YouSaid · the spoken record

Dylan Jones

lines on the record: 47
first: 2022-12-02
most recent: 2022-12-02
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I think that you can make a case for The 90s ending in the tunnel in Paris. You can make a case for the millennium. You can make a case for the launch of the smartphone. Very true. But as I try to describe in the book, every decade has a long tail.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's true. Also, and I don't think I actually knew this at the time when I was, I spoke to Noel and Blair and Alan McGee about this, is that they didn't actually invite Liam because they said, you can. You can control Noel, but you can't control him.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he said, well, we knew it was important. And why wouldn't you invite these interesting people to Downing Street? Why wouldn't you want them on your side? These were young creatives. So did they exploit it? I don't think they exploited it. I think they offered it a platform. I think lots of people, particularly young creatives, get very suspicious of politicians. They get very suspicious of their motives. And I think that it didn't take long for people in the music and art world and the world of literature and publishing to distance themselves from new labour because New Labour managed to fall victim to the way that all new governments do. But I don't think they exploited it. I think exploitative is too harsh a word, actually.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, Cool Britannia didn't really exist. Cool Britannia was, I think it was first mentioned by Newsweek, actually, in about 1996, 1997. It's a journalistic term. But I asked Alistair about New Labour's very obvious co-opting of the creative arts.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh god, yeah. I mean, hopefully it's happening now. And I shouldn't know anything about it. I mean, I think that, like I say, I'm not in the business of my pop music better than your pop music. You want to be surprised by culture. You kind of want to be irritated by culture because that's how culture moves. That's how it reinvents itself. And I have to say that London in particular has an ability to regenerate itself continually. And like I say, I fully imagine that's happening right now as we're speaking.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly, yeah, and he was very generous with his time and anecdotes. And I think it's easy to forget what an important part of culture it was at the time. And even though it sort of ended badly and ended in a very seedy way, the initial sort of excitement was around.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was very skeptical, and I said, I don't believe you go away in writing. And he came back and it was a very plausible argument. So we published it. And look, what happened? You know, he begat a whole kind of publishing sector. James, it was great talking to James Brown. And James has his own book out, and James could have easily said,”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Step removed from, and I enjoy that. And those people tend to have very strong opinions. And that, and again, that's very important. And even better if they disagree with each other, which often they do. Who first came up with the word Brit pop? I mean, there's three people in the book who claim they did, but.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it's a neural biography and it's important to talk to those people. But as I say to reiterate, one of the things I've always found, and having done this four times now, it's important to talk to those people whose voices don't always get heard. And I also find it very important to talk to cultural commentators like yourself and journalists and to talk to people who It was very important for me to talk to people like you and Miranda and Mark Ellen and Andrew Harrison and lots of people who are involved and actually in many respects were far more immersed in the scene than I was. You talked to someone like Stuart McConey or indeed yourself or Andrew Harrison, you know, they were actually fully operational at the time and involved in a world where often I was sort of one.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't think anywhere should be a holiday from history. And even if it was a holiday for history, I think it makes it even more imperative to dig under the carpet.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In culture is totally different now, as is echoed by social media because we live in a very, very different world. And possibly much”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that to echo what I said before, I think that there are cultural top notes which are unavoidable, but I don't think they were attritional in that way. And I think that those tropes were misinterpreted by people. But yeah, it was very important to talk to Steve and to get his take on that. And he wasn't prompted in those ways. I still think that music was quite siloed in the 90s. I think that you can certainly look at music now and probably in terms of both of those things, I think gender and race, I would say that music's probably in a healthier place now than it's ever been before. And I think a lot of that is to do with because we are now living in a world that is dominated by EDM and has been for quite some time. And I think the culture has shifted, culture's changed, culture's become more mass. I think that you can look at the pockets that I address in the book, and they're quite small pockets of people.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Feel like you're being isolated in a way because if you come through art school or you live in particular parts of London, I think that the gender split and the race split are probably less particular than they are in other parts of the country. I don't know.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, that's a question that deserves more than one answer. I think that in the pockets of culture, particularly in London, I think that there were lots of musical themes and lots of musical strains, many of which I didn't have the time to address in the book, which became very dominant through the 90s, became very important. I think it's quite difficult to analyze that in a kind of macro way because from being there at the time, I think that both of those issues were, I think, if you're in London, in those kind of worlds, then those topics tend not to be addressed because you don't”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is a really good question. In music, I think that you can look at a lot of the work that Blur did. And I think it's so particular to that period. I think that, and a lot of it has become so synonymous with the period. So I would say, but then on, you know, you can look at the YBAs and think that Damien is probably more pertinent to the decade, but then you look at someone like Tracy who has very much deliberately sort of outgrown the decade. Everyone has their own context. I think it's an almost impossible question to answer, so I won't.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't think it does, and I think I'm not sure whether we need to worry so much about that. I think we just have to accept it. I think that media has changed so much that it's impossible for those little communities like we were discussing earlier, the little villages, the little communities, the ghettos, for people to get together and create in the same way that they used to because of social media. That might sound like a cliche, but it's true. I'm not one of these people who go, well, my pop music is better than your pop music. I mean, I would imagine that if you're between the ages of 15 and 24 now, you're having as better time, maybe a much better time than we had when we were young. That's another book and that's another story. But I think that media is different. So consequently, culture is different.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think what I miss about the 1990s is what I miss about anything. I was talking about this with someone just this afternoon. Because things happen, it's like they seem so inconsequential at the time. It's crazy. You and I obviously used to work together many, many years ago in the 90s. And I remember being in rooms and we'd be discussing things and famous people would walk in or you'd see a picture of someone. And at the time it's all seemed perfectly natural. But you look back now and go, wow, that's kind of important. And I'm not saying we were important for being there, but the fact that all that stuff happened, it's, I suppose you want kind of recall. You think, God, I wonder what that was like. I wonder what we did actually say, you know.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just before a meeting, and I went in and I looked at all the new books in the entertainment section, I couldn't see it. I looked again and I looked up and down and around and I thought, right, I'm going to have to talk to someone here. And I walked past the history section. And there was a whole bank of them. And I thought, that's okay. I don't mind being in.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, well, it's very nice and flattering to hear you say that because I think that these pages have to sing. If you're writing about, if someone's invested 20-odd quid in a book about a particular thing, they want to be rewarded. And I'm not gilding the lily, but you want to evoke those periods. You want to make people feel like, yes, they are at the Atlantic or they are in number 10 or they are in the Groucho Club or they are in Ali Palli watching blur. Because it's not an academic test. Yes, it's a piece of history, but it's not an academic test. And it's got to sing. I got very cross the other day. I was in Waterston's in Piccadilly.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If you want to have a pop at Alistair Campbell, he's on local radio. He's doing a fun run. He's in waitroads. He's in North London. He's on LBC right now. He's probably in the streets somewhere. You can go tap him on the shoulder. And you can say Iraq war, disgust. And he'll talk it out with you. But Tony Blair has become a kind of, he's so aloof and he's become a kind of Oz character. And actually, I think that when Tony Blair puts his head above the parapet and says something about a particular topic, whether it's the economy or the Ukraine war, I, from a personal and professional point of view, usually say things that he says an awful lot of sense, but people don't care. People don't care because... That relation with that relationship.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Concept anyway, but it was again, it was important to look at the phenomenal success of the Spice Girls and Robbie Williams and Tony Blair in his own way. I remember Alistair Campbell's famous quote that when he was asked what was New Labour's greatest achievement, saying getting into power. And actually David Cameron said something very similar. He said, you know, what was your greatest achievement with forming the coalition in order to form a government? So I think those things are really interesting. I think the dynamic between not the dynamic between, but the attitudes towards Alistair Campbell and Tony Blair, I tried to address in the book as well because I think that if Blair has an Achilles heel, it is his inability to understand why people have a lot of animosity towards him. And I actually think it's quite simple. Because if you want to have a proper Alice.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Again, I think often the comparisons and the echoes, the 90s made or have made on behalf of the 90s towards the 60s again are quite reductive. And I think that a lot of the echoes of culture in the 90s regarding the 60s were very knowing. People didn't do this in a vacuum and people's veneration and people like Paul McCartney or Ray Davis was not something that happened by accident and an understanding of cultural movement, particularly from one class to another was something that was acknowledged. And there were lots of funny tropes as well, but it's only when you get to things like the spice girls and Austin Powers where it becomes so ridiculous and so reductive that it kind of destroys the original kind of”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The short answer is no. I think that you can look at this period quite quickly as a snapshot and think that a lot of the iconography is about the celebration of our island. And I don't think that's true because a lot of that is a celebration of an echo, which is an echo of the 60s, where the union jack was an echo of the Second World War. And so I don't think those things are true. I think that Brexit is a far more complex issue driven by issues of economics and immigration and hardline politics, not least right-wing hardline politics. So I think culturally that's not the right assessment. Although that's certainly an important thing to discuss and it's important thing to ask. And as you say, it does get discussed in the book. But I think it gets kicked into touch quite quickly.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I hope so. I think there were some people you talk about the way that John Savage and Jarvis were kind of circumspect about what they felt was a certain kind of nationalistic vibe to what was happening. I mean, they thought that at the time. That's not hindsight. And actually Nick Hornby with fascinating talking about the way that sport developed in the 90s. But then he was partially responsible for it. I think it's a combination of Rupert Murdoch and Nick Hornby in two very different ways who are responsible for the way the appreciation of football changed in this country. Not least by becoming more middle class. But I think particularly Nick's case, that a lot of his ideas were formed at the time because he created fever pitch and that was one of the most important literary events of the decade and remain so.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, it did because, and this doesn't always happen. I suppose part of the reason of doing the book is to redeem it, not redeem it in a grand way. That sounds very pompous, but I wanted to get the recollections and the testimonies of lots of people who were there, who I felt had been done a disservice by, like I say, a lot of very pural television programs. And also I learned a lot. You know, if you interview 100 people about a finite period, you do tend to learn a lot and journalistically that was invaluable.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The inequities of society have become very black and white. I think that a lot of those people perhaps wouldn't have had the same kind of channels available to them now or 10 years ago. I think the huge exodus of young artists from London say in the last five or six years to principally the south coast, people just can't afford to live here anymore. And those pockets of creativity, those little sort of villages and ghettos and communities, they're not as powerful, I don't think, as perhaps they used to be when we were all in lockdown. I think one of my sort of vain hopes that we were talking about is what London needs in particular is for lots of young people to come back to London and start breaking things. That's work. He comes from”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wouldn't say it was the very last period where the country thrived, but certainly there were periods during the 90s that did feel very, very optimistic, which is one of the reasons why it was so culturally important. But what is certainly true, and Alan mentioned this and also Noel mentioned it, it was one of the last times where there was a genuine wellspring of working class talent. And that certainly changed.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The early 90s period, in some respects, mirrors the early 80s because as Damien Hearst talks, And I think it was Miranda who was Miranda or Tracy. I can't remember who there was a few people who talk about this very particular thing. And obviously the protagonist would hate to be called Thatcherite. And their whole thing, the antagonism was based around the fact that, well, we're young, we're motivated, we're connected, we can make things happen. But there are a lot of people, a lot of people from the places we come from, the class that we come from, that can't do that, that don't have any kind of safety net. And that's what they were angry about. But it was very much in opposition to a stagnant Tory government. I mean, very sweetly, I did interview John Major and he very, very sweetly tried to take ownership of Corp Britannia. Good”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Cheap cocaine I mean, in the same way that pop culture is driven by drug, you look at the 50, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, they all have their own drugs and cheap cocaine and cheap travel certainly contributed to the way that culture developed in the 90s. The whole Steve McQueen was brilliant talking about cheap travel actually. Again, that was something that hadn't occurred to me quite so much until Steve decided talking about it. And it's true there was not only a sense of Sort of a cultural and liberation, narcotic liberation, but literally you were able to go to Paris or Prague or wherever in a way that you didn't 10 or 15 years earlier. However, I think that to return to something that we touched upon earlier, a lot of what happened culturally in the UK in the early 90s as a response to Thatcherism.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was almost like an unwritten kind of feeling. It's like we've got to have as much fun as we can before it all ends. It sounds crazy, but that was very much something that came out because it was a very, very, very hedonistic time. I know things happen for a reason.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Who I first met in the 90s, kind of fascinating because her take on it was she had a brilliant ability to be macro and micro at the same time, especially talking about your colleague Gavin Hills, who I know that you knew very well. But one thing that became very pertinent as the book grew, and I interviewed over 100 people for the book, is that this was the last analog decade. This was the last decade before every time you did something you'd have a smartphone shoved in your face or else you were shoving it in your own face for the purposes of publicity. And that's something that had occurred to me when I started, but it became such a dominant part of the book because everyone talked about it. Because I think in connection with that, you also had a sense that we were kind of rushing towards the end, not just the end of the decade, but the end of the century.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and that clash of opinion and the interim mingling of narratives is vital. And it's interesting. Some people were far more circumspect than I expected them to be. And others were far more passionate. And talking to someone like Miranda Miranda Storm”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think it's all of those things. I could have taken, I could have done the decade chronologically rather than thematically. I could have organized it in various different ways, but I tried to tell it in a journalistic way that had some momentum that also had some veracity. And the book's got a long tail. I mean, there's quite a large chunk of the book, which is about the legacy and where that whole period took us culturally and politically, mainly culturally. It was an organizational journalistic conceit in order to make the book as readable as possible. Because when you're trying to squeeze an entire decade into a book, I didn't want it to be facile. I needed it to have a strong narrative. And doing it thematically like that, I hope works.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's very much a work of journalism. I've written a lot about the 80s. I seem to. In the 90s, even though I touched lots of these worlds, I wouldn't claim to be a protagonist at all. And in some respects I was a voyeur because I was a professional journalist and I knew lots of those people, but I certainly didn't know all of them. But I like the way that I can sort of dance and have one foot in and one foot out. But there were lots of, you know, there are lots of people in here I hadn't met before or lots of people I knew sort of lightly or fleetingly and other people I knew very well but I like that mix”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I wanted that person to tell me about X, and that was the only person who could tell me about X. But other times you just say Y or how was it for you? Or you try and let people talk? Because the other thing is, I think that all of these people have very particular experiences. And you can't be conceited enough to think that they have had the opportunity to recount those experiences in the way that they might for your book. Or I suppose you hope so. Tony Blair was really interesting. I did a lot of these interviews during lockdown. And so people were in a, perhaps they had more time, but maybe some people are feeling more vulnerable than they normally would have done. Blair was fascinating and very forthcoming and quite funny. And I felt that he was very open. Alistair Campbell was interesting, but Alistair's always interesting. He tends...”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because it was a posthumous book, it was a book that was done after he died. A lot of the people I wanted to interview, I didn't know. I mean, a lot of the people I did know, which was fine and most of them said yes. But a lot of the people I needed to be in a book, I didn't know. So that first communication is really important. That first communication where someone they don't know is contacting them to talk about a friend and sort of icon, professional colleague, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, I very quickly and sincerely have to convince them that I'm not an ambulance chaser. And you can't, I can't be conceited enough to think, well, they're going to know who I am, so it's all going to be fine. You think exactly the opposite. So I think when you're interviewing people, I think the other important thing is you ask open-ended questions unless you need, like sometimes I would say, well, just tell me about X.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Whole bunch of people actually. Courtney Love was fascinating. Courtney, I think, opened up because she knew I was coming from, I think the important thing is people understanding that you're coming from a good place. People don't want to talk to you. They don't want to talk to you. They don't like what you do. They don't like what you stand for. They don't want to talk about the period. That's fine. You can't take that personally. And I found this out when I was doing the Bowie book. A lot of my...”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wanted Noel Gallagher to tell me the war stories, so it's the tent pegs of the game. With Noel, you know you're also going to get a lot of other stuff too because he's going to contradict himself. He's going to contradict other people. He's going to contradict me. And he's going to have his very own specific views. So yeah, so I suppose what I was searching for is twofold. People to tell the sort of the tent peg stories and also to embellish those stories with things that I simply didn't know.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Brit pop or cool Britannia, they just envisage a kind of union jack and they run screaming for the hills because they think that in some respects it's a precursor to Brexit, that it was very nationalistic, et cetera, et cetera. I don't think either of those things are true, but they are they have become sort of top notes, if you like. But to answer your question, I find it fascinating from a personal and professional point of view, which kind of is the same thing, I think, in the end, is because of people's recollections, because sometimes you are asking someone a question in the hope that they're going to give you the answer you want. Another time it's completely the opposite. I mean, sometimes, for instance, when I was interviewing Noel,”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One of the joys of doing an oral biography, and as this is now the third one, I've just finished a fourth one, but this is the third one I published, is listening to people's recollections because... It wasn't so long ago. I mean, it's 30 years ago, but not so long ago. But in a macro micro way, people's recollections are very different. You can interview six different people who were in one room and all their recollections will be different. But not only are their recollections different, but the way in which they remember those situations, they all have completely different context. And I think that a lot of people Have distance themselves from the 90s because of the way that the decade has been played out. And you can speak to some of the protagonists and as soon as you mention”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That I genuinely think that the 90s were an extraordinary creative period, which, as I say, has been demonized because people think of the 90s as the terrible third oasis album, the much fourth series of the fast show, the death of Diana leading into the Iraq war. So everything gets condensed and is reduced to soundbites. So I want to try and, I suppose.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“She sort of denies it officially. Her taste and his wherewithal which created extraordinary collection. So I spent a lot of time tracking her down and I'm very grateful for her talking to me. Yeah, so from that respect I wanted to look at that through a different lens, strong female lens. And I didn't want to deny the whole aspect of Brit Pop at all, but I wanted to try and make it less hysterical. And I think a lot of the commentary about Brit Pop has become very hysterical, as has the commentary about Corbitannia in general. And I think that Corbett Tagna has become kind of synonymous with new labor, which is kind of crazy because it happened in opposition to a Tory government before the Labour government got into power. And plus, I think it has a very long tail.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think that if you take two of the strongest sort of cultural themes of the 90s, which is Brit Pop and the YBAs, I think they've been documented so many times and so often that the very idea of both of them has become quite reductive. And I wanted to try and tell the story of the YBAs through a different lens. If you read Tracy's interviews and I interviewed Tracy a lot for the book, if you read her testimony, it's a lot less celebratory than I has been understood. I think that she calls out a lot of the sexism and a lot of the media attacks. Also, I wanted to speak to Doris Sachi, who is someone who was never spoken to and has almost been written out of history. And she, along with her husband, Charles at the time, were responsible for the first Saachi collection up in St. John's Wood. And even though she will...”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wanted to do the book because while there are a lot of very bad television programs about the 90s, there are very, very few good books. And I think you can look at most periods of in the narrative arc of post-war pop culture, and there will be at least half a dozen very good books about any particular period or any particular artist. And the 90s, I thought, was crying out for another voice.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Include there are the notable people, the people who are very closely associated with an era that you have to include in some way, whether through direct interviews or archive material. Then there's a second group of people who tend to get ignored whose voices deserve to be heard, who aren't always heard. And then there are the third group of people when you're talking to someone, when you're interviewing someone and they say you must talk to Kevin. And you go, well, who the hell's Kevin? And you endeavor to find and interview Kevin. And so there are sort of a third of any of these books. There's a lot of Kevin's. And when I decided to do the book about the 90s, I very much wanted to do that format because it's a format that I'm very comfortable with. I've had a bit of success with and it seems to work with the way that I write. And secondly,”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The motivation for the book, I suppose, is twofold really. I did a book on David Bowie, which was an oral biography, and I enjoyed the form of that. I enjoyed the way that it was to use your word. There was a sort of chorus of voices and it allowed me to explore his narrative in ways, in different ways that weren't traditionally done. And I did a book on the neuromantic period a couple of years later using the same format. And I enjoyed it because it was a way for me to write about a period, but also to include those voices that often don't get heard because I think that when you're doing any book like this, whether it's a particular person or whether it's a period, there tend to be a kind of number of people that you have to”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hi everyone, Connor here. If you don't know already, we have launched Intelligent Squared Premium for bonus content, early access listens, and exclusive extras, just head to IQ2 Premium.supercast.com or see the link in the episode description. And if you're an Apple podcast person, hit subscribe for the bonus extras from your podcasts app too. Thanks again for all your support.”
2022-12-02 · Intelligence Squared · Were the 1990s Britain’s Coolest Decade? with Dylan Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT