Steve Lamacq on ‘The Rise And Fall Of Britpop’: “Everyone was a character”

nme.com:

NME about the new BBC podcast The Rise And Fall Of Britpop – and the chances of a similar cultural phenomenon taking place again today.Launched this week, the new eight-part series sees 6 Music DJ and former NME journalist Lamacq – along with fellow BBC DJ and former Evening Sessions co-host Jo Whiley – delve deep into the rise of UK indie in the ’90s with new interviews, archive interviews and more, featuring prominent artists from the scene.To get a feel for the new series, NME spoke to Lamacq about life before Britpop, how it wouldn’t have been possible without the death of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, the characters it gave us, and what caused the scene’s demise…Lamacq: “The start of the ‘90s was a little grim, grey and downtrodden.

The rise of dance music through the late ‘80s and into the ‘90s was a reaction to that – and an escape from that. In musical terms, we had the shoegaze movement in the early ‘90s, which brought some quite good stuff.

My first interview with Ride ran in the first NME issue of 1990. That kind of set the tone. The NME broke a lot of bands during that period; particularly in those first six months of 1990.

Ride arrived, we had The Charlatans, there was a lot going on, but we were still at a point where these bands weren’t entering the mainstream.