“The wave of bands who emerged in the UK in the early 90s and were later labeled Britpop, were largely signed by people like me. Generally in our late-20s or early-30s, we were music fans who’d grown up with melodic British art-school inspired pop, like Elvis Costello and The Jam, and we were excited to finally find bands who weren’t trying to be U2, The Waterboys or Deacon Blue. The early 90s had seen the major/indie faultline growing into a canyon: if you were Geoff Travis or Alan McGee, you could get away with singles failing to reach the Top 40 and albums which sold modestly. If, like me, you worked for a major, you pretended you were working for an indie, signed bands you loved and hoped for the best. In 1990, around the time that Blur signed to Food, I’d signed the Jam-inspired three-piece Five Thirty to new Warner imprint East West. I soon realised that despite sell-out shows and Steve Lamacq raving about them in the NME, once their debut single, Abstain, failed to make the Fab 40, their days were numbered. Blur were luckier and had a minor hit with She’s So High and a proper one with There’s No Other Way. But by 1992, it looked like the party was over: Blur’s second album had been rejected by Food and Damon told to write a new batch of songs. There was a glimmer of hope, though: Albarn’s girlfriend Justine had a brilliant three-song demo which a friend of mine at EMI Publishing had paid to record. We were the only A&R people who knew about it and we loved it - it was all those bands we’d grown up with, like Wire, The Stranglers and Blondie but bang up to date. By the time Modern Life Is Rubbish came out the following May, there was something in the air: Blur’s appearance at Reading was euphoric. Justine’s band were now called Elastica. By the end of the year, Pulp and Oasis had been signed, Damon had written Girls And Boys and I’d lost Elastica to Steve Lamacq’s Deceptive label. By then, it didn’t matter, I’d signed another brilliant female-fronted band called Surrender Dorothy with a singer who was a combination of Chrissie Hynde and Paul Weller. The following year, she wrote a song called Inbetweener…”
MICK HUTSON/REDFERNS/GETTY
“IT WAS ALL THE BANDS WE’D GROWN UP WITH, BANG UP TO DATE”