This week at The Archive we have reached a landmark 78 million pages, as we explore 1995‘s Battle of Britpop, played out between bands Blur and Oasis. We’ve added one brand new title this week, Scottish newspaper the Ellon Times & East Gordon Advertiser, with 441,915 pages added in all over the last seven days. Meanwhile, we’ve updated 26 of our existing titles, from across England, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Before we move on to take a look at the Battle of Britpop, a key moment in British music history, we’ll take some time to explore our new title of the week, and also highlight some of our updated titles.

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Our new title of the week hails from Ellon, a town in Aberdeenshire. It is the Ellon Times & East Gordon Advertiser, a relatively new arrival on the publishing scene. So much so, it could even be termed as a millennial newspaper, having been founded in 1990.

The sister paper of the Buchan Observer and East Aberdeenshire Advertiser, the Fraserburgh Herald and Northern Counties’ Advertiser and the Inverurie Herald, the Ellon Times & East Gordon Advertiser is a weekly tabloid newspaper that appears every Thursday. In its early days, it cost 23p, and it still serves Ellon and the East Gordon area of Aberdeenshire, incorporating the villages of Auchnagatt, Collieston, Balmedie, Cruden Bay, Formartine, Mathlick, Newburgh, Pitmedden, Tarves and Udney Green.

The Ellon Times & East Gordon Advertiser is published to this day, dubbing itself as ‘your local newspaper.’ It is committed to bringing its readers ‘all the latest news, sport and opinion in Ellon.’

Before we get on to taking a look at the Battle of Britpop in August 1995, we just wanted to highlight some of our updated titles for you this week. This week sees extensive updates to some of our Northern Irish titles, with a range of eighteenth and early nineteenth century pages joining the Belfast News-Letter, whilst over 10,000 brand new pages join both the Larne Times and the Londonderry Sentinel.

Other substantial updates this week are to the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph and to the Shields Daily Gazette, with updates also to some of our Scottish titles, including the Arbroath Herald and the St. Andrews Citizen.

The Battle of Britpop – Blur Versus Oasis

Emerging in the early 1990s, Britpop was a movement amongst British rock bands that focussed on bright guitar-based alternative rock. By 1995, it was truly a phenomenon, reaching its zenith in the so-called ‘Battle of Britpop,’ which saw two Britpop heavyweights, the bands Blur and Oasis, going head to head for the number one spot.

On 14 August 1995 the Battle of Britpop began, with Blur releasing their single Country House, and Oasis also releasing their single Roll With It. The Battle of Britpop even reached the pages of the local and regional press, with the new pages added to the Shields Daily Gazette outlining the rivalry a few days later on 16 August 1995 in its television preview.

The Shields Daily Gazette showcased its choice for ‘Tonight’s tv,’ focussing on a BBC programme called Britpop Now. Hosted by Blur frontman and lyricist Damon Albarn, the show was set to introduce ‘a who’s who of the current British pop scene.’ Albarn explained how Britpop bands had ‘helped this country’s music find its voice after the passing of American grunge.’

The piece also addressed the Battle of Britpop, detailing how ‘Blur perform latest single Country House, which was released on Monday – the same day as arch rivals Oasis’ Roll With It.’ Somewhat unsurprisingly given Blur’s position front and centre on the show, their rival band were excluded from the bill, with Elastica, Pulp, Boo Radleys and PJ Harvey all making an appearance alongside Albarn and his bandmates.

It would be Damon Albarn and Blur who were victorious in this particular Britpop battle. But perhaps Oasis had the last laugh in the Britpop war of 1995 as their second album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory, which was released in October 1995, became (at the time) the second-fasted selling album in British history.

Find out more about Britpop, the history of music, and much more besides, in the pages of our Archive today.

New Titles

Updated Titles

This week we have updated 26 of our existing titles.

You can learn more about each of the titles we add to every week by clicking on their names. On each paper’s title page, you can read a free sample issue, learn more about our current holdings, and our plans for digitisation.

You can keep up to date with all the latest additions by visiting the recently added page.  You can even look ahead to see what we’re going to add tomorrow.