所有分集

Ocean Colour Scene went through a lot. In their first sprint they morphed from press darlings to labelless failures, only to reemerge in the late stages of Britpop to become commercial heavyweights. They were a band that luxuriated in Britain's rock past, the warm fuzz and ragged pop harmonies of The Rolling Stones, Small Faces, and early Fleetwood Mac. They took those retro pieces and conjured something entirely fresh for the Cool Britannia generation. And yet the press were keen to clobber them with a death sentence to their credibility: the band who were Dadrock before their time.

The Human League were revolutionary. Taking the anyone can play guitar sentiment of punk and applying it to a newly affordable array of synthesisers, in the late seventies the band pioneered the idea of fully electronic-pop in Britain, like a Yorkshire version of Kraftwerk. But then half the band left and the remaining members, their singer and slide projectionist, managed to pick up the pieces and conquer the world, with a focus on image that foresaw the future of pop. Their fourth single from 1981’s Dare was half cheesy synth-duet half vicious dissection of male ego, and arguably the first international synth-pop mega hit. The band couldn’t stand it. This is New British Canon, and this is the story of “Don’t You Want Me”

Queen are an odd band to be so beloved by the British people. They were endlessly posh, wrote extremely camp complex songs about murderous escorts, bicycle races and tigers defying the laws of gravity, referencing in equal parts heavy metal, music hall and opera. And it goes without saying they were fronted by the kind of man that Conservative governments would want you to be scared of: a self-possessed queer person of colour. And yet their first greatest hits is the best selling UK album of all time. Everyone of working age knows every single word of "Bohemian Rhapsody". And it's their songs that will echo across the nation's football stadiums forevermore.

90s British music often gets cropped down to merely Union Jack guitars and Girl Power. But the whole decade buzzed with an undercurrent of revolutionary dance music; their anthems just as important as "Girls & Boys", "Wonderwall" and "Wannabe". Underworld were a vital part of this crossover moment. Having spent their 80s on false starts, now their cinematic thumping techno was something that people who had never been to a rave could get behind, unwittingly giving the lager lads a soundtrack to their excess. Sometimes all you need are some transcendent reverbed chords and a moment of shout along brilliance to unite a nation.