Don’t Look Back In Anger by Daniel Rachel
May. 19th, 2024 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
An ambitious oral history charting the epic highs and crashing lows of the UK’s most creative and hedonistic period: the nineties, told in the words of its architects.
Remember when …
Blue and Oasis battled to be Top of the Pops?
You raved the night away in a baggy T-shirt and dungarees?
Football was coming home?
New Labour won a landslide victory and things could only get better?
We really, really, really wanted to be Baby, Scary, Posh, Ginger or Sporty?
You rushed home from the pub to watch TFI Friday?
‘Girls and Boys’ embraced Girl Power and Lad Culture?
The Young British Artists were household names?
Whichever aspect of the nineties you feel nostalgic for, there is something in this book for you?
Daniel Rachel is a musician turned critically acclaimed author. On balance this account of the 1990s ‘Cool Britannia’ phenomenon is worth a read as Rachel has secured interviews with some key figures (including Tony Blair, Noel Gallagher, Jarvis Cocker, Tracey Emin and Melanie Chisholm) if only to get their view on what happened and what it meant but there are notable omissions (e.g. Justine Frischmann) and nothing on Black British contributions.
I picked this up because I was in my 20s during the 1990s so I kinda regard it as “my era” and I do have vivid memories of ‘Cool Britannia’, including the Downing Street party where groups like Oasis met with Tony Blair.
Rachel has structured this book as an oral history, securing interviews with 68 people who were all involved in some way with the Cool Britannia phenomenon. Some of these interviewees are very big names - Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell are probably the biggest, offering an interesting insight into how they saw the links between New Labour and the art/music community and what they were hoping to get from it and are joined by John Major. Equally big names from music are Noel Gallagher from Oasis, Jarvis Cocker from Pulp, Salmon Albarn from Blur, Brett Anderson from Suede and Melanie Chisholm from the Spice Girls. Art is represented by (among others) Tracey Emin, Norman Rosenthal and Sadie Coles. There’s then a host of other people from writers to comedians, actors and people involved in the fashion and music industries.
I’m familiar with oral history approaches to periods through the work of Svetlana Alexievich who uses the same technique. The difference is that her subjects are usually private citizens whereas Rachel is here talking to people who mostly had some degree of celebrity and scrutiny in the press at the time. As a result, I was reading some of the interviewee’s comments and then trying to match it up with my memories and perceptions of the time and it did make for some question marks. That’s partly because hindsight is always 20/20 but also because some interviewees were (in my opinion) spinning what was going on.
One noticeable thing about the list of interviewees though is how few women there are (just 23 out of the 68). As a result, ‘Cool Britannia’ does come across as a predominantly pale, male affair and there are times when the way some of the male interviewees talk about events is pretty gross and utterly lacking in self reflection. This is most noticeable when it comes to the account of the aggro between Blur and Oasis where Justine Frischmann’s name keeps coming up. I really wish that Rachel had just put in a footnote saying either that he’d approached Frischmann to participate but she declined or didn’t answer or whatever because they way she is spoken about is really quite gross and disrespectful and just doesn’t cut it in the 2020s. Also quite sexist is the chapter that looks at Girl Power - not because of the discussion of the rise of ladette culture (which I actually found really interesting) but because Rachel takes the frankly breathtaking to throw it in with a look at pornography which is talked about very much in how it became more acceptable to talk about it rather than any analysis on what impact that had on perceptions of women (especially with that ladette culture).
If there are few women in the book, then there are even fewer people of colour. This is a shame because again, Rachel has secured some big names from the 1990s - Meera Syal, Gurinder Chadha and Tjinder Singh talk about comedy, film and music respectively but while there is a chapter dedicated to Asian experiences in Cool Britannia (including interesting observations about the adoption of the Union flag) there is no equivalent sharing of experiences from Black Britains. I think that’s a big omission because there was a lot happening with the rise of Black comedians (particularly noticeable as Meera Syal was in the Real McCoy, which launched the careers of a number of Black British comics) and there were equally big pushes in dance music (including the rise of DJs like Carl Cox or girl groups like Eternal) and given there is so much discussion about raves and house music in the late 80s/90s it would have been interesting to have had more of a specifically Black British perspective on that.
I know that all this sounds like I’m dumping on the book and I’d stress that the worth of reading it is that you can see what these participants thought they were doing and what (if anything) they thought was the significance of the events and how it tied in with politics. For me, some of the interviewees come across as real pseuds and quite evasive in terms of looking at what they were doing. Others - notably Tjinder Singh, Tracey Emin, Meera Syal and Noel Gallagher - are remarkably considered and, to my mind, up front. Gallagher in particular comes across as pretty candid and while there’s no doubt he has an ego on him (and I did wish he’d been asked something about where he thinks Oasis had an impact and in what way) he’s equally pretty honest about his own behaviour and where things worked and didn’t. Other speaks - Damon Albarn, Jarvis Cocker and Keith Allen - are honest about their drug use, which I found a bit boring after a while because it started to come across like boasting.
Ultimately, I came away with some insights into the period and how things linked together and also how much of it was media (predominantly tabloid) created and driven. I also thought it was weird how insular the Cool Britannia phenomenon was - it may have been talked about in the USA but there is no analysis as to what extent it had a wider influence on international culture. If you want to know about the period, then I think it’s worth checking this book out but I think it also needs to be read alongside other sources.
The Verdict:
Daniel Rachel is a musician turned critically acclaimed author. On balance this account of the 1990s ‘Cool Britannia’ phenomenon is worth a read as Rachel has secured interviews with some key figures (including Tony Blair, Noel Gallagher, Jarvis Cocker, Tracey Emin and Melanie Chisholm) if only to get their view on what happened and what it meant but there are notable omissions (e.g. Justine Frischmann) and nothing on Black British contributions.
Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
Remember when …
Blue and Oasis battled to be Top of the Pops?
You raved the night away in a baggy T-shirt and dungarees?
Football was coming home?
New Labour won a landslide victory and things could only get better?
We really, really, really wanted to be Baby, Scary, Posh, Ginger or Sporty?
You rushed home from the pub to watch TFI Friday?
‘Girls and Boys’ embraced Girl Power and Lad Culture?
The Young British Artists were household names?
Daniel Rachel is a musician turned critically acclaimed author. On balance this account of the 1990s ‘Cool Britannia’ phenomenon is worth a read as Rachel has secured interviews with some key figures (including Tony Blair, Noel Gallagher, Jarvis Cocker, Tracey Emin and Melanie Chisholm) if only to get their view on what happened and what it meant but there are notable omissions (e.g. Justine Frischmann) and nothing on Black British contributions.
I picked this up because I was in my 20s during the 1990s so I kinda regard it as “my era” and I do have vivid memories of ‘Cool Britannia’, including the Downing Street party where groups like Oasis met with Tony Blair.
Rachel has structured this book as an oral history, securing interviews with 68 people who were all involved in some way with the Cool Britannia phenomenon. Some of these interviewees are very big names - Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell are probably the biggest, offering an interesting insight into how they saw the links between New Labour and the art/music community and what they were hoping to get from it and are joined by John Major. Equally big names from music are Noel Gallagher from Oasis, Jarvis Cocker from Pulp, Salmon Albarn from Blur, Brett Anderson from Suede and Melanie Chisholm from the Spice Girls. Art is represented by (among others) Tracey Emin, Norman Rosenthal and Sadie Coles. There’s then a host of other people from writers to comedians, actors and people involved in the fashion and music industries.
I’m familiar with oral history approaches to periods through the work of Svetlana Alexievich who uses the same technique. The difference is that her subjects are usually private citizens whereas Rachel is here talking to people who mostly had some degree of celebrity and scrutiny in the press at the time. As a result, I was reading some of the interviewee’s comments and then trying to match it up with my memories and perceptions of the time and it did make for some question marks. That’s partly because hindsight is always 20/20 but also because some interviewees were (in my opinion) spinning what was going on.
One noticeable thing about the list of interviewees though is how few women there are (just 23 out of the 68). As a result, ‘Cool Britannia’ does come across as a predominantly pale, male affair and there are times when the way some of the male interviewees talk about events is pretty gross and utterly lacking in self reflection. This is most noticeable when it comes to the account of the aggro between Blur and Oasis where Justine Frischmann’s name keeps coming up. I really wish that Rachel had just put in a footnote saying either that he’d approached Frischmann to participate but she declined or didn’t answer or whatever because they way she is spoken about is really quite gross and disrespectful and just doesn’t cut it in the 2020s. Also quite sexist is the chapter that looks at Girl Power - not because of the discussion of the rise of ladette culture (which I actually found really interesting) but because Rachel takes the frankly breathtaking to throw it in with a look at pornography which is talked about very much in how it became more acceptable to talk about it rather than any analysis on what impact that had on perceptions of women (especially with that ladette culture).
If there are few women in the book, then there are even fewer people of colour. This is a shame because again, Rachel has secured some big names from the 1990s - Meera Syal, Gurinder Chadha and Tjinder Singh talk about comedy, film and music respectively but while there is a chapter dedicated to Asian experiences in Cool Britannia (including interesting observations about the adoption of the Union flag) there is no equivalent sharing of experiences from Black Britains. I think that’s a big omission because there was a lot happening with the rise of Black comedians (particularly noticeable as Meera Syal was in the Real McCoy, which launched the careers of a number of Black British comics) and there were equally big pushes in dance music (including the rise of DJs like Carl Cox or girl groups like Eternal) and given there is so much discussion about raves and house music in the late 80s/90s it would have been interesting to have had more of a specifically Black British perspective on that.
I know that all this sounds like I’m dumping on the book and I’d stress that the worth of reading it is that you can see what these participants thought they were doing and what (if anything) they thought was the significance of the events and how it tied in with politics. For me, some of the interviewees come across as real pseuds and quite evasive in terms of looking at what they were doing. Others - notably Tjinder Singh, Tracey Emin, Meera Syal and Noel Gallagher - are remarkably considered and, to my mind, up front. Gallagher in particular comes across as pretty candid and while there’s no doubt he has an ego on him (and I did wish he’d been asked something about where he thinks Oasis had an impact and in what way) he’s equally pretty honest about his own behaviour and where things worked and didn’t. Other speaks - Damon Albarn, Jarvis Cocker and Keith Allen - are honest about their drug use, which I found a bit boring after a while because it started to come across like boasting.
Ultimately, I came away with some insights into the period and how things linked together and also how much of it was media (predominantly tabloid) created and driven. I also thought it was weird how insular the Cool Britannia phenomenon was - it may have been talked about in the USA but there is no analysis as to what extent it had a wider influence on international culture. If you want to know about the period, then I think it’s worth checking this book out but I think it also needs to be read alongside other sources.
The Verdict:
Daniel Rachel is a musician turned critically acclaimed author. On balance this account of the 1990s ‘Cool Britannia’ phenomenon is worth a read as Rachel has secured interviews with some key figures (including Tony Blair, Noel Gallagher, Jarvis Cocker, Tracey Emin and Melanie Chisholm) if only to get their view on what happened and what it meant but there are notable omissions (e.g. Justine Frischmann) and nothing on Black British contributions.
Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
