Don’t blame the band for the late arrival of this brilliant new tune on Dangerous Minds, blame me (though they could have picked a better time to put this out than on December 26th when I’m on my hols, ferchrisakes.)

By far the best of the ‘Britpop’ bunch, you’ll probably be aware that Pulp got back together again, after a ten year absence, for a string of live dates last year.

Well they didn’t just tour. They also went into the studio with none other than LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, and laid down a brand new tune called “After You,” a power-disco-pop gem that fits snugly into the band’s canon of modern classics. It leans towards the band’s more uptight-funk sound—it’s even got a bongo breakdown—but as ever is carried along by Jarvis Cocker’s caustic with, and a delivery that combines hard-nosed snark with pure sexiness.

Here’s to more brand new Pulp tracks in 2013!

Pulp “After You”
 

BONUS! After the jump, the entire, two hour Pulp headline set from the 2011 Reading Festival.

 
Cornershop are back, with a new album Cornershop and The Double O Groove Of, and a strangely hypnotic video of young men getting their hair cut for the track “Supercomputed”. The album has been 6 years in the making, with funds being cobbled together via the website Pledgemusic (even though the band self-released the album Judy Sucks On A Lemon in 2009).

Cornershop and The Double O Groove Of is a collaboration with the Preston-based Punjabi singer Bubbley Kaur, who takes the lead vocal on most tracks, and has never made an appearance on record before (bar the 2004 Cornershop single “Topknot/Natch”). This seems quite incredible as she is a great find. And according to music biz legend, it never would have happened were it nor for the interjections of a friendly London cab driver. Cor blimey guvnor!

Cornershop ft Bubbley Kaur - “Supercomputed”
 

 
Cornershop ft Bubbley Kaur - “Topknot”
 

 
Cornershop ft Bubbley Kaur - “Don’t Shake It”
 

It’s hard to fathom that his band have been around for twenty years now. I first remember hearing about them back in 1992, when they were then associated with the British arm of the Riot Grrrl movement, and openly took on Morrissey for the sentiment of tracks like “Bengali In Platforms”. It thrilled me that a bunch of young Asian men would adopt as their name the most hackneyed stereotype of Asian people then going. While their Riot Grrrl contemporaries faded away, Cornershop have stayed the course, finding commercial success later in the decade and critical acclaim with their dance side-project Clinton - even though they have been lumped i with various scenes over the years they have risen above it all. I have recently begun to compile a top ten list of great British guitar bands from the 1990s that excludes Britpop acts - Cornershop are definitely on that list.

Cornershop and The Double ‘O’ Sound Of is available to buy from Amazon. More info on Cornershop at their official website.

 
Consider this the perfect accompaniment to “Whatever Happened To Alternative Nation?” This excellent article, by writer Wallace Wylie and published on Everett True’s Collapse Board, centers around three bands (The Stone Roses, Primal Scream and Oasis) and the negative impact they had on the British music industry and general media in the 1990s. In contrast to Steven Hyden’s US-focused articles, Wylie sticks striclty to the UK and does a really great job of skewering that shower of shitty hype we had to endure called “Britpop.” This represents my feelings about the period pretty much exactly—yes, there was LOADS of great and interesting music being made at the time, but for the most part it was not being made by white men with guitars.

It should be obvious to almost everyone by now that Oasis really weren’t very good, and this is coming from somebody who bought into the hype early and even attended their monster concert at Knebworth. Definitely Maybe remains their best release, with the album coming across as rather varied (by Oasis standards) and tuneful. This was before Noel settled in to writing all his songs in the same Let It Be-derived tempo. It isn’t really necessary to go into detail as to why Oasis were substandard. This has been done elsewhere and will continue to be done for a good while yet. Their limited talents soon ran dry but not before they had kicked open the door to a million soundalikes who popped up every other week on the front cover of NME.

We were constantly being told by the press that we were living through a musical golden age to rival the Sixties (aaargh! why is always the fucking Sixites?! booo-ooring), and while I do think the 90s was a golden age of sorts, I am glad that hindsight is x-ray and cuts through all the bullshit. There were many, many groundbreaking things going on in the world, yet the British music press seemed content to just curl up into a little ball murmuring “Beatles, Stones, Beatles, Stones” ad nauseam. Remember, this is the era that saw the launch of backwards-obsessed magazines like Mojo and Uncut, and the calcification of rock culture into a rigid set of rules to be adhered to. It sucked. But hey, don’t take my word for it. Read what Wylie has to say…