Cool Britannia
Cool Britannia was a name for the period of increased pride in the culture of the United Kingdom throughout the mid and second half of the 1990s, inspired by Swinging London from 1960s pop culture. This loosely coincided with John Major's conservative government and the 1997 United Kingdom general election where Tony Blair's New Labour government won in a landslide. The success of Britpop and musical acts such as the Spice Girls, Blur, and Oasis reflected a renewed feeling of optimism in the United Kingdom following the tumultuous years of the 1970s and 1980s. The name is a pun on the title of the British patriotic song "Rule, Britannia!"
Origins of the term[edit]
Etymology[edit]
The phrase "Cool Britannia" was coined in 1967 as a song title by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band (specifically, the first song in their debut album Gorilla) and contained the lyrics, which referenced the song "Rule, Britannia!": "Cool Britannia, Britannia you are cool/Take a trip!/Britons ever, ever, ever shall be hip".[1] The phrase "Cool Britannia" reappeared in early 1996 as a registered trademark for one of Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavours which mixed vanilla, strawberries and "fudge-covered shortbread". Channel 4 had a magazine show called "Cool Britannia" in 1996 and 1997.[2]
Media use of the term[edit]
According to American journalist Stryker McGuire, the "Cool Britannia" term started to become prominent in the 1990s as a shorthand metaphor to reflect the British economic rise during the decade. In 1996, McGuire wrote a cover story for Newsweek attributing this rapid economic development to the Thatcherite policies of the 1980s, titled "London Rules"; in the article, London (which had been one of the most heavily impacted cities by the recent economic developments) was proclaimed by Newsweek to be "the coolest city on the planet". Though McGuire had never used the phrase "Cool Britannia", he noted in a 2009 Guardian article that the Newsweek story use of the word 'cool' "launched a thousand 'Cool Britannia' ships".[3]
The election of Tony Blair in 1997 marked a change in tone from the previous Prime Minister, John Major.[4][5] Blair, who liked to draw attention during his election campaign that he had been in a rock band called Ugly Rumours while in university, invited high-profile musicians to 10 Downing Street for photo opportunities.[6]
Other similar phenomena: