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 …
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From the 1950s onwards the United Kingdom has produced many extraordinary music icons in the arenas of pop, rock and more. The rise of these British music icons, both bands and solo artists, is chronicled throughout our newspaper Archive. And so, in this special blog, we’ve delved into our Archive to bring you early reviews of Britain’s biggest bestselling music artists. From Shirley Bassey to Duran Duran, from Kate Bush to the Rolling Stones, we’ve picked 42 music icons to …
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As Christmas is once more upon us, and the world slowly starts to go back to normal after several years of lockdowns, Christmas parties are again back in vogue. It got us wondering here at The Archive how the Christmas party has changed and developed over time. Naturally, we turned to our newspapers to discover more, learning how the key components of food, drink and music have always been part of historic Christmas celebrations. So in this special blog, we …
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‘Sea shanties are having a great vogue right now,’ reports the Leeds Mercury in January 1927. The writer may well have been describing the sea shanty trend of the present day, as the haunting harmonies of traditional sea shanties once again have captured the popular imagination. And one hundred years ago, during the 1920s, sea shanties were also incredibly popular. You could listen to them on the radio, or on your gramophone, and they were even performed by MPs. Sailors turn the capstan …
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Ever wondered what happens behind the scenes at The British Newspaper Archive? We sat down with Product Director Ian Tester to find out who he is and what he does. What does your job involve? I’m responsible for growing the business in all its myriad forms. My role covers marketing, building a better product, tweaking the pricing, choosing newspapers that we think will be of most interest and generally keeping everything running smoothly. Less excitingly, it also involves balancing …
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Hector Berlioz was born at La Cote-Saint-Andre (near Grenoble) on 11 December 1803. A massive Shakespeare fan (and literature in general), England’s Bard was a major muse for Berlioz, and he composed several works based on Shakespeare’s plays. The Archive contains 100s of interesting stories about Berlioz, including reports about the five times when he lived and worked in England. So to celebrate the day, here is a very favourable newspaper review (published in The Manchester Courier in 1839) of …