Nostalgia Week: We Had A Cold War Too, Y’Know.

In a case of not so much looking back through rose-tinted glasses as looking back through a tose-tinted kaleidoscope, Bloc Party, in their track Hunting For Witches, referenced the transition from 90s to Noughties with the lyric

“90s: optimistic as a teen / Now it’s terror…”

And while the 90s was indeed a great decade to grow up in, with a slap bracelet on every wrist and a poster of Lee Sharpe on the inside of every locker door, I feel that Bloc Party are glossing over the terrible conflict of the summer of 1995, a scuffle that divided best mate from best mate and brought the spirit of football hooliganism into what was previously a foppish kind of hobby. I refer, of course, to the Blur vs Oasis War, the lowest, nastiest point of which was the release of Blur’s Country House and Oasis‘ Roll With It on the same, bloody, endless day.

It was gladiatorial. It was epic. It was the head-to-head of two bands that represented the previously hushed divide between Oop North Britpop and Dahn Saath Britpop. It even sucked us in, all the ways away in Ireland, for we had nothing similar to hang our bloodthirsty tendencies from. Bono vs Gavin Friday? Boyzone vs O.T.T? B*Witched vs anyone with a functioning pair of ears? No, nothing compared to the dark days of the Blur vs Oasis wars; it scarred us all, it made us cautious, better people. If nothing else, it prepared us, tooth and claw, for the “Jedward: Ironic” vs “Jedward: A Fucking Disgrace” debates of 2009.

Blur’s Country House seized the UK number one spot on August 14th, 1995, beating Oasis’ Roll With It into submission and second place. Country House was a typical Blur song (for the time, at least), featuring cheeky-chappie vocal delivery and playful guitars; it was all about a man whose desire to escape from the rat race was bolstered by nouveau riche smugness, pretentious literature and lots of pill-popping. Roll With It was typical of Oasis, too: it was loud, simple and quite catchy, like a crane fly. It was about … uhm … er … something deceptively obscure? I don’t know; at least it didn’t feature any toss about “slowly walking down the hall faster than a cannonball” (the first phrase ever to inspire popular acronym WTF, fact fans!)

At the time of the Blur v Oasis wars, I was a rabid fan of both bands, although slightly more on the side of Blur, who might have acted like monkeys but at least didn’t look like ‘em. As time went by, and as I managed some sort of slippery grasp of the English language, I fell heavily out of love with Oasis, pretty much for releasing the same tedious, nonsensical song over, and over, and over (oh, and thanks a lot for Stop Crying Your Heart Out, Noel, really appreciate that one). In the meantime, Blur changed direction, and changed it again, and frontman Damon Albarn went on to form Gorillaz and release The Good, The Bad, And The Queen, so it’s hard to have a pop at him for that. Also, he’s never publicly wished anyone would “catch AIDS and die”, as Noel Gallagher did. And he’s still good looking. Nyah nyah!

Here’s what all the fuss was about …

In the Laahndahn corner: Blur’s Country House

versus…

In the I’ll Fookin’ ‘Ave You, Our Kid corner, Oasis’ Roll With It!

So, reader types! Show us your battle scars! Who did you think won the greatest ever Battle Of The Bands? Whose albums do you still spin? Which frontman’s stickers had you stuck all over your homework journal in your Junior Cert year? Do tell; so long as we don’t reignite the fires, we’ll be alright.