Quote of the day

"typically thought up by some lance corporal halfwit ... unaware the term had been used before to refer to that pre-Beatles milky light pop with a Norrie Paramour orchestral arrangement".

Luke Haines on Britpop in his new book 'Bad Vibes: Britpop And My Part In Its Downfall'.

By a strange coincidence (well, prompted by the start of the new regular feature), I was re-reading the In The Dock debate about Britpop the other night, in which my argument was trounced almost anonymously. Certainly seems as though the man behind The Auteurs and Black Box Recorder would have agreed with me that it was a media-constructed and musically soulless phenomenon.

That said, he would also have agreed with Paul's comment that my beloved Nirvana were indirectly responsible for it all: "Without the abrupt end of Nirvana there would have been no lightentertainment battle for No1 between Blur and Oasis. No young British artists. No Cool Britannia. Not only did Cobain kill himself, he went and left the bloody door open on his way out"...

Anyway, a sneering, scathing and darkly witty appraisal of Britpop from someone who was a disgruntled mole in its midst? Definitely one for the shopping list, then...