10 Essential Britpop Albums Everyone Should Own

Although famously hailed as one of its progenitors, The Auteurs’ Luke Haines hated the Britpop tag so much that he titled his memoir in honor of its downfall. The curmudgeonly pop maverick might not like it, but as its first essential album, New Wave is still intrinsically linked to the scene.

Released just a month before Suede’s self-titled debut, its 12 tracks mine a similar blend of glam rock and faded showbiz sheen. However, Haines is much more scathing (at times, he’s truly venomous) than Brett Anderson. Indeed, you’re never more than a few jangly chords away from a withering putdown (see “I’m on fire, you’re no liar/Just useless and diseased” on “Idiot Brother”) on a timeless slacker-adjacent record which proudly wears its general contempt for the world on its sleeve.  

“When our third album comes out, our place as the quintessential English band of the ‘90s will be assured,” a cocksure yet impressively prophetic Damon Albarn argued four years before Parklife turned Blur into zeitgeist-definers. A response to the abject misery that had dominated alt-rock across the pond, the four-piece gleefully celebrated their homeland’s heritage on 16 colorful tracks that ultimately paved the way for the flag-waving Cool Britannia era.

The classic guitar pop of the Kinks (“Parklife”), swoon-worthy balladry of the Walker Brothers (“To The End”), and buoyant new wave of Duran Duran (“Girls and Boys”) are just a few of its eclectic key touchstones, while Mike Leigh-esque character studies “Tracy Jacks” and “Magic America” proved Albarn was equally gifted a storyteller as he was a musical chameleon.  

While the likes of Lush, Echobelly, and Sleeper all made an effort, Elastica was the only female-fronted band that successfully accessed the men’s club that was the Britpop elite. In fact, for a brief period, frontwoman Justine Frischmann looked like she was challenging the Gallagher brothers and then-boyfriend Albarn as its leader: Elastica became the U.K.’s fastest-selling debut since Definitely Maybe on its 1995 release.

Of course, the quartet famously burned out as quickly as they’d ignited. Still, their one-album wonder remains both an intoxicating blend of new wave and post-punk and, in the cases of “Waking Up” (The Stranglers’ “No More Heroes”) and “Connection” (Wire’s “Three Girl Rhumba”), a masterclass in brazenly borrowing from the best.

Very much Britpop’s whippersnappers – contrary to his mutton-chopped appearance, frontman Gaz Coombes was still in his teens when I Should Coco hit the shelves – Supergrass provided a much-needed boyish vigor to a scene that often pandered to the middle-aged. The Buzzcocks-aping punk of “Caught by the Fuzz,” Chipmunks-meets-the Beatles pop of “We’re Not Supposed To,” and “Teenage Kicks”-esque signature hit “Alright” are all about the follies of youth. At the same time, Steven Spielberg was so enamored with the latter’s cheeky-chappy video, he offered them their own Monkees-style TV show. The Oxford trio wisely turned the filmmaker down, allowing them to outgrow their cartoonish persona as their songwriting matured. Nevertheless, nearly 30 years on and this coming-of-age classic still possesses the power to thrill. 

Seventeen years after their formation, Britpop’s true underdogs Pulp finally achieved their much-deserved breakthrough with a brilliant subversion of the entire scene. Firmly living up to its title, Different Class eschewed the blokey ’60s love-in favored by most of their peers and instead explored themes of societal norms, suburban life, and sexual tension via a theatrical prism of glam, disco, and art rock.

The lead single “Common People,” a wonderfully spiky takedown of class tourism that thrust the eccentric Jarvis Cocker into the nation’s consciousness, remains one of the era’s finest singles. And by the end of its campaign, which included an iconic headline Glastonbury set, Mercury Prize win, and, perhaps most famously, a bottom-wiggling protest against Michael Jackson, the Sheffield outfit had become unlikely national heroes.

Suede initially distanced themselves from the Britpop pack before appearing to realize, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Indeed, the group ditched the romanticized squalor and gothic intensity of their first two records and instead aimed straight for the jugular with the kind of super-sized pop hooks that had made their fiercest rivals superstars.

Coming Up spawned five consecutive Top 10 hits in the UK, including the David Bowie-esque stompers “Trash,” “Beautiful Ones,” and the beautifully melancholic ballad “Saturday Night,” suggesting the acrimonious departure of founding guitarist Bernard Butler had been a commercial blessing in disguise. 

As tracks named “Dark Mavis,” “Egg Shaped Fred,” and “Stripper Vicar” would indicate, surprise U.K. number one Attack Of The Grey Lantern isn’t your average Britpop affair. It’s a half-concept album about a superhero tidying up a fictional village populated by deviants for one thing. Its musical cues range from the Bond themes of John Barry (“The Chad Who Loved Me”) to Little Jimmy Osmond’s child star ditty “Long-Haired Lover from Liverpool” (“Taxloss”) for another.

Yet, this audacious and slightly deranged melting pot of influences has helped Mansun’s debut age far better than most of their ‘60s-obsessed counterparts. And in the shape of the majestic “Wide Open Space,” the band can claim a bona-fide all-time great. 

Like their fellow Northerners Pulp, the Verve had been plugging away for years before Britpop’s momentum helped propel them from cult favorites to chart-toppers. Urban Hymns, however, arrived at the tail end of the scene rather than during its hedonistic heights, which perhaps explains its sustained air of melancholy.

Indeed, the sweeping orchestral arrangements, singer-songwriter melodies, and intricate acoustics of “The Drugs Don’t Work,” “Lucky Man,” and “Sonnet,” would usher in a new wave of sensitive indie bands coined ‘post-Britpop.’ Of course, the triumphant “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” and its iconic personal space-invading video proved Richard Ashcroft could still match the Gallaghers when it came to pure swagger.

Steeped in regret, rejection, and world-weary resignation, Pulp’s ‘difficult’ sixth album found Cocker ditching the tabloid-baiting showmanship and sinking deep in what appeared to be one hell of a mid-life crisis. While there’s little here to satisfy the indie-disco crowd, This Is Hardcore does boast some of Pulp’s most sumptuous songwriting.

The gorgeous “A Little Soul” is a poignant meditation on fatherhood that could be mistaken for a long-lost Motown classic, while the title track’s deliciously creepy lounge lizardry samples lavish strings from a West German sci-fi. “Dishes” proved Pulp still knew how to write a winning punchline (“I am not Jesus/Though I have the same initials.”) But this was a clear and compelling sign that the Britpop party they’d willfully gatecrashed was over.