The shameless age of Britpop in ‘the wildest year of the 90s’

The shameless age of Britpop in ‘the wildest year of the 90s’

Author: Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold April 8, 2026 Duration: 1:06:31

Dominic Mohan saw Britpop on the inside from the showbiz desk of the Sun in the days when it sold 4.5m copies, a series of heated memories recorded in ‘1996: My Backstage Pass to the Wildest Year of Britain’s Wildest Decade’, a lost age of hedonism, stupidity, drunkenness and creativity. He makes a compelling case in this very funny and colourful podcast which stumbles into …

 

… the advice David Hepworth gave him when he was 16

 

… Euro 96 and headlines you couldn’t run now

 

… how the deaths of Kurt Cobain and John Smith changed the picture

 

… doorstepping Phil Collins’ ex-wife

 

… the wreath for Noel Gallagher “the fat dancer from Take That” sent to the Sun

 

… Cool Britannia and that brief love affair between music and politics

 

 … on the dancefloor at the Labour Conference with Mo Mowlam, John Prescott and Chris Evans

 

… Knebworth 1996, the perfect marriage of alternative music and club culture with a £250,000 bar bill

 

… the debt Pulp, Oasis and Blur owe Ray Davies - “less the Godfather of Britpop, more a concerned uncle”

 

… is it hard to identify a new zeitgeist when people don’t congregate as much?

 

… the ‘reverse-ferret’ from American culture towards bespectacled blokes from Sheffield

 

… the shameless age before people public apology

 

… how the post-Spice Girls TV talent shows soaked up the budgets and column inches

 

… and Madonna dancing with Dennis Hopper.

 

Order copies of ‘1996’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/1996-Backstage-Wildest-Britains-Decade/dp/B0FZBZHPNR

 

The Barbican Show curated by Dominic: https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2026/event/1996-a-celebration-of-the-wildest-year-of-britains-wildest


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There’s a particular kind of conversation about music that happens between friends who’ve spent a lifetime immersed in it-not as distant critics, but as participants in the culture. That’s the atmosphere you’ll find in Word In Your Ear, a podcast from Mark Ellen, David Hepworth, and Alex Gold. With a collective eighty years of writing and broadcasting for titles like Smash Hits and Mojo, and shows from "The Old Grey Whistle Test" to VH-1, they don’t just recount history; they unpack the stories behind it with the ease of a shared laugh. This podcast grew naturally from their work on the late, great magazine The Word, where they began recording over thirteen years ago, building a dedicated following who found something genuinely special in the mix. Each episode weaves together music, commentary, history, and interviews, moving seamlessly from deep-dive analysis of a seminal album to a frank chat with a surprising guest, all delivered with the warmth and wit of a late-night chat. It feels less like a formal show and more like you’ve been invited to pull up a chair in a room where the anecdotes are plentiful and the expertise is worn lightly. The result is a consistently engaging listen that treats music not as a museum piece but as a living, breathing part of our lives.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Word In Your Ear
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