Suede- along with Placebo, who we will hear later in the playlist- is BritPop’s answer to David Bowie: Glamorous & unapologetically Queer: Drummer Simon Gilbert is gay, frontman Brett Anderson is bisexual and the song “Animal Nitrate” is about a particularly volatile gay relationship and the drug Amyl Nitrate
#ILikeToWatch #PrideMonth #BritPop #Suede

Suede released their most recent album “Autofiction” (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mwfEmRlRNFfRh22YDbQQ2vqb7T1zWx5XQ&si=mhv4fausBa-JrwzG) last year and it was one of my favorite albums of 2023. They’re currently on tour with Welsh “Cool Cymru” band The Manic Street Preachers and tbh they still got it! (see 2023’s Virgin Radio Sunset Sessions performance for proof: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2Zslnc5XTftnY8Ly9H2zI-z5L539HnJk&si=LP-plmqe6Dd82hCD)
#ILikeToWatch #PrideMonth #BritPop #Suede

Our first female fronted BritPop band on the playlist is Sleeper. They’re a London-based band that quickly became one of the most successful female fronted bands of the BritPop era. Some maybe remember them from their cover of Blondie’s “Atomic” (https://youtu.be/idonhqXpjAs?si=ooPeYRRHIwTs3OxL) from the first “Trainspotting” soundtrack.
#ILikeToWatch #Sleeper

The band temporarily broke up for around 18yrs but as of 2017 they’re back on the road and making music. Their most recent album is 2021’s “This Time Tomorrow” (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nS_AoYi5KAxDslYvr8Q6nJtmOX5zPVF88&si=yE-nvctY7orpgW3o).
#ILikeToWatch #Sleeper

Gene was kind of a weird BritPop band in that the press and audiences may have loved them and for the most part when their Welsh frontman Martin Rossiter (currently works as a music educator for The British and Irish Modern Music Institute) came out as bisexual he got a fairly warm reception (he was more maligned for his Welsh socialism than his sexuality) but they were woefully under promoted so they sort of fizzled out due to frustration with it all by 2004.
#ILikeToWatch #PrideMonth #Gene

Gene’s show at Los Angeles’s The Troubadour in 2000 was broadcast over the internet in what was then a record-breaking webcast, screened to at over 60,000 people worldwide and was later released as the live album “Rising for Sunset” (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUD5zovuYTAAN9qX2UmpDD_V7zQ4vWyCf&si=k0l1QJX8N7Ut9wPI)
#ILikeToWatch #PrideMonth #Gene

I think we all has some vague idea who double Mercury Music Prize winner PJ Harvey MBE is so.. here’s her song “Sheela- Na- Gig” the title refers to the Celtic folklore yonic statues. Her 2023 album “I Inside the Old Year Dying” (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nJ8jg3EaBClh0ZFzbeEOm73vIrlRbvJOU&si=iif-KTeeYvdIAc_J) was one of my favorites of last year. Also, a few months ago she did a really great Tiny Desk Concert (https://youtu.be/pSUgrhmtXIw?si=krte8x4wmGUGwTGy)
#ILikeToWatch #PJHarvey

Ocean Colour Scene are an unlike most BritPop bands in that they’re bluesy. Similar to Gene, they had got shafted by record labels but still managed to be popular with critics and audiences. Unfortunately, Frontman Simon Fowler was forced to out himself as gay following blackmail from their former bass player (🤬) Unlike a lot of BritPop bands they never disbanded. In 2023 they released a retrospective boxset
#ILikeToWatch #PrideMonth #OceanColourScene

Irish band Lulabox were short lived (literally only together for a year!) and were moreso a shoegaze band but they had some BritPop-y type songs as well so.. yeah. Enjoy.
#ILikeToWatch #Lulabox

Gay Dad were a London-based band that unfortunately didn’t fully get their due because of accusations of favoritism/nepotism due to their frontman Cliff Jones being an active music journalist and their drummer Nick Crowe being a magazine publisher. That said, they did have the music to back it up but y’know.
#ILikeToWatch #PrideMonth #GayDad

Joining them in the late 90s was nonbinary lesbian riotgrrl musician Charley Stone (they/she) on guitar. Following the band’s split in 2022, every member of the band continued to work in the music industry- with Jones and Crowe continuing their work in music and art journalism & publishing
#ILikeToWatch #PrideMonth #GayDad #CharleyStone