The Battle of Britpop: A timeline of the greatest week in chart history
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The victor
Then the moment came – August 20th rolled around and a winner had to be declared. At a time when the importance of the weekly chart, and especially people’s interest in it’s results, was beginning to dip, this battle reignited excitement for one brief moment.
It was genuinely tense as neither band actually knew who would kick into the lead. As a time where both were at the top of their game, even in the singles in question weren’t their strongest, there was no clear answer as to who might take the crown.
In an attempt to calm their genuine nerves around it, Blur did their usual routine; playing Sunday football in Regents Park. Half way through the game, their label executive, Andy Ross, showed up and in Albarn’s memory, the revelation was a semi anti-climactic one, telling NME, “Andy turned up completely pissed so I knew we’d won.”
In the end, ‘Country House’ sold 274,000 copies while ‘Roll with It’ trailed behind at 216,000.
