A major shift in the narrative of British rock music, from the noisy barrage of the late 1980s underground toward the massive bombast of 1990s Britpop, is charted over the course of two films playing at “Sound + Vision,” a series of music-related documentaries at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, July 31-August 6. Today, the two distinct schools of sound represent two epochs — albeit one significantly more commercially popular than the other — and have reemerged in recent years, with musicians capitalizing on their influence through comeback tours directed at a whole new, and much younger, audience.
Series opener “Beautiful Noise” (July 31) focuses on a group of bands that heavily redefined the sound of underground music across the world. The Jesus & Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, and the Cocteau Twins — the three most significant bands to materialize from this period — produce wildly different sounds live and on record. What they share is an attraction to noise, at times ethereal and at times aggressive, which is marked by the influence of classic pop.
Some bands demonstrated this approach more clearly than others. The Jesus & Mary Chain produced a mutated form of Brill Building pop, equally informed by the screeching feedback of punk as Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, that still today feels like a kick in the teeth next to the hiss-and-whirl of the Cocteau Twins, who looked toward Brian Eno and his ambient experimentations as their inspiration. My Bloody Valentine seemed to meld the two, and the result was the most highly developed sound of all three, beautiful one moment and damaging the next.
But by the mid-1990s, all these older bands had faded away. The presence of grunge music in America put a hold on their commercial prospects across the Atlantic, and at home the popularity of Britpop made their introverted music practically retrograde. The British bands of both genres shared a middle-class antagonism, but the new sound was big and dramatic, and the scene became defined by competition. Bands like Oasis and Blur built fan bases by forcing audiences to pick sides. Groups traded barbs in the press, wrote coded songs about each other, and made their feud the central narrative running through the Britpop era.
Outside of the central drama existed Pulp. Their discography overlaps with many of the bands featured in “Beautiful Noise,” but they were decidedly Britpop in sound and image. Their true distinction was their eclectic sonic range, which captured everything from early Scott Walker crooning to the slick pop of Abba, as well as a focus on the performativity of rock music, led by one of the era’s greatest characters on stage: singer Jarvis Cocker.
“Pulp” (August 6), which closes out the “Sound + Vision” series, documents the last night of the band’s 2012 reunion tour in their hometown of Sheffield, England. But instead of the typical concert film — which sees the band running through the hits, the fans screaming in agony — we get a more nuanced portrait of their roots. Director Florian Habicht spends a good deal of the film roaming the streets of Sheffield, interviewing local residents, and visiting the far corners of the city in an attempt to capture something on film that is deeply embedded in the music: a sense of place. Blur and Oasis, who fizzled out after their early success, were global bands that appealed to local sensibilities. Pulp was a local band, rooted in a specific milieu and ideology, whose music resonates with people all over the world.
Many of those fans show up for the concert that frames the documentary. And many of them are there not just because of the songs, but also because of Jarvis Cocker himself. The singer has always been a strange idol, lanky and beautiful in non-traditional ways, displaying a Bowie-like otherworldliness. His persona oscillates between the working-class roots of Sheffield (displayed on “Common People,” the best song produced in the Britpop era) and the fabulousness of rock ’n’ roll stardom. The persona is at once tongue-in-cheek and deeply serious, critical and embracing. On stage in front of thousands of people, Jarvis withers around, humping speakers and falling to the floor in ecstasy. It’s all performance, a mask but not a deceptive one. Nothing is hidden. The message is clear: I’m just like you, and you can do this too.
