Supergrass 25 years on - whey they resonated for their generation

Supergrass playing Alright on Top of the Pops

Supergrass - Alright?

I first saw Supergrass playing on Top of the Pops performing their son 'Alright', which curiously featured Danny Goffey and Mick Quinn swapping instrument roles on this one.

Gaz Coombes toting the Burns Hank Marvin greenburst guitar 

Immediately as a guitarist (and Shadows music player), I spotted the front man (Gaz Coombes) with a Burns Hank Marvin greenburst guitar (designed by Shadows guitarist Hank Marvin in 1963 - check him out!), as the reverby pub piano intro to 'Alright' played, the song was catchy, it resonated and still (just) in my 20's, I thought it sounded great. I still do.

Looking back to this about a quarter of a century later, it is still one of my favourite songs. I was thinking about why good bands are successful. I came to the conclusion that it was because they resonate with their audience.

The young Supergrass - 

if you were in a band with your schoolmates you just understood this

Oxford's Supergrass came along in the Brit Pop era, along with a roll call of bands including Oasis, Blur, Pulp and any other number of post rave music performers. As with the above bands, they all resonated with their (mostly) young audiences who were growing up and finding their music.

If you were in a band with your schoolmates (as they were in those just pre-internet days), you'd likely done the apprenticeship of the pubs and clubs scene as I had done about a dozen years earlier. They'd honed their act live in front of an audience, not in the bedroom in front of the mirror. They weren't manufactured, they were doing their thing, their way. Something that has been largely lost these days with the image conscious industry.

'Alright' inspires and resonates in the same way the Beatles did with 'I wanna hold your hand'. It was upbeat, fresh, new, from a new band and just good. 'Alright' is still played on the radio today and it still sounds fresh and good, which is the sure marker that establishes it as a classic from the also rans of chart music that have largely faded into obscurity.

Supergrass - 'Moving', the CD single cover

Supergrass worked as a group well, as a four piece group, their sound was big and melodic, there isn't any real formal training to be a pop musician, you learn the instrument, get inspired, hopefully write your own songs and play. You need an ear for what sounds good, you need to write songs and find an audience for them. 

Another great track that resonates with me is their song 'Moving'. I came across it on a CD single in a local second hand shop early in the 2000's after I'd moved away from the South East, where I'd lived most of my life up until then. 

Travelling back home up the motorway from the South, I remember looking out over the fields in the fading light at a string of electricity pylons going out into the distance and the song 'Moving' came into my head, yes I had moved and it was a new life and a new place.

The later Supergrass

Again, if we take a Beatles analogy, comparing 'I'm only sleeping', a later Beatles track with its minor key sound, to 'Moving' with a lovely big opening chord which sounds like a minor chord, (but is a sustained chord) and there you have the 'introspective sound', someway away from the bright youthfulness of 'Alright'. 

In the same context, (as was 'Moving' for Supergrass,) 'I'm only sleeping' shows how the Beatles before them had matured in a short time from their initial years, to the more mature sound of what would be described as their later 'introspective' work. Indeed, as their audience matured and the world around them moved on too, so did they. I love playing around with the sound of fragmented and open chords in my songwriting. 

Is there room for more music from Supergrass as a band? I think so, Gaz Coombes remains interested in writing and performing and provided there is the will and the diary co-ordination, the group could still come together to make great music.

Inevitably though people will want to hear the early material. Early as it is, it should not be written off as immature, it is anything but, it is quality because it is still played years after it was in the charts. 

Look back at chart acts of the time from the mid 90's and study the top 40's lists of the time, how many of those records on there are played on the radio today? Not as many as you might imagine.  

The internet brings us many things but it has also brought us too much choice in some respects, many bands out there might put their own songs on YouTube, but they can be lost in the sea of songs, song how to play demo's and cover versions. 

The pubs and clubs putting on live music seems to be less than before, the money for playing in one is less than it ever was, and the opportunities to do so and get a career in music are less so - sadly it seems.