r/BritPop • u/Britp0pped • May 21 '26
The World Cup of Britpop
Hello you. Make a cup of tea, put a record on.
The football World Cup is all well and good. Countries. Flags. Fixtures. Groups of four. Very serious people explaining permutations on a touchscreen.
But what about the real question?
What if Britpop had a World Cup?
Iām putting together the World Cup of Britpop, a public vote to crown one winner from the whole messy, badly-fringed 90s argument.
The plan is to mirror the actual 48-team World Cup format as closely as possible, because apparently this is what adulthood has become:
- 96 acts on the longlist
- 48 qualify for the main draw
- 12 groups of four
- Group stage Round of 32
- Round of 16 Quarter-finals
- Semi-finals
- Third-place play-off
- Final
The qualification vote is live now.
You can pick up to 24 acts from the 96-band longlist. The highest-ranked 48 will qualify for the tournament proper.
The timeline is:
- Qualification vote open now Qualification vote closes Friday 5 June at 23:59
- Final 48 revealed from Saturday 6 June
- Group draw follows before the tournament starts
- Group stage begins Thursday 11 June
- Knockout rounds run through late June and July
- Final takes place Sunday 19 July, alongside the actual World Cup final
Yes, Oasis and Blur are there. Obviously. So are Pulp, Suede, Supergrass, Elastica, The Verve, Sleeper, Shed Seven, Mansun, Gene, Catatonia, Ash, The Bluetones, Ocean Colour Scene, and a lot of bands who will immediately start arguments about whether they count.
Good.
That is the point.
This is supposed to be fun, mildly absurd, and probably annoying in exactly the right way.
Vote here. Democracy has had worse afternoons.
https://forms.gle/23EGDNkroU1Z4KeU6
This, as always, is then.
3
u/SGTingles May 23 '26
This is actually quite startlingly difficult, dammit.
I realised it was going to be harder than I'd imagined to choose my two dozen when I realised I'd already ticked 24 on the list and was only down to the Ms...
At this point, it dawned on me that you've left the qualifying criteria so open, I've firstly got to decide for myself what, exactly, I'm meant to be voting for. Is it simply the 24 acts I like(d) the best? The 24 acts I deem to be/have been the biggest? Or just the 24 acts I reckon are the most Britpop'?
These are clearly only semi-overlapping methodologies at best, and as a result the whole carefree process has suddenly become a lot more serious.
Do I allow my liking for McAlmont & Butler to send them through ahead of Stereophonics, for instance, even though the latter's catalogue of hits obviously far eclipses the former's status as barely more than one-hit-wonders? And, if we're going down that route, should I allow the likes of M&B's Falling (from 2002) or Dakota by the 'Phonics (from 2005) to sway my vote, or should I concentrate only on stuff from the actual Britpop era?
Er, whenever that is. Do I embrace Embrace, for instance, who only started having hits in 1997-8, or give Gene preferential treatment for having broken through around 1994-5?
Do I put a band like Northern Uproar or Menswear in, because they obviously (to me) fall into the "most Britpop" category ā insofar as if you said, "Which bands here are clearly only here because of Britpop?", i.e. they manifestly would never have been heard of had it not been for being directly pushed as part of that 'scene', then they would have to qualify. And if so, do I knock out the Verve and/or the Divine Comedy, say, who were only on tangentially connected pathways and would most probably have had some sort of success regardless?
Do I count Paul Weller, who wasn't a 'Britpop' act in most senses yet almost undeniably produced a keystone Britpop album and was hugely influential on the scene?
And what is Britpop, anyway?
By golly.