‘Country House’: The Blur video that made Graham Coxon angry
At the height of Britpop, hedonism was rife, and the pinnacle of this infamy arrived in the shape of a bitter chart battle between Blur and Oasis. During the competition, Blur reigned supreme and topped the charts with ‘Country House’, a song which ultimately emerged victorious over ‘Roll With It’. However, the extravagant video for the track always irked Blur guitarist Graham Coxon.
Both bands pulled out all the stops in what could only be described as a marketing spectacle, a depth of advertising budget that led to the best week of UK singles sales in a decade. In the space of seven days, Blur’s ‘Country House’ sold a vastly impressive 274,000 units. Meanwhile, Oasis fell short, shifting 216,000. To make matters worse for the Mancunians, Blur rubbed salt into their wounds when bassist Alex James wore an Oasis T-shirt during the band’s celebratory performance on Top Of The Pops, a decision that is now etched into petty ’90s bitchery.
For the ‘Country House’ video, Blur received a favour from artist Damien Hirst, who won the Turner Prize that same year. It was a meeting of cultural heavyweights that oozed cool as two figures with prestige in their own lane collided. Not only did Hirst direct the video, but it also starred Keith Allen, another notorious figure of the 1990s. Furthermore, there was a guest appearance from Shooting Stars comedian Matt Lucas, models Sara Stockbridge and Vanessa Upton, and glamour model Jo Guest.
However, Coxon felt uncomfortable with the ways the women involved were objectified. In his memoir, Verse, Chorus, Monster!, Coxon wrote: “It made me angry because here I was, finally in a band, and the experience seemed to be getting cheapened by Page 3-type imagery, a revival of sexism and football hooliganism.” He added: “I was clashing heavily with the Britpop thing and didn’t feel the need to refer to women’s body parts in a rude way.”
While his comments could be perceived as Coxon gaining clarity in the wake of the #MeToo movement, the guitarist has felt strongly about the video for many years. He told NME in 2009: “I think I’d like to reclaim the song in some way, and I’d like to play it, whether we do it in the old jump up and down ‘oompah’ style that we did it in, or whether we do it in a different way. I’m up for experimenting with it.”
Coxon added: “I like that song because lyrically, I thought it was really clever. I think we just overdid it with all the ‘oompah’ and the video. I’ve got nothing against Damien [Hirst, video director] at all, or Keith [Allen, who starred in the video], but I just think the whole collaboration just went towards the farcical end of things a little bit.”
Admittedly, the video for ‘Country House’ has aged extremely poorly and unpleasantly uses sexist tropes. However, for better or worse, it’s an honest snapshot of how women were represented during the Britpop era, a period rife with misogyny.
