Oi oi! Britpop is back!
Actually, it’s not, simply because Britpop never really went away, such is the hold that the scene’s prime movers have over hearts and minds. But with Oasis having finally reunited and subsequently conquered all before them, summer 2025 has seen an avalanche of articles celebrating British music from the mid ’90s, and frankly we’re not too proud to get in on the action.
So, for your entertainment, we now present Louder‘s very own A – Z of Britpop Anthems.
Please note: it would be all too easy – apart from finding a song beginning with ‘Q’, to be fair – to fill out this entire list using only songs by Oasis, Blur, Pulp and Suede.
So to make the list more expansive, I’ve arbitrarily decided that each band can be represented only once. This means that if – spoiler alert – Oasis classic Live Forever is chosen as the entry for the letter ‘L’, then it’s not admissible to also include Wonderwall for ‘W’, Supersonic for ‘S’, or Acquiesce for the letter ‘A’.
Having now patiently and politely clarified this most basic concepts, if I later check out the comments section below, and see that someone has failed to grasp this most simple rule, please be aware that I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.
Parklife!
A is for Animal Nitrate
By common consent, the Britpop era was ushered in not via any one specific song, but by the April 1993 cover of (long-since-extinct} Select magazine, which featured Suede’s frontman Brett Anderson in front of a Union Flag, and the strapline ‘Yanks go home!’
Ironically, the opening riff of Animal Nitrate, Suede’s biggest hit at the time, was inspired – “totally secretly” guitarist Bernard Butler admitted – by Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. That said, lyrics such as “in your council home he jumped on your bones, now you’re taking it time after time” could only ever have been penned by a Brit.
B is for Bittersweet Symphony
The Verve actually broke up at the height of Britpop, following the release of 1995’s A Northern Soul album. Happily, guitarist Nick McCabe returned to the fold during the recording of Urban Hymns, and its fabulous first single is the most striking re-introduction of the Britpop era.
C is for Common People
If you don’t get goosebumps listening to Common People, then you either have terrible taste in music, or are the type of person Jarvis Cocker is singing about here, on what should really be Britain’s national anthem.
D is for Daydreamer
Menswear might have burned out fast, but for a few fun years they were the embodiment of the Camden indie scene, and always excellent drinking company when you ran into them at gigs at the Astoria or Camden Palace. Daydreamer was the quintet’s second single, and second-highest-charting hit.
E is for Every You Every Me
Placebo would hate to be lumped in with Britpop, and were truthfully the antithesis of the laddish British music scene in the mid ’90s, even if they did proudly boast of leaving “a trail of blood and spunk” across the nation. But we’ve included Every You Every Me here because a) it’s a solid gold banger and b) because mid-90s Brian Molko always approved of stirring shit and making mischief, as this writer can testify first-hand from memories too rude to be shared here.
F is for Fader
As with the aforementioned Placebo, Drugstore were fronted by a non-Brit, in this case Brazilian vocalist/bassist Isabel Monteiro, and were outliers on the Britpop scene. But their self-titled debut album, from which Fader was the final single, was endorsed by the likes of Radiohead and The Jesus And Mary Chain and is a cool snapshot of a hazy, hedonistic time.
G is for Girls & Boys
Parklife, the title track of Blur’s million-selling third album, might be the quintessential Britpop anthem, but the movement was truly kickstarted by the album’s lead single Girls & Boys, Damon Albarn’s cheeky chappy dissection of uninhibited couplings and copulation on Club 18-30 holidays.
H is for High
Feeder were more Britrock than Britpop tbh, but High, the trio’s breakthrough single, is an irresistible snapshot of what it meant to be young, free and single in mid ’90s Britain, its soaring chorus – “I’m going out for a while so I can get high with my friends… I’m going out for a while, don’t wait up ’cause I won’t be home today” – an absolutely pitch-perfect evocation of the era. It really should have made them stars in America too.
I is for Inbetweener
Sleeper might not have been the most high profile Britpop band – not helped by the ‘inkie’ music press dismissing guitarist Jon Stewart, bassist Diid Osman, and drummer Andy Mclure as faceless ‘Sleeperblokes’ – but Louise Wener’s sharp, smart lyrics helped establish their songs as genuine alternatives to the scene’s more lairy, laddish anthems.
J is for Just
Radiohead, like most bands on this list, in fairness, wouldn’t welcome being bracketed as Britpop, but before they effectively killed the scene with the release of 1997’s game-changing OK Computer, they weren’t seen as so very far removed from the likes of Catherine Wheel, or Ride, or Ireland’s Whipping Boy. Just, the fourth single from The Bends, was one of the songs which made the world take notice that there was more to Thom Yorke’s band than Creep.
K is for King Fu
Downpatrick’s Ash – “guaranteed real teenagers” as they declared at the beginning of their career – were much too in love with grunge and US alt. rock to ever fully be absorbed into Britpop, but Oasis aside, no band banged out so many fabulous singles in the mid ’90s, Kung Fu being their first truly essential listen. It may have peaked at number 57 in the UK charts, but helped raise the trio’s profile immensely, resulting in their next six singles easily breaching the UK Top 20. That sleeve artwork is iconic too.
L is for Live Forever
Is there a Britpop song that better encapsulates the optimism, hedonism, and sense of possibility of the era than single number three from Definitely Maybe? No. If you don’t ‘get’ Oasis after listening to Noel Gallagher’s greatest sonic creation you never will, but if you know, you know.
M is for Mansize Rooster
We’re not going to argue that Mansize Rooster is a more definitive Britpop anthem than the trio’s 1995 single Alright, because that would be foolish and incorrect, but this was Supergrass’ first UK Top 20 single, and one of their best-loved hits, as evidenced by its inclusion, just prior to Alright, on their summer 2025 setlists.
N is for Never Never
Somewhat unfairly, Warm Jets were best known for the fact that frontman Louis Jones dated TV presenter-turned-Radio 1 DJ Zoe Ball, but the London-based quartet won friends via well-received appearances supporting Blur, Stereophonics and more, and released a handful of great singles, including this, their first Top 40 hit. On a personal level, bonus points are awarded for the fact that bassist Aki introduced me to my wife.
O is for One To Another
Although already well-established as ‘faces’ on the early ’90s Madchester scene, The Charlatans truly came into their own in the middle of the decade, with their self-titled fourth album (released in 1995), and its follow-up, 1997’s excellent Tellin’ Stories, introduced by this timeless indie club floor-filler. During the pandemic, frontman Tom Burgess ascended to National Treasure status in Britain thanks to his wholesome music fans-uniting Twitter Listening Parties.
P is for Punka
It’s entirely possible to respect and admire TV presenter / BBC DJ Lauren Laverne without the knowledge that she once fronted effervescent Sunderland pop-punks Kenickie, but the witty and rather wonderful Punka was an early indicator of her star quality.
Q is for Queer (Danny Saber Alt. Vox Mix)
Look, we know that Garbage contain only one Brit – the fabulous force of nature that is Shirley Manson – and that their electro-rock sound was understandly never really lumped in with Britpop, but finding a truly appropriate song beginning with the letter ‘Q’ was a fucking struggle, to be honest. Besides, if you squint hard enough, this remix of their debut single by one-time Black Grape member Danny Saber is kinda Britpoppy, no?
R is for Ready To Go
Republica vocalist Saffron once described her band’s 1996 single as a “battle cry” for young women and girls growing up in the ’90s, and Ready To Go has stood the test of time rather well. Also, Saffron is fucking great, and she totally lit up Camden with her presence long after Britpop faded so there was no way this wasn’t going to be included here.
S is for Sandstorm
Currently supporting Oasis on their Live ’25 tour, Cast are now playing before some of the largest audiences of their career. Which is a nice feelgood story, because frontman John Power should already have been a star as a member of The La’s, and songs such as this, the third single from the Scouse band’s UK Top 10 debut album All Change always deserved a proper hearing worldwide.
T is for The Man Don’t Give A Fuck
It is scientifically impossible to dislike Super Furry Animals, and this sweary, Steely Dan-sampling 1996 single from the Cardiff band will never get old.
U is for U16 Girls
Remember that scene in Trainspotting where Renton wakes up to the horrific realisation that Diane, the girl he pulled in a club some hours earlier, is actually an underage schoolgirl? Well, this deceptively-perky Travis single (the ‘U’ standing for ‘Under’) is essentially an audio companion to that moment, a warning to horny men the world over that shouldn’t really be necessary.
V is for Vaseline
One minute and twenty seconds of pure adrenalised joy from Elastica: “When you’re stuck like glue, if you’d like to woo, Vaseline!” runs the second verse in its entirety. If you’ve never listened to Elastica, go listen to their debut album right this minute.
W is for Wide Open Space
Yes, well spotted, it’s not Wonderwall.
X is for X-Girlfriend
Given the amount of shit heaped upon Bush in the mid ’90s for having the nerve to get massive in America when not one of the 50 states gave a flying fuck about any Britpop band, Gavin Rossdale will just love this inclusion. Sorry not sorry, alternate options were thin on the ground in all honesty, and this 45-second conclusion to Sixteen Stone isn’t all that grungy, really.
Y is for Yes
Just magnificent. So timeless is this soaring single from McAlmont and Butler that it would have been a hit in the ’60s, ’70s or ’80s, and indeed in the ’90s had Britpop never existed. Vocalist David McAlmont calls it “an I Will Survive for the 90s”, ex-Suede guitarist Bernard Butler calls it “a big ‘fuck you’, but delivered in the most positive way” and we’re calling it one of the best debut singles by anyone, ever.
Z is for Zephyr
You can be totally forgiven if you were unaware, up until this very moment, of the existence of Electrafixion, but you’ll very, very likely have heard of their two main men, Echo & the Bunnymen duo Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant. Is the finest song the pair have ever written? It is not. Does it begin with the letter ‘Z’? Yes it does. Any more questions?
Please note: Due to Spotify not listing Warm Jets’ Future Signs album, unfortunately Never Never is missing from this A-Z playlist. Stupid Spotify.