Some might say I have already had enough of Oasis

The Herald Scotland

08-07-2025

Still, what with Pulp and Oasis back on the live circuit, it's shaping up to be something of a Britpop summer. That's what Absolute Radio is calling it anyway. And Absolute is, as you might expect, mad for it.
Not necessarily a bad thing, actually. On Sunday night Louise Wener, best known as the front woman of Britpop band Sleeper, started her own show on the station in a two-hour late night slot that was very much Britpop-flavoured.
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Or, at least, that was the sales pitch. But Wener - who was always smarter than some of her male contemporaries in Britpop - was happy to deviate from the brief. She ended up playing American bands from the same era rather than stick to Blighty. The Pixies, the Lemonheads, Grandaddy ('maybe the weird alt-cousins of Britpop,' Wener suggested) and Belly all got a run-out. And I had totally forgotten about New York band Madder Rose. It was good to be reminded of them.
Wener threw in a bit of Radiohead and Wet Leg too, and she even suggested, at one point, that her band Sleeper never really saw themselves as Britpop at the time.
'Ask most nineties bands if they were Britpop and they will likely say no … Sleeper included,' she pointed out.
It certainly often felt like a boys' club at the time for all that Wener and Elastica's Justine Frischmann and Echobelly's Sonya Madan were part of it.
'I get asked even now how did the Britpop women get on with each other? What was the solidarity like? And in truth there was definitely an element of forced competition between the women of that era," Wener admitted at one point.
'I remember being told by one music editor that Sleeper weren't going to get any coverage because they were already covering Elastica and Echobelly, so we should just give up; the idea being that there was only room for so many women to get through.
'We were aware, all of us I think, that we were battling for a limited amount of space.'
Louise Wener has started a new show (Image: free)
You could say that is still the case. Wener's run on Absolute on Sunday nights is just going to be for the month of July, which is a pity because she is fun and smart company and it's good to be reminded that the 1990s music scene amounted to rather more than just Oasis and Blur. That said, she plays both. Slide Away got an airing here too, albeit the recorded version.
'Slide Away might be my favourite Oasis song, I think,' Wener suggested, 'showing their tender side beneath all the swagger.'
I wonder if that's how Noel sees it?
How many comedians does it take to fill the Radio 4 schedule? Quite a lot, it appears. As well as the regular comedy slots, this week has seen Patton Oswalt turn up on history show You're Dead to Me, and Mel Giedroyc join physicist Brian Cox and Robin Ince (another one) on the return of science series The Infinite Monkey Cage on Thursday.
Meanwhile, comedian and author Tony Hawks has been discussing the idea of inheritance in Tony Hawks Is Giving Nothing Away all week at 1.45pm on the station.
Hawks, it seems, is considering not leaving his 11-year-old son any money. The reason? Because he wants a more meritocratic society and doesn't want to stunt his son's drive and ambition.
Personally, I can see an argument for foregoing drive and ambition in favour of comfort myself. Maybe that's because I'm coming from a family that has traditionally never had much to pass on.
But what if you do? On Monday Hawks talked to billionaire John Caudwell who is of a similar mind to Hawks.
Caudwell has signed up to the Giving Pledge, an international philanthropy commitment where billionaires agree to pass on the majority of their money to charitable causes.
'We estimate that there might be five or 6,000 billionaires on the planet,' Caudwell told Hawks. 'There's only 250 of us that are part of that giving pledge.'
Given that it would take anyone the best part of 3,000 years to spend a billion quid (at the rate of a grand a day) you do wonder why everyone else is so reluctant to join him. But then I guess if you're planning to live forever you probably feel the need to keep all that money to yourself.
Vaughan Williams (Image: free) Listen Out For: First Night of the Proms, Radio 3, July 18, 6.45pm
Georgie Mann and Petroc Trelawny are on hand to open proceedings on this year's Proms season as the BBC Symphony Orchestra kicks things off with a programme that includes Sibelius and Vaughan Williams, as well as Mendelssohn's The Hebrides overture and music from Master of the King's Music (and, I believe, Scottish resident) Errollyn Wallen.