The Guardian have started putting bits of the weekly Guide (a mini-glossy supplement to the Saturday bundle) online. About bloody time too. They're only doing the features so far, so I can't link to Jacques Peretti's superb column in the "Clubs" section (which, this week, was actually about clubs, unlike what he's been writing the rest of the time). However, I can link to David Stubbs' article about the BritPop rockumentary Live Forever, which contains this gem:

The thesis of Live Forever is that, following an early-90s period when music was in "the doldrums" (Radiohead, Suede, Massive Attack, My Bloody Valentine, rubbish like that), British pride was reasserted, Albion reawakened with the emergence of those Colchester cockney cocksparrers Blur and those mad for it mad bastards from Madchester, Oasis. Now music was great again (Sleeper, Menswear, No Way Sis).

And that, my friends, is all you need to know about BritPop.

Coincidentally, I spent part of today listening to a British album from the same period. It's one of my favourites: beautiful, ingenious, spiritual, wildly ambitious, incredibly varied and colourful. It holds a shimmering mirror up to the fractal diversity of modern Britain. As such, it has about as much to do with BritPop as Liam Gallagher has to do with anything of any creative value at all. (It's Jah Wobble's Take Me To God.)