4 of the Best Post-Britpop Songs of All Time

In 1996, when Oasis played two nights at Knebworth in England, the gigantic concerts marked the peak of their career, and Britpop generally.

Though Be Here Now was a whopping commercial success, the album didn’t age as well as their first two. Even Blur had moved on from Cool Britannia and found their biggest success with the American-sounding indie “Song 2.”

Between Be Here Now and a zeitgeist shift with American bands like The Strokes and The White Stripes, the post-Britpop groups enjoyed varying degrees of success in the hazy space between the height of Oasis and Blur and the move toward garage rock revivalism.

By the late ’90s, The Verve imploded (again) under the weight of their colossal success. Travis, Stereophonics, Gomez, and Catatonia received limited attention beyond their borders. Then came Coldplay. Coldplay is too big for a genre as narrow as post-Britpop but that’s precisely where they originated.

Travel back to a time when the fog of the ’90s was scattering, and the British music scene wondered what was next after all the party people went home. Here are four of the best post-Britpop songs of all time.

I came along, I wrote a song for you.

“The Bartender and the Thief” by Stereophonics from Performance and Cocktails (1999)

Performance and Cocktails became a surprise hit for the Welsh rock band Stereophonics. Singer Kelly Jones shares the kind of Johnny Rotten snarl of Liam Gallagher and even gives a quality shiiiiiine on the opening track to Stereophonics’ second album. They are among the most successful Welsh bands and have released five straight No. 1 albums in the UK. Also, they meticulously design their singles for the summer festival season. Though the vocal melodies are derived from Oasis albums, the heavy guitars echo early Radiohead. “The Bartender and the Thief” kept the Glastonbury punters singing along.

“Writing to Reach You” by Travis from The Man Who (1999)

Travis is among a list of bands with one-word names and a Britpop-meets-The Bends sound. The Scottish rock band wrote bigger songs than “Writing to Reach You” but the opening track on The Man Who signaled a new chapter in British rock music. And singer Fran Healy poses a scene-changing question: And what’s a wonderwall anyway? With it, Healy cracked open a soft-rock door that Coldplay soon walked through on their way to becoming the world’s biggest rock band. Travis didn’t sell as many records as Oasis or Coldplay, but Healy stands tall among Noel Gallagher and Chris Martin as one of his generation’s finest songwriters. Paul McCartney thinks so too. “Mind the gap” is a warning sign for passengers to use caution when stepping from a train doorway, and onto the platform. Think of Travis as that threshold between Britpop and the post-Britpop era.

“Yellow” by Coldplay from Parachutes (2000)

No one could have guessed from Coldplay’s modest debut that they’d soon reach U2 and Oasis levels of stadium stardom. Parachutes is a low-key and tender collection of acoustic pop songs from a group of musicians who memorized how to play “With or Without You,” “Fake Plastic Trees,” and “Wonderwall.” It doesn’t matter what Chris Martin means by and it was all yellow, people feel it. And they still do as Coldplay reliably packs stadiums 24 years later. Martin connected as an anti-rock star everyman with a vulnerable voice. He bangs on his piano like Schroeder from Peanuts and with his band, dressed in Crayola clothing, helps keep the music economy humming with each studio album.

“Bitter Sweet Symphony” by The Verve from Urban Hymns (1997)

The Verve’s tumultuous history dates back to the early ’90s, but their shoegaze jams never fit neatly with Britpop’s more popular bands—Oasis, Blur, Pulp, and Suede. However, Richard Ashcroft and his band released their masterpiece Urban Hymns one month after Be Here Now. The Verve sampled The Rolling Stones and created a new national anthem for ’90s youth culture. On “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” Ashcroft sings, But the airwaves are clean and there’s nobody singing to me now. Like an indie rock shaman, Ashcroft filled the empty airwaves and The Verve orchestrated one of the decade’s biggest hits. Then they broke up for the second time. It wouldn’t be the last time The Verve re-formed and split up. (The Rolling Stones sample used in “Bitter Sweet Symphony” is taken from an orchestral version of “The Last Time.”)

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