Halcyon Days of My Youth

Just watched some Britpop videos from Oasis, Blur, and Pulp. Oddly enough, although the only one of those bands from which I never bought an album is Oasis, it was actually Oasis that first got me into contemporary pop back in high school - I had recently read an article in Newsweek about how they were copying the Beatles, which intrigued me, and then, whilst flipping through channels on the TV, I ran into the "Wonderwall" video on VH1, which did look as though it was copying the Beatles. I liked it enough to continue watching music videos, eventually wound up seeing the "Common People" video on the Canadian music video channel a year or two later, and the rest is history.

Anyway, it's funny to watch a bunch of different videos from the different bands and compare. The Gallagher brothers tend to look as though they're copying the Beatles. Damon Albarn has a tendency to look completely ridiculous (I mean, clearly intentionally so, but still - maybe it's a preview of the aesthetic of something like "Clint Eastwood"?). And Jarvis. . . it's hard to explain, but regardless of what he's doing, he just seems to be doing it with vast quantities of charisma. Watching the "Common People" video again, I can still remember the feeling of seeing him for the first time and falling in love almost immediately. He's just as ridiculous as Damon, if not more so, but he takes it to another level. It's like the opposite of bathos - what is the opposite of bathos? And I still think that "This Is Hardcore" is a fabulous video. Jarvis is still awesome, but in a pretty different way.