‘New Test Leper’: The song Michael Stipe used to mock Britpop
Some people look back on the Britpop years with rose-tinted glasses. They sport bucket hats and swoon over photos of Damon Albarn, they respond to every one of Liam Gallagher’s tweets, and they can still recite all of the words to ‘Parklife’, taking a source of pride in that fact. They sat patiently in the queue for Oasis reunion tickets and rejoiced when The Verve singer Richard Ashcroft was announced as their support act.
The genre certainly had a mammoth impact at the time and continues to influence audiences and artists today, but, like many genres, Britpop has received almost as much criticism as it has praise. Retroactively, Britpop has come under fire for its laddy image and culture, and for the sexism that was allowed to thrive as a result. And at the time, alt-rockers Radiohead were amongst the genre’s biggest opponents, sharing their distaste for the melodic music.
REM singer Michael Stipe is also amongst Britpop’s unbelievers. Stipe’s first ventures into the music industry took place almost a decade before Britpop reared its head. He founded REM in 1980, though the band really came into their own when alternative rock came to the fore later on in the decade and into the 1990s. Tracks like ‘Losing My Religion’ and ‘Everybody Hurts’ took off and still remain widely loved decades later.
After this wave of darker rock music captured audiences, Britpop ushered in a new, melodic type of guitar music, taking influence from the sounds of the 1960s to create singalong-worthy tracks. Although audiences were just as receptive to Britpop as they had been to grunge and to alternative rock, Stipe wasn’t quite as easily convinced.
In fact, he once made a dig at Britpoppers in the liner notes for REM’s 2011 compilation, Part Lies Part Heart Part Truth Part Garbage 1982-2011. While speaking about a song called ‘New Test Leper’, the vocalist took the opportunity to criticise the bands that followed him, stating that it is “the song I think of when people who wrote maybe four good songs get big heads [Brit pop anyone?].”
“I always feel like when they write a ‘New Test Leper’,” Stipe continued, “Then I will listen to them.” It’s an interesting comment to make — ‘New Test Leper’ sits in a completely different realm to Britpop despite being led by acoustic guitars. Stipe’s vocals sit firmly within the alt-rock realm, not quite inciting the same anthemic quality that the Gallagher brothers did, as he sings of religion and judgement.
It’s not a song that would comfortably fit into the catalogues of bands like Blur or Oasis, who investigated completely different topics over much brighter soundscapes. It doesn’t seem like any of the Britpoppers were hoping to write a song like this, nor did they need to prove themselves to Stipe, or anyone else, by doing so.
‘New Test Leper’ is a fine song, but it’s certainly not worthy of the arrogance that Stipe took in it. Sure, there are Britpop bands who made hits alone, finding little substance in their back catalogue, but there’s nothing wrong with that. There were also Britpop bands who did more than make a couple of good hits, who pushed into new realms and helped to create the albeit flawed cultural phenomenon that still remains today.
