Uncommon People - by Miranda Sawyer

Book Synopsis

When Miranda Sawyer interviewed Noel Gallagher in 1995, his gag wishing Damon Albarn would die of AIDS became front-page news. This fascinating pop history, exploring the mid-90s moment when British music suddenly meant everything, explains why. Picking out twenty key songs, delving into the surprising stories behind them and their unlikely creators, Uncommon People takes us back to when Jarvis Cocker became a national hero, Trainspotting was a global hit, fire-starting seemed like a good night out - and it felt as though the revolution was happening.

Initially a music press nickname, Britpop became an unexpected musical movement centred around outsiders and misfits, drop-outs and weirdos who refused to compromise on their ideas, even when they were thrust into the international spotlight. Not just a scene for white guys with guitars, but something wilder and more interesting, with songs that have proved timeless. Exploring the era's key artists - Oasis, Blur, Tricky, Pulp, Underworld, Manic Street Preachers, The Prodigy, Suede, Chemical Brothers, Garbage, Supergrass, Radiohead, PJ Harvey and more - through their definitive anthems, Miranda Sawyer transports us back to the beating heart of the nineties.

Uncommon People re-lives the mad exhilaration of what it was like to hear these songs for the very first time - and what it was like to make them. With amazing new interviews, and I-was-there insights, this book offers a backstage pass to all the most interesting bits of Britpop's Greatest Hits.

Forget New Labour, forget earnest trend theories, this book is all about the music, the people and being right there, right now.

Review Quotes

Miranda Sawyer was at the heart of the golden era . . . and bears thrilling yet thoughtful witness to the oddity and
ambition of the awkward outsiders who briefly got the nation humming their tunes, equally enthralled by the usual headliners and unclubbable mavericks like Keith Flint, Tricky and P.J. Harvey

--Mojo

This is the story of, arguably, our last great pop movement in 20 songs. The usual suspects - Blur, Oasis, Pulp - are present and correct but it's lesser names who stories are most affecting . . . This is an informative and witty book that's nostalgic but never sentimental--Sun

About the Author

Miranda Sawyer has written about pop culture for the Observer ever since they hired her to explain why Kurt Cobain's death was such a big deal in 1993. She has since interviewed everyone from Liam Gallagher to Irvine Welsh. She has also written for the Face, Select, and Smash Hits and won several awards. The Culture Show's Music Correspondent since 2007 and a regular on Radio 4, she has made documentaries about the Spice Girls and even co-presented Big Mouth with Tony Parsons in 1996. Her first book Park and Ride explored the British suburbs, her second Out of Time exploded the midlife crisis, Uncommon People takes us time-travelling back into the heart of 90s pop.