Understanding the problematic incident between Alex James and Miki Berenyi
It has been announced that not only will Blur return for a mammoth show at London’s Wembley Stadium in July next year, but their Britpop contemporaries Pulp will also mark their comeback with a string of new tour dates. With those revelations, there has been a resurgence in interest in this peculiar sub-genre that created hit songs as well as its fair share of tabloid headlines. A distinctly 1990s form, Britpop’s familiar signifiers are anthemic choruses, guitar-led music, and of course, an overly British style of singing, with lyrics that touch on the minutiae of life on this tiny isle.
People tend to look back on this period of cultural transition through glasses tinted with the deepest colour of rose. Although Britpop handed the music industry a string of contextually timeless hits from the likes of Oasis, Blur and Pulp, objectively, it was a movement that was rife with issues, and just criticisms pointed at the aforementioned groups.
Of course, this point has many different facets. Whether it be with regards to the sometimes bland music that lacked dynamic zest or that, for the most part, it came with a punkish attitude that didn’t fit with the wishy-washy music it was producing. It was clear to the onlooker that Britpop was not the beast that the hype described. These are two main reasons that have led to the movement being reassessed in the contemporary world, and if you want to understand just how flawed of a genre it was, look no further than the ‘Indie Club’ sketch on The Fast Show. Here, Simon Day’s presenter talks up the hottest new band – Colon – and describes them as the most visceral outfit on the planet. However, the promise quickly dissipates as they burst into a sugary pop song, a complete inversion of what the audience was promised – such was the spirit of the day.
The most significant element that has challenged Britpop’s standing is that many accounts suggest that the genre was actually a rather mean-hearted movement where women were still objectified and taken advantage of. It’s a sentiment that rang true for years before, despite promoting free love and the like. Judgement was passed on women, both professionally and personally, at the height of the genre’s boom.
One of the most prominent figures to reassess a woman’s relationship with the genre and its inner workings is Miki Berenyi, the frontwoman of Lush, who now plies her trade in Piroshka. Her story is a complex one, filled with numerous challenging moments. Her revealing memoir, Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me from Success, released in September, offers another look at Britpop from a less-than-savoury viewpoint. The book arrives as one of the most eye-opening accounts of the life of a professional musician, brimming with candour. At points, it is incredibly tough to read. At others, it is downright hilarious.
In the run-up to the book’s release, Berenyi conducted a series of interviews that saw her discuss its creation, conversations that look back on her lengthy career with more detail than ever before. The most significant discussion she had came with Kate Mossman for The Guardian, only a few days before Fingers Crossed officially hit the shelves. The insight offers a scathing view of Britpop. It commences with the mention of an instance in the 1990s at London’s Soho House when, out of the blue, Blur bassist Alex James sank his teeth into her bottom.
Whilst what happened was left to the imagination by Mossman, Berenyi described the incident in another interview with her for the 2015 documentary Girl in a Band: Tales from the Rock’ n’ Roll Front Line. Asked if she received any “hassle” from the male Britpop bands, she said: “I remember Alex from Blur sinking his teeth into my arse, and he thought it was hilarious, and he thought I’d be really flattered. And this is what I mean about the change. Suddenly, it seemed OK to relate to women in that way.”
The reasons for James undertaking this outrageous action indicate a starkly misogynistic undertone to Britpop. Undoubtedly, there are facets of it that need to be brought into the light, including how women were objectified. Therefore, it was understandable that when Berenyi jumped into her account in The Guardian interview, she looked back on the period with disdain and threw out the idea that it was “fucking amazing”.
“I object to this idea that Britpop was fucking amazing,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong. I’d been there, jumping up and down to Girls and Boys. Some of the music was great. But Britpop was a monoculture. Every scene has an underbelly, but there was no room for any other story. Of course, you can’t say that because people will go: stop being such a killjoy; you’re only saying that just because Lush weren’t popular – which I have conceded!”
Berenyi, who was as balanced as ever in her story, suggested that the way she and Emma Anderson of Lush were treated was because they were perceived as ‘ladettes’, unlike women from prominent bands of the era. Clearly, though, this should never have been the case.
“I don’t think Cocteau Twins or Throwing Muses were asked to get their kit off and pose in a swimming costume,” she said. “I’m pretty sure Liz Fraser was never asked to get down to her undies. I could see the trap in the ladette thing. It was saying: it’s all about liberation, it’s all about girls doing what they want – if they want to get their tits out, or watch football or drink beer, that’s great. The problem is for anyone who doesn’t feel confident enough to go out in a fucking negligee. And the girl that does, I can guarantee that she’s going to get a shitload of crap.”
“Even in Britpop, there was moral judgment,” she added later. “We’re expected to be having it large or whatever, but we’re still getting called slags behind our backs.”
Then, when speaking to We Are Cult about the book, Berenyi expanded on how the insidious composition of the genre made her and other women feel: “The problem is that it was really quite bruising. I can sit here and forgive it, but at the same time, the onslaught of it was just really not fun, and it’s not just one particular person. It’s just the environment… Being picked on by the press, having random fucking fans who want to humiliate you and fans who want to sleaze you and just be nasty about you. People who spread gossip as well.”
She concluded: “All of these things I’m sure are familiar to anybody who works in an environment where your social life is tied into your job. I just wanted to communicate how that can really affect you and not put you in a very happy place.”
