just by buying a magazine and a copy of (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
Faster Than a Cannonball is a cultural swipe of the decade from loungecore to the rise of New Labour, teasing all the relevant artistic strands through interviews with all the major protagonists and exhaustive re-evaluations of the important records of the year - The Bends by Radiohead, Grand Prix by Teenage Fanclub, Maxinquaye by Tricky, Different Class by Pulp, The Great Escape by Blur, It's Great When You're Straight... Yeah! by Black Grape, Exit Planet Dust by the Chemical Brothers, I Should Coco by Supergrass, Elastica by Elastica, Pure Phase by Spiritualized, ...I Care Because You Do by Aphex Twin and of course (What's the Story) Morning Glory by Oasis, the most iconic album of the decade.
Not only was the mid-Nineties perhaps the last time that rock stars, music journalists and pop consumers held onto a belief in rock's mystical power, it was a period of huge cultural upheaval - in art, literature, publishing and drugs. And it was a period of almost unparalleled hedonism, a time when many people thought they deserved to live the rock and roll lifestyle, when a generation of narcotic omnivores thought they could all be rock stars just by buying a magazine and a copy of (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
Faster Than a Cannonball is a cultural swipe of the decade from loungecore to the rise of New Labour, teasing all the relevant artistic strands through interviews with all the major protagonists and exhaustive re-evaluations of the important records of the year - The Bends by Radiohead, Grand Prix by Teenage Fanclub, Maxinquaye by Tricky, Different Class by Pulp, The Great Escape by Blur, It's Great When You're Straight... Yeah! by Black Grape, Exit Planet Dust by the Chemical Brothers, I Should Coco by Supergrass, Elastica by Elastica, Pure Phase by Spiritualized, ...I Care Because You Do by Aphex Twin and of course (What's the Story) Morning Glory by Oasis, the most iconic album of the decade.
466 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 13, 2022
69 people are currently reading
499 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
May 16, 2023
What a complete and utter circlejerk. And in desperate need of an editor.
This book as no idea what it wants to be. Firstly, the layout, you have chapters in the way of months in 1995, with little bullet points at the beginning detailing what happened that month. But then the chapter would be devoted to a particular topic that focused more on the decade at large than the isolated year. THIRTY THREE FUCKING PAGES ABOUT HOW MUCH COCAINE EVERYONE WAS DOING. Look. You can address the cocaine issue without having thirty three goddamn pages devoted entirely to people just saying how much cocaine was around. It's repetitive as fuck and boring!! That's delving a bit into the ~needed a better editor~ of it all and moving away from it not knowing what it was trying to be. It didn't know if it was a book about 1995 or a book about the whole decade.
It wasn't just the cocaine chapter that was repetitive either. Every chapter was far longer than it needed to be with people repeating the same thoughts as others within the chapter. It could have been whittled down a lot. Tony Blair was fresh and new after Thatcherism and years of Tory government. Tony Blair didn't live up to his potential. The YBA's were products of Thatcherism in a way. It was a different time. There was an air of potential. People were doing interesting things. Blah blah blah. There was a lot of talk. Not a lot of show. And that also doesn't go into how aggressively everyone is wanking off about how amazing they all were, including the author!! Egos galore!!
The narrative is also very white, very straight, and mostly male. There's a chapter on the emergence of lad culture and lad magazines but there's no sort of self reflection on the deeper misogyny of it all. Just like there's no reflection of Kate Moss's rise to supermodel status with one commenter even goes on to say how tired he was of the eighties supermodels and their unattainable physique while in the same breathe praising Kate Moss's waifishness like... sir. WHAT? Have a moment of consideration for what you are saying!! Towards the end director Steve McQueen makes a comment that the rise of BritPop and Cool Britannia etc was still overwhelmingly white and didn't address the reality of POC in Britain at all and therefore wasn't something he was particularly drawn to but there's literally no other delving into a comment that was probably the most revealing in the chapter!! No other further reflection from anyone else.
The constant drawing of parallels with the sixties was exhausting. The constant contrasting of Blur and Oasis was exhausting. The constant mention of cocaine was exhausting. This is a book with a lot of words and not much to fucking say. A complete and utter circlejerk.
This book as no idea what it wants to be. Firstly, the layout, you have chapters in the way of months in 1995, with little bullet points at the beginning detailing what happened that month. But then the chapter would be devoted to a particular topic that focused more on the decade at large than the isolated year. THIRTY THREE FUCKING PAGES ABOUT HOW MUCH COCAINE EVERYONE WAS DOING. Look. You can address the cocaine issue without having thirty three goddamn pages devoted entirely to people just saying how much cocaine was around. It's repetitive as fuck and boring!! That's delving a bit into the ~needed a better editor~ of it all and moving away from it not knowing what it was trying to be. It didn't know if it was a book about 1995 or a book about the whole decade.
It wasn't just the cocaine chapter that was repetitive either. Every chapter was far longer than it needed to be with people repeating the same thoughts as others within the chapter. It could have been whittled down a lot. Tony Blair was fresh and new after Thatcherism and years of Tory government. Tony Blair didn't live up to his potential. The YBA's were products of Thatcherism in a way. It was a different time. There was an air of potential. People were doing interesting things. Blah blah blah. There was a lot of talk. Not a lot of show. And that also doesn't go into how aggressively everyone is wanking off about how amazing they all were, including the author!! Egos galore!!
The narrative is also very white, very straight, and mostly male. There's a chapter on the emergence of lad culture and lad magazines but there's no sort of self reflection on the deeper misogyny of it all. Just like there's no reflection of Kate Moss's rise to supermodel status with one commenter even goes on to say how tired he was of the eighties supermodels and their unattainable physique while in the same breathe praising Kate Moss's waifishness like... sir. WHAT? Have a moment of consideration for what you are saying!! Towards the end director Steve McQueen makes a comment that the rise of BritPop and Cool Britannia etc was still overwhelmingly white and didn't address the reality of POC in Britain at all and therefore wasn't something he was particularly drawn to but there's literally no other delving into a comment that was probably the most revealing in the chapter!! No other further reflection from anyone else.
The constant drawing of parallels with the sixties was exhausting. The constant contrasting of Blur and Oasis was exhausting. The constant mention of cocaine was exhausting. This is a book with a lot of words and not much to fucking say. A complete and utter circlejerk.
January 12, 2025
Some great fodder for the Cool Britannia obsessive (guilty at times) but the subject matter does most of the heavy lifting. The format of 12 chapters for the months of the year is initially charming but ultimately pointless as each chapter mainly focuses on a particular element of the scene and its entire trajectory over the course of the '90s. The chapters sometimes lack focus and direction as the quotes are extracted from past interviews spanning over a quarter of a century. Occasionally, an italicised anecdote will appear that lets the reader know that the author was part of the boys' club too, and while discussions of gender and race come up at times, they could have been expanded upon.
Also there was far too much paper wasted on Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell.
Also there was far too much paper wasted on Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell.
December 3, 2022
I turned 11 in 1995, so it's safe to say this book filled in the cultural context to the things I started devouring around this time. This oral history of the nineties shows how the period was born and where and how it likely died with arguably remnants remaining to this day.
There's before and after and the 12 months of 1995 encapsulated through different areas and trends of the year that came to define the decade. From the YBAs to Britpop to Football, politics, easy listening and The Beatles we discovered what made the 90s tick (besides copious amounts of cocaine) and stick in our collective conscience.
It's enthralling but sometimes repetitive and I felt very much lost in the easy listening chapter as it meant next to nothing to me in a book that is altogether London centric.
It's an illuminating volume equating the 90s to a retread of the swinging 60s, but a further three decades removed it appears as the last time young working class Britain made its voice properly heard, but I would certainly acknowledge it was a predominantly white led furore, but we were selling exciting ideas in a raw form that we can no longer do given the corporatisation of all facets of life and the squeaky clean sheen given to everything.
As we reach another tipping point with the Tories, it seems unlikely it will create an upswell of creative activity in the same way with various algorithms simply offering more of what we think we want. Even the best and brightest political leaders appear to be untrustworthy as we see through the potted history of Tony Blair in the book.
Jones manages to really humanise the Beatles when discussing their return to prominence with the release of the Anthology albums and documentary, which I remember to be the first time I really got into them. The passages about visiting Yoko Ono and Lennon's home in New York years after his death was strangely emotional.
This is a book that takes place before the feeding frenzies and corporatisation of seemingly every art form, where there existed freedom to cause a fuss and use that as a way to market yourself. The pre-internet Sodom and Gomorrah in which the tabloids began to understand the power of celebrity news before turning it into a culture. As much as the 90s seem like a last hurrah to a certain way of things, it is also a caustic still seeping through society even now, but I'd have to agree that Britpop didn't cause Brexit.
There's before and after and the 12 months of 1995 encapsulated through different areas and trends of the year that came to define the decade. From the YBAs to Britpop to Football, politics, easy listening and The Beatles we discovered what made the 90s tick (besides copious amounts of cocaine) and stick in our collective conscience.
It's enthralling but sometimes repetitive and I felt very much lost in the easy listening chapter as it meant next to nothing to me in a book that is altogether London centric.
It's an illuminating volume equating the 90s to a retread of the swinging 60s, but a further three decades removed it appears as the last time young working class Britain made its voice properly heard, but I would certainly acknowledge it was a predominantly white led furore, but we were selling exciting ideas in a raw form that we can no longer do given the corporatisation of all facets of life and the squeaky clean sheen given to everything.
As we reach another tipping point with the Tories, it seems unlikely it will create an upswell of creative activity in the same way with various algorithms simply offering more of what we think we want. Even the best and brightest political leaders appear to be untrustworthy as we see through the potted history of Tony Blair in the book.
Jones manages to really humanise the Beatles when discussing their return to prominence with the release of the Anthology albums and documentary, which I remember to be the first time I really got into them. The passages about visiting Yoko Ono and Lennon's home in New York years after his death was strangely emotional.
This is a book that takes place before the feeding frenzies and corporatisation of seemingly every art form, where there existed freedom to cause a fuss and use that as a way to market yourself. The pre-internet Sodom and Gomorrah in which the tabloids began to understand the power of celebrity news before turning it into a culture. As much as the 90s seem like a last hurrah to a certain way of things, it is also a caustic still seeping through society even now, but I'd have to agree that Britpop didn't cause Brexit.
July 20, 2024
Exactly my kind of book. Interviews, insight and very much something I wanted to live through.
May 9, 2023
Faster Than A Cannonball starts out by aiming to focus on the year 1995 arguing that the central point of any decade is it's defining feature, the point where all that has come before it accumulates at it's peak. Therefore it would be fairer say this book focuses on the 20 year period surrounding 1995 with an additional heavy focus on the 1960's and the cultural parallels that can be drawn from that decade to the 1990's. This is not a criticism of the book, it was clearly well-researched and I felt the background of the preceding decades was useful in understanding the motivations that had driven the actions of 1995's Britain.
I had looked forward to reading the book and was pleased when it recently appeared as a 99p daily deal but I quickly realised I wasn't enjoying it. Before reading I thought the book was primarily focused on the music industry (and the blurb seems to mainly point to this being the case) but instead it is heavily focused on multiple aspects of 90's culture such as politics, art, drugs, journalism and football. This isn't necessarily a criticism of the book as I actually found some of those chapters more interesting than the music ones such as the chapter focusing on politics and the rise of Tony Blair and New Labour. As it was focusing on multiple areas of British 1990's culture I would have liked it to have included a section on the 1990's UK comedy scene as I think that was an important part of culture in the UK at that time and it had hit it's peak in 1995 as a result of experiencing an overhaul in the late 80's and early 90's with the rise of the alternative comedy scene.
The book had many strengths and the premise of the book was clearly well researched and meticulously planned out as it became apparent as the book progressed that all of the individual strands of culture that had been examined came together towards the end. There were also hundreds of interesting anecdotes and opinion pieces from many of the main players of the various 90's scenes such as Noel Gallagher, Damien Hirst, Tony Blair and Tracey Emin and these were my favourite part of the book.
However overall I didn't enjoy this book, it had the potential to be really good but it fell flat for me and at 466 pages long it was far too long and often repetitive. The content overall had moments of being very interesting but I felt that the book could have been half as long and still contained the same amount of information, this was partly due to the writing style which I really didn't like. As with a lot of books in this genre it has the writing style that you would typically find in magazines such as Q magazine with an overly studied tone to show off the writer's intelligence and an unnecessary amount of words used to say very little. This may be a personal gripe as it is something which I have never liked about most of the popular music magazines as I felt they attempt to use language as a barrier to gatekeep listenership/readership by over intellectualising articles and sneering at anything they deem uncool and this book has that general vibe.
Additionally I don't think the overall view of the book was balanced, it is heavily focused around the interviews from the main cultural players of the 1990's and as a result it is a biased overview, the book would have benefited from some interviews with those who were not so successful. In a book that was partially centred around the Britpop cultural movement there was a very heavy bias towards Oasis with comparatively little mention of Blur, most likely this was due to Alan McGee and Noel Gallagher being two of the main interviewees featuring in the book. There was an attempt at a critical evaluation towards the end of the book but it was a case of too little, too late in what was otherwise a one sided view.
It wasn't for me but that's not to say it won't be enjoyed by others, give it a go if you enjoy this kind of book and have an interest in 1990's culture.
I had looked forward to reading the book and was pleased when it recently appeared as a 99p daily deal but I quickly realised I wasn't enjoying it. Before reading I thought the book was primarily focused on the music industry (and the blurb seems to mainly point to this being the case) but instead it is heavily focused on multiple aspects of 90's culture such as politics, art, drugs, journalism and football. This isn't necessarily a criticism of the book as I actually found some of those chapters more interesting than the music ones such as the chapter focusing on politics and the rise of Tony Blair and New Labour. As it was focusing on multiple areas of British 1990's culture I would have liked it to have included a section on the 1990's UK comedy scene as I think that was an important part of culture in the UK at that time and it had hit it's peak in 1995 as a result of experiencing an overhaul in the late 80's and early 90's with the rise of the alternative comedy scene.
The book had many strengths and the premise of the book was clearly well researched and meticulously planned out as it became apparent as the book progressed that all of the individual strands of culture that had been examined came together towards the end. There were also hundreds of interesting anecdotes and opinion pieces from many of the main players of the various 90's scenes such as Noel Gallagher, Damien Hirst, Tony Blair and Tracey Emin and these were my favourite part of the book.
However overall I didn't enjoy this book, it had the potential to be really good but it fell flat for me and at 466 pages long it was far too long and often repetitive. The content overall had moments of being very interesting but I felt that the book could have been half as long and still contained the same amount of information, this was partly due to the writing style which I really didn't like. As with a lot of books in this genre it has the writing style that you would typically find in magazines such as Q magazine with an overly studied tone to show off the writer's intelligence and an unnecessary amount of words used to say very little. This may be a personal gripe as it is something which I have never liked about most of the popular music magazines as I felt they attempt to use language as a barrier to gatekeep listenership/readership by over intellectualising articles and sneering at anything they deem uncool and this book has that general vibe.
Additionally I don't think the overall view of the book was balanced, it is heavily focused around the interviews from the main cultural players of the 1990's and as a result it is a biased overview, the book would have benefited from some interviews with those who were not so successful. In a book that was partially centred around the Britpop cultural movement there was a very heavy bias towards Oasis with comparatively little mention of Blur, most likely this was due to Alan McGee and Noel Gallagher being two of the main interviewees featuring in the book. There was an attempt at a critical evaluation towards the end of the book but it was a case of too little, too late in what was otherwise a one sided view.
It wasn't for me but that's not to say it won't be enjoyed by others, give it a go if you enjoy this kind of book and have an interest in 1990's culture.
February 28, 2025
So Dylan Jones decides to give an oral biography treatment to the Britpop years and try to encompass them in a multi-contextualised way. And wouldn't you know it, it's overlong and repetitive and in the end a bit of a slog, but it also has some things going for it. (Brief disclosure: I was there and experienced quite a chunk of it in real time.)
One plus is the way he decides to twin it with Swinging London, leaning in to compare and contrast the two periods. But Jones (and his interviewees) miss an important distinction: in 1965, the UK really did lead the way for the US and other parts of the world. British films routinely won awards. Big-budget films were filmed in London. The Beatles and Stones bestrode the world etc etc (not to mention The Who, the Kinks and Uncle Tom Cobley and all…) So the 1995 version was a little too parochial in its effects to be regarded as THE scene on the world stage.
Another is the interest in the YBA-led art scene. This gives it a little more breadth than just banging on about Oasis. I remember trying to source some original paintings to put in a new reception for a record company and being told that there was an artist who had piqued the attention of Damon Albarn. All this guy's paintings were focused on toilet bowls, in what we could almost read as a hyper-prosaic postmodern parody of Bacon and Duchamp.
Another is this golden age of magazines, a time when people bought and read lots of printed material, and knew the names of certain journalists. (Indeed, I bought a flat from a magazine honcho moving up in the world.) Then it all blew up for the mags, as the easy road to soft porn beckoned to the less imaginative suits. Loaded and FHM gave into the siren call of Maxim and Nuts before everything simply got washed away by the internet.
Yet another way is when we start to consider how the joining of wish-making and jingoism may have provided at least a little lungpower to the whole Brexit catastrophe. While this notion is skirted by many of the inteviewees, it is far from preposterous and indeed provides quite a tragic tinge to the aftermath of this time. It was a time when you felt it "really really really could happen" and when your behaving badly could always be laughed off. Your questionable comments could be passed off as edgy humour and your love for some artist from a minority could supposedly innoculate any far-reaching racist comments ("some of my best friends are…"). Well, look at what there was in Brexit: flag über alles (check), Empire dreaming (check), white comeback (check), better to trust in perfidious Albion than perfidious Europe (check), the concept of 'as soon as you brand them, you control them' (remoaners, Brexiteers, taking whatever it was back again, repeating someone else's wish list etc.) All with its own (suitably retro) soundtrack.
There was an energy to these years. It was the early days of computers, when websites still felt like newsletters, when you still did things yourself - drawings, drum tracks, self-written texts. There was a feeling of the right-to-hedonism. There was a sheepish grin on your face when you were forced in the morning to break out of the nightclub you'd passed out in the night before… There is something to the stretching of this time to reach Danny Boyle's opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics, which showed us how the UK in effect saw what it could be and then allowed itself to drift into the antimatter version of all that energy, harking backward and whiteward.
One plus is the way he decides to twin it with Swinging London, leaning in to compare and contrast the two periods. But Jones (and his interviewees) miss an important distinction: in 1965, the UK really did lead the way for the US and other parts of the world. British films routinely won awards. Big-budget films were filmed in London. The Beatles and Stones bestrode the world etc etc (not to mention The Who, the Kinks and Uncle Tom Cobley and all…) So the 1995 version was a little too parochial in its effects to be regarded as THE scene on the world stage.
Another is the interest in the YBA-led art scene. This gives it a little more breadth than just banging on about Oasis. I remember trying to source some original paintings to put in a new reception for a record company and being told that there was an artist who had piqued the attention of Damon Albarn. All this guy's paintings were focused on toilet bowls, in what we could almost read as a hyper-prosaic postmodern parody of Bacon and Duchamp.
Another is this golden age of magazines, a time when people bought and read lots of printed material, and knew the names of certain journalists. (Indeed, I bought a flat from a magazine honcho moving up in the world.) Then it all blew up for the mags, as the easy road to soft porn beckoned to the less imaginative suits. Loaded and FHM gave into the siren call of Maxim and Nuts before everything simply got washed away by the internet.
Yet another way is when we start to consider how the joining of wish-making and jingoism may have provided at least a little lungpower to the whole Brexit catastrophe. While this notion is skirted by many of the inteviewees, it is far from preposterous and indeed provides quite a tragic tinge to the aftermath of this time. It was a time when you felt it "really really really could happen" and when your behaving badly could always be laughed off. Your questionable comments could be passed off as edgy humour and your love for some artist from a minority could supposedly innoculate any far-reaching racist comments ("some of my best friends are…"). Well, look at what there was in Brexit: flag über alles (check), Empire dreaming (check), white comeback (check), better to trust in perfidious Albion than perfidious Europe (check), the concept of 'as soon as you brand them, you control them' (remoaners, Brexiteers, taking whatever it was back again, repeating someone else's wish list etc.) All with its own (suitably retro) soundtrack.
There was an energy to these years. It was the early days of computers, when websites still felt like newsletters, when you still did things yourself - drawings, drum tracks, self-written texts. There was a feeling of the right-to-hedonism. There was a sheepish grin on your face when you were forced in the morning to break out of the nightclub you'd passed out in the night before… There is something to the stretching of this time to reach Danny Boyle's opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics, which showed us how the UK in effect saw what it could be and then allowed itself to drift into the antimatter version of all that energy, harking backward and whiteward.
August 14, 2023
Dylan Jones' books (at least the Bowie and New Romantic ones - as well as this) are over-long and under-edited - but I really enjoyed the nostalgia, which brought back good memories of what was a fun decade.
It's strong and quite interesting on the Battle of the Bands, the YBAs, the intersection with New Labour, football and the lad mags.
The sections on Lounge and the Beatles were quite mystifying to me - they had no bearing on my 90s at all. He also practically ignores really significant music like anything from Bristol, the Chemical Brothers and the Prodigy. It's very white London media centred.
Overall, it is something of a sprawling mess - but some funny quotes and the sheer volume of interviewees make it worthwhile.
It's strong and quite interesting on the Battle of the Bands, the YBAs, the intersection with New Labour, football and the lad mags.
The sections on Lounge and the Beatles were quite mystifying to me - they had no bearing on my 90s at all. He also practically ignores really significant music like anything from Bristol, the Chemical Brothers and the Prodigy. It's very white London media centred.
Overall, it is something of a sprawling mess - but some funny quotes and the sheer volume of interviewees make it worthwhile.
July 30, 2024
Was really enjoying this at the beginning but as I moved towards the end I guessed the ending
Nah joking but it’s quite entertaining but as someone who was alive in 1995 it does feel like it’s a book that understands who was who. What the inside of the Groucho club was actually like and first hand from all the key players (Blair, blur, oasis)
But at the same time for a book about Britain it does not really leave London and feels very too heavy and ignorant of any body who was not part of the London media
At the same time I did enjoy it
Another point I do remember how much the 60s was fetishised in the 90s but this book conflates the two periods too much whereas they were different and not the same thing
Nah joking but it’s quite entertaining but as someone who was alive in 1995 it does feel like it’s a book that understands who was who. What the inside of the Groucho club was actually like and first hand from all the key players (Blair, blur, oasis)
But at the same time for a book about Britain it does not really leave London and feels very too heavy and ignorant of any body who was not part of the London media
At the same time I did enjoy it
Another point I do remember how much the 60s was fetishised in the 90s but this book conflates the two periods too much whereas they were different and not the same thing
May 21, 2023
DNF at Page 317.
This was a great idea for a book but poorly executed. Each chapter was about a month of the year 1995. Each chapter starts with a few bullet points about what happened in that month, but then you get like an interview style breakdown focusing solely on one thing. For example, the YBAs, cocaine usage, Briton, fashion ect.
However, it becomes boring and repetitive real quick and everyone is like chatting about how the 90s was wonderful and constant comparison to the 60s. A lot of chat about Thatcherism. Blah blah blah.
This was a great idea for a book but poorly executed. Each chapter was about a month of the year 1995. Each chapter starts with a few bullet points about what happened in that month, but then you get like an interview style breakdown focusing solely on one thing. For example, the YBAs, cocaine usage, Briton, fashion ect.
However, it becomes boring and repetitive real quick and everyone is like chatting about how the 90s was wonderful and constant comparison to the 60s. A lot of chat about Thatcherism. Blah blah blah.
July 13, 2025
What a mind blowing1995 Brit Pop history
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this non-fiction history of Brit Pop from the middle of the 1990s upwards.
I grew up in that era as a twenty something man, and I can clearly remember all the events mentioned in this book.
Gosh! It certainly was a trip down memory lane and so beautifully written to go back 30 years ago and transported myself back to that year of 1995.
I just loved it, and I know that I will definitely be rereading it again soon.
Best wishes, Sean
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this non-fiction history of Brit Pop from the middle of the 1990s upwards.
I grew up in that era as a twenty something man, and I can clearly remember all the events mentioned in this book.
Gosh! It certainly was a trip down memory lane and so beautifully written to go back 30 years ago and transported myself back to that year of 1995.
I just loved it, and I know that I will definitely be rereading it again soon.
Best wishes, Sean
August 24, 2025
Dylan Jones delivers a lively, if occasionally dizzying, journey through 1995’s London pop culture. The rapid shifts between short and long sections can feel a little disorienting, but for those who lived the era—especially within the media scene—it’s a nostalgic treat. Especially how there once were a thrill to going out before smartphones and social media changed everything. However, the book falls short in a more in-depth addressing of the rise of misogyny and the transformation of 'lad mags' into near soft-porn—a significant cultural shift that deserved more attention.
July 7, 2023
A fond trip down memory lane and a British pride at the creativity of the decade that was the 90s. I did read a review that describes this book as a “circle jerk” and whilst I don’t agree, there is a boys club insider vibe to this book at times but the author freely acknowledges that the white English male rock culture did come to dominate the 90s narrative. If you grew up in 90s Britain, this is a great recap with fun anecdotes and insights.
December 19, 2025
Not for me, I'm afraid. I didn't think a book about the cultural history of 1995 could really go very wrong for me, someone very nostalgic about the nineties. Unfortunately, I hadn't realised that the entire book is made up of quotes, with very little narrative or analysis. The quotes in themselves are interesting, but no one (IMO) wants to read an entire book of quotes, in the same way that you don't want just candyfloss for your Christmas dinner.
April 30, 2025
This is an awful oral history book. The content isn’t organized or structured well at all and the author has a super annoying habit of interjecting with his own perspective, which totally disrupts the flow of things. Tons of spelling errors and typos too. I stuck with it until the Oasis chapters and even those were so bad I had to give up at around page 345. AVOID!
December 19, 2025
I chipped away at this over three months. The oral history format makes that doable, but I also … even then it probably tried to be too much in too little space. It’s not bad, but it is more broad than specific, if you are interested in something specific it is likely available via somewhere else, but if you want something that is a little more ‘35,000 feet’, this does the job!
March 29, 2025
Exceptional. I was 27 for most of 1995, so maybe it’s as much about the warm glow of the times, but many goosebump moments. Great writing, great editing of interviewees’ contributions; culminating in a fantastic piece of story-telling about a period that changed everything.
June 2, 2025
This book was a mix of quotes from those involved in the events of London centric 1995 and the authors pov. The majority of the book was interesting though admittedly I gave up on 3 chapters (months) as the subject matter of Football, lounge music and The Beatles was of no interest to me.
June 9, 2023
Awful. DNF. Horrible structure. Basically just the writer's interview notes, and no coherence.
October 1, 2023
DNF. Not what I hoped it would be.
January 26, 2024
Chronological order, more like a diary of events. Found some interesting information but not really my "cup of tea" .
June 3, 2025
audiobook. not great.
July 13, 2025
to sum it all up: if you weren’t around in london in the 1990s, you should basically just give up.
Read
November 27, 2025It was good but very scattered.
April 18, 2024
Brittipopista on kirjoitettu paljonkin kirjoja, mutta en tiedä toista näin kattavaa. Dylan Jones yhdistää "suullisessa historiakirjassaan" (en tiedä mikä on virallinen nimi tällaiselle lähinnä lainauksista koostuvalle teokselle) brittipop-musiikin lisäksi britpop-ilmiöön myös taiteen ja muodin. Lopputulos on varsin pessimistinen mutta viehättävä kuvaus Thatcherin jälkeisen ajan kulttuurisesta auringonnoususta, joka päättyy pian kokaiinihuuruiseen krapulaan Tony Blairin Cool Britannia -hankkeen myötä.
Mielenkiintoisin kirjan ajatuksista liittyy juuri Thatcherin aikaan. Jones - ja monet muut ääneen pääsevät - esittää, että 80-luvun kulttuurivihamielinen ympäristö ja niukat resurssit pakottivat taiteilijat ottamaan vähistä resursseista kaiken irti. Syntyi vahva yhteishenki ja lyhyt yhtenäiskulttuurin pihahdus, jossa mukanaolleet kokivat vahvaa yhteishenkeä ja positiivista uskoa omaan tekemiseen. Lontoo oli taas "swinging London", aivan kuten 1960-luvun lopussa. Vajaan 30 vuoden sykleihin uskovat voiat siis ajatella, että Lontoo elää taas tietynlaista kukoistusta. No, ainakin brittein saarten monikulttuurinen rap on suuressa suosiossa.
Kirjan tarjoama pessimistisempi katsantokanta brittipop-ilmiöön huomauttaa, että vaikka maan alla kukki myös oikeasti vallankumouksellista musiikkia ravesta shoegazeen, näistä ensinmainitussa usein muiden kuin valkoihoisten miesten tekemänä, oli lopullinen brittipop vain 1960-luvun brittiläisen rockin ja popin uudelleenlämmittelyä kun Oasis, Blur ja monet muut ryöstökalastivat Beatlesin ja Kinksin katalogia.
Jos olet kiinnostunut lähinnä brittipop-ilmiön musapuolesta, suosittelen Luke Hainesin Britpop and My Part In Its Downfall -kirjaa, joka on hyvin haines-keskeinen, mutta silti myös kulttuurisesti pätevä kuvaus tuon ajan musiikista.
Mielenkiintoisin kirjan ajatuksista liittyy juuri Thatcherin aikaan. Jones - ja monet muut ääneen pääsevät - esittää, että 80-luvun kulttuurivihamielinen ympäristö ja niukat resurssit pakottivat taiteilijat ottamaan vähistä resursseista kaiken irti. Syntyi vahva yhteishenki ja lyhyt yhtenäiskulttuurin pihahdus, jossa mukanaolleet kokivat vahvaa yhteishenkeä ja positiivista uskoa omaan tekemiseen. Lontoo oli taas "swinging London", aivan kuten 1960-luvun lopussa. Vajaan 30 vuoden sykleihin uskovat voiat siis ajatella, että Lontoo elää taas tietynlaista kukoistusta. No, ainakin brittein saarten monikulttuurinen rap on suuressa suosiossa.
Kirjan tarjoama pessimistisempi katsantokanta brittipop-ilmiöön huomauttaa, että vaikka maan alla kukki myös oikeasti vallankumouksellista musiikkia ravesta shoegazeen, näistä ensinmainitussa usein muiden kuin valkoihoisten miesten tekemänä, oli lopullinen brittipop vain 1960-luvun brittiläisen rockin ja popin uudelleenlämmittelyä kun Oasis, Blur ja monet muut ryöstökalastivat Beatlesin ja Kinksin katalogia.
Jos olet kiinnostunut lähinnä brittipop-ilmiön musapuolesta, suosittelen Luke Hainesin Britpop and My Part In Its Downfall -kirjaa, joka on hyvin haines-keskeinen, mutta silti myös kulttuurisesti pätevä kuvaus tuon ajan musiikista.
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