The Last Party: Britpop, Blair and the Demise of English Rock

by John Harris

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'The loveliest - and certainly the most human - book about pop music I've ever read ... A delightful and humane soap opera, a real page-turner, full of rounded and entirely recognisable characters.'

Jon Ronson, Daily Telegraph

THE DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF BRITPOP - BLUR, OASIS, ELASTICA, SUEDE & TONY BLAIR

Beginning in 1994 and closing in the first months of 1998, the UK passed through a cultural moment as distinct and as celebrated as any since the war. Founded on rock music, celebrity, boom-time economics and fleeting political optimism - this was 'Cool Britannia'. Records sold in their millions, a new celebrity elite emerged and Tony Blair's Labour Party found itself, at long last, returned to government.

Drawing on interviews from all the major bands - including Oasis, Blur, Elastica and Suede - from music journalists, record executives and those close to government, The Last Party charts the rise and fall of the Britpop movement. John Harris was there; and in this gripping new book he argues that the high point of British music's cultural impact also signalled its effective demise - If rock stars were now friends of the government, then how could they continue to matter?

Britpop in numbers:

  • There were an astonishing 2.6 million ticket applications for the Oasis gig at Knebworth in 1996. 1 in 24 of the British public wanted to see them play. In the end the band played to 250,000 fans across two nights with a guest list that ran to 7,000.
  • 'Definitely, Maybe', Oasis's debut album, went straight to No 1, selling 100,000 copies in 4 days and outselling the Three Tenors in second place by a factor of 50%
  • On its first day in the shops Oasis's second album, 'What's The Story, Morning Glory', was selling at a rate of 2 copies a minute through HMV's London stores.
  • By 1997 Creation Records (which had been founded 12 years earlier with a bank loan of GBP1,000 by an ex-British Rail Clerk Alan McGee) announced a turnover of GBP36million thanks almost entirely to one band: Oasis.
  • ISBN13 9780007134731
  • Publish Date 21 June 2004 (first published 5 May 2003)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country GB
  • Publisher HarperCollins Publishers Inc
  • Imprint HarperPerennial