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A brief history of 90s Britpop as told through the covers of ‘Select’ magazine

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Selective memory can be a marvellous thing. It ensures we are never wrong, always right and (best of all) that we have always had such impeccable taste in music.

In Britain there were a lot of drugs about in the nineties—a lot of bad drugs—which might explain why so many of us—who lived through that heady decade—only recall the really good stuff rather than all that crap we apparently really enjoyedMr Blobby? Babylon Zoo? Rednex? Will Smith?—well, somebody bought this shit, how else did it all get to #1?

Personally, I have no recollection (officer) as to how all these records charted, but I can certainly give you a brief illustrated history of what we were actually listening to and what we all supposedly liked.

Exhibit #1: Select magazine

Select was arguably the magazine of the 1990s—the one that best represented (or at least covered) what happened during that decade—well, if you lived in the UK that is. Select had attitude, swagger and wit and was very, very opinionated. It didn’t tug its forelock or swoon before too many stars—though it certainly had its favorites.

Select kicked off in July 1990 with his purple highness Prince on the cover. It was a statement of the kind of magazine they were going to be—cool, sophisticated, sexy, sharp. Prince was good—everybody loves Prince. It didn’t last long. Over the next few months, the magazine struggled to find a musical movement it could wholeheartedly endorse. In its search for the next big thing—even The Beatles (rather surprisingly) featured on its cover.

Select threw its weight behind such bands as Happy Mondays, Primal Scream, Blur and most significantly Suede—who never quite managed the level of success the magazine hoped for. Then Select did something remarkable—rather than follow the trend the magazine decided to shape it.

In April 1993, Select published an article by journalist Stuart Maconie entitled “Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr. Cobain?” In it Maconie made a very convincing case for abandoning the influence of American music (grunge) and taking up with the “crimplene, glamour, wit, and irony” of local British talent.

Maconie offered up a list of bands he thought would make it big—Suede, Saint Etienne, Denim, The Auteurs and Pulp—lumping them together under the title “Britpop.” Within a year—the idea of one journalist had become a movement of disparate bands, genres and styles—from Oasis to Blur, Elastica to Pulp, Sleeper to The Verve.

Maconie’s idea gave Select their drum—one they were going to bang until everyone was deaf or the thrill had gone.

Select lasted for just over a decade 1990-2001. Its final cover featured Coldplay—which might explain where Britpop had gone wrong. Some kind soul has scanned all of the back issues—inside and out—and a trawl through their covers tells the story of what was in, what was hip, and what was “going on.”

If you’ve a hankering for the past or just want to relive the heady days of the 1990s, then check here to read, view and enjoy the whole archive of Select magazine.
 
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Prince on the very first cover of ‘Select’ July 1990.
 
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Something old, something new… a taste of what’s to come…
 
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Something very old: The Beatles—but a hint of what this magazine hoped to find in the 1990s…Britpop. November 1990.
 
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You get the feeling this bloke’s gonna feature a lot in this magazine…Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder, January 1991.
 
More Select covers for selective memories, after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.24.2016
01:01 pm
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24 Hour Party Aliens: Happy Mondays singer Shaun Ryder BELIEVES
11.02.2013
03:39 pm
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ryder ufos
 
In what could be construed as an effective warning as to the risks of cognitive impairment that can accompany long-term ecstasy abuse, Happy Mondays vocalist Shaun Ryder has traveled the world seeking evidence of UFOs. His travels were documented for air on a forthcoming new program, Shaun Ryder on UFOs, for the ever-increasingly misnamed History Channel, TV home of God, Guns and Automobiles, Storage Wars, and Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy.

In advance of the show’s debut, Ryder spoke to The Guardian about the close encounters he believes he experienced in his youth, his ongoing passion for UFOlogy, and his most recent sightings:

His sentences become disjointed. “Well, all I’ll tell yous, right, is that I’ve seen one, really close up, about 50 foot above, and it looks like a cartoon. It doesn’t look real. It looks like it’s made out of Airfix kit. They look like toys. When you’ve seen something as close as I’ve seen – and bullshit drink, drugs, bollox, none of it, absolutely normal and straight – and you see it and you know they’re here … “

Tell me more, I say. “I can’t go into any more detail, apart from that it was literally 50 foot above me.” Did he have any contact with it? “No, no, but the thing is I wasn’t frightened one bit. I was very peaceful and placid when I was looking at the thing.” He says it happened after he finished making the documentary series.

Well, there you go, someone call SETI and tell them to turn off the machines that go ‘ping,’ England’s most wasted saw it with his own bleary eyes, so clearly the matter’s settled.

(Before any believers go all berserk on me in the comments, I’m not dismissing the likelihood of life elsewhere. I just think it’s telling that the world’s best and most dedicated scientific minds have thus far located none, despite decades of rigorous search, but we’ve got plentiful anecdotal testimony from hayseeds, drug and alcohol casualties, the mentally ill, and profiteering charlatans. In a universe as vast as the one in which we occupy a pitiful little corner, it’s incredibly unlikely that self-reproducing organisms and sentience are unique to Earth. But it’s even less likely that whatever technologically advanced E.T. life as may exist has made it its mission to traverse the vastness of the cosmos and stick things in our butts.)

Truth is, though, it’ll probably be a vastly entertaining show. Ryder is a gifted bigmouth. I was so fortunate as to interview him face-to-face in the late ‘80s, and though he was only just barely coherent from God knows what he and Bez were dosed on, it was massively enjoyable - captivating, really - just to be in a room with him talking. The sheer force of his lively personality is nothing to dismiss, which is why he’s lately experienced a career renaissance as a UK reality television personality. If his show turns up on Hulu, I will most certainly check out an episode or two. After all, the Mondays were basically a rickety band whose sheer energetic joy pushed them into transcendental greatness, maybe Ryder can tap that magic again on television? Failing that, he’ll still be himself, merrily opining, a sort of lumpen, less-literate Julian Cope. And that’ll be fun, too.

Enjoy Ryder in his prime, in 1989 on BBC Four’s “Club X”
 

Posted by Ron Kretsch
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11.02.2013
03:39 pm
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Is Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder the UK’s Bob Dylan? One man’s opinion
06.28.2013
10:28 am
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While it feels a bit strong to call Happy Mondays a great band—they managed to produce one great album in their shambolic, drug-fueled history—or even a great singles band (although that’s nearer the money), pop music would certainly be a poorer place without their twinkling handful of finest moments, while singer Shaun Ryder (a degenerate pop poet in the mold of Shane MacGowan and Serge Gainsbourg) had a tendency of coming as close as anyone ever has to Bob Dylan in his mid-sixties prime. And this in spite of (or because of?) a complete absence of emulation on his part, or even effort.

Take his words for “Wrote for Luck.” I am currently OBSESSED with this tune (specifically the Vince Clark remix “W.F.L”), and oddly enough am similarly obsessed with its amazing video (see below for both). While Ryder’s cawing, derisive voice bears a distinct resemblance, couldn’t the words themselves have flowed from Dylan’s own pen circa 1965?

I wrote for luck. 
They sent me you.
I sent for juice. 
You give me poison.
I order a line.
You form a queue.
Try and think hard
Is there anything else you can do?

Dylan at a spiteful, lazy and inebriated nadir, perhaps, Dylan heartbroken and flu-ridden and slapdash to an almost unimaginable degree, but definitely Dylan all the same…

Don’t ya think? 

And as for that Happy Mondays video…
 

Posted by Thomas McGrath
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06.28.2013
10:28 am
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Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder Bitten by Snake in TV Jungle

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Shaun Ryder - hard as fucking nails. As viewers to the UK’s reality show I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here witnessed last night, when the Happy Monday’s frontman was repeatedly bitten by a snake.

Ryder wasn’t the only victim - former politician Lembit Opik was also on the menu.

This is the best quality version of the clip from You Tube, but ignore the link to some pop star wannabe.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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11.26.2010
01:46 pm
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