The Charlatans were the first band I truly loved as an adult. They were the crest of the Madchester wave for me, carried forward by the Happy Mondays and the Stone Roses. What I didn’t realize then was that the Charlatans’ soul-shifting song “The Only One I Know,” and their transcendent debut album Some Friendly, […]
Contrary to popular belief, Britpop was not a subgenre. It was also not a catchall for every bit of culture being manufactured in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. (That would be “Cool Britannia,” and like Britpop it almost exclusively applied to English entities.) Instead, Britpop was originally a press-driven crusade to champion domestic talent […]
Every decade takes a couple of years to feel like itself, but the 1990s, in particular, had a soft launch. While 1991 would bring a bumper crop of era-defining albums from the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, U2, and Red Hot Chili Peppers that would set the tone for alternative rock for the rest of […]