Paul Laird

Of course grunge wasn’t really about pop, it was rock music - without any of the roll.

e were the boys and girls who would have been bullied in the playground by the lads who would later be found prowling the crowds of Oasis concerts, clad in terrace clobber and howling with laughter at eccentrics like The Vessel from David Devant and His Spirit Wife and nodding in agreement when Noel Gallagher wished death from AIDS on members of Blur.

How individuals choose to interpret art isn’t really the responsibility of the artist and if anyone is to blame for the more laddish and overtly nationalistic tone of some moments of the era it is the press and not the artists.

t wasn’t about identity but about identifying.

hadn’t really heard it the first time he played it. I had felt it. Become lost in it. Something beautiful washed over me. Like the first warm day after winter. It unlocked a part of me that I didn’t know existed.

He wasn’t the cool kid at school - except he actually was the cool kid at school, it was just that none of us had noticed.

Oasis’ arrival and the massive success of ‘Definitely Maybe’ had a devastating impact on popular culture. While it is undeniably a great album, the truth is that it was also the signal for the end of the line for indie music - and that was what Britpop really was, a gaggle of bands who, a decade earlier, would never have caught the attention of major labels or television but who thanks to a wave of nostalgia, the death of Kurt Cobain and the desire for something to believe in had become genuine pop stars. Jarvis Cocker and Pulp had been releasing records since 1983 without anyone ever knowing they existed. Saint Etienne’s ‘Fox Base Alpha’ had just scraped into the top forty albums in 1991. Anyone who thinks that Suede would have enjoyed the same sort of success if they had arrived in 1986 is delusional. Britpop from the very start was about art school aesthetics, effeminate boys, charity shop clothes and cult television and film.

Oasis erased all of that within six months and ushered in something very different, something less delicate and something much uglier too.

There is an argument that says criticising them is a form of snobbery, that you are targeting them because they are working class. That may well be true for some of the privately educated music critics at certain newspapers, but it isn’t true of me. I grew up in a working class home, I know about poverty, both financial and in relation to aspiration, and I know the challenges and scars it creates in your life. But to suggest that working class culture can only be boorish, macho, violent and backward looking is the real snobbery.

s true, he did show up one day. He was very friendly and the cat liked him as well which was a good sign for us. Slightly embarrassing though since the cat was called Morrissey! He asked what the cat was called and we were put on the spot but managed to make something up. He said he really liked the band and was particularly impressed by some of Sonya’s song titles. He came to see us play a few times and always came backstage after the show for a chat. The Smiths were one of the reasons why I decided to move from Sweden to London. I was a huge fan but I don’t think Sonya was that aware of them at the time. I will always have a huge respect for Morrissey.’