Pitchfork's 50 Best Britpop Albums

I fell for the clickbait again and read through yet another Pitchfork top 50 list of a poorly defined genre from a poorly defined era of time with a completely predictable top ten that reiterates the great things we already know about the albums that we already knew were great.  In this instance, they're barely even pretending there's an actual genre to tie the list together.  It's a list of mid-90's British indie rock (hence it's the 50 Best but not the 50 Best "of all time" ... which would be redundant because we're essentially talking about a four year window in the 90's save for the rare exceptions for the likes of the La's).

It's kind of embarrassing when so many of the bands were never lumped in with the Britpop I knew at the time (SFA, Denim, Mansun, Placebo, the list goes on and on) or were outwardly hostile to Britpop (Manic Street Preachers, Auteurs) and would be appalled to see themselves on a list like this.  Inasmuch as an actual genre of Britpop can be defined, it was one of the most top heavy scenes ever, with a small number of excellent bands at the top, a handful of mediocre curiosities with a couple of passable hits, and very little else.  When you narrow the eligibility criteria to such a degree (UK indie rock bands who released their debut album after "Parklife" and placed at least one album in the top 30 of NME's year end list in either 1994, 1995 or 1996!) even Echobelly and Sleeper can wind up on a "best of" genre list.
 
Predictably, only Tom Ewing brings any interesting ideas to the table as he stops to consider the Britpop that never really was in his short takes on Saint Etienne.  What would have been if Britpop had been more like the introverted, cosmopolitan urban dance pop model of Saint Etienne instead of the extroverted, beer and football loving anthemic chorus model of Oasis?  More than anything, the best bands of the time exuded confidence (or arrogance, depending on one's viewpoint) that made them far more exciting than Saint Etienne could ever hope to be (and I love Saint Etienne).  Pulp, Blur, and Suede each had their visions of music (completely different from each other) that were rooted in uniquely British traditions and each was 100% convinced that their music was the most worthy distraction against the then-dominant stodgy American grunge rock.  However, the fact that Blur had their biggest hit with a grunge song a few years later was an irony only the most British of British bands could pull off though.