New Year’s Eve is always identical with either drunken hours with your best mate or warm BBQ party with family, or anything else related with togetherness involving people you love and booze flowing endlessly. Too mainstream? OK, here’s one edgy way to enjoy NYE in a different way, lay in bed, put the lights out and be alone with these Britpop tunes that guaranteed will wrench your lonely heart!
1. “I’m So Lonely” by Cast
Taken from their platinum 1997 album Mother Nature Calls, no need for other statement to strengthen the message, since the title itself already explains how desperate the attempts of calling someone back, and surely no one will ever comeback for you though.
2. “Seasick Yet Still Docked” by Morrissey
The ticking clock, the breezy midnight feeling throughout the flowing song, the guitar strum and the repetition of hopelessness in being attractive to the one you love written in the lyrics; those are the key elements of painful loneliness delivered by the only gloomy song in Your Arsenal album.
3. “No Distance Left To Run” by Blur
An ultimate Damon – Justine’s break-up song. It was surprising back then to get this tune at almost the end of Blur’s fuzzy, full-effects yet not-so-easy-listening 13 (compared to their 1997’s self-titled album). But to recall that it was about the end of an almost 10 years long relationship, it’s understandable to hear Damon beseeching “When you see me, please turn your back and walk away..” in a harmoniously dragging tune.
4. “Fake Plastic Trees” by Radiohead
“But I can’t help the feeling, I could blow through the ceiling, if I just turn and run..” blends perfectly with this shopping-cart race inside an empty colorful supermarket scene. And that Hammond melodies following you through the song’s outro will wear you out.. It wears you out..
5. “The Wild Ones” by Suede
Just right before you press play to this masterpiece from Dog Man Star, set the volume into maximum so that you can hear the mixture of Bernard Butler’s guitar intro combined with strings for few seconds and bam! Brett’s voice singing “There’s a song playing on the radio..” gets in, and brings you an instant chilly feeling inside. Both song and video will leave you the same aftertaste.
6. “I Wish I Was In Love” by The Lightning Seeds
Inside a Lightning Seed’s electronic spree album Tilt, they didn’t forget to put an element of flowing song full of melodic synth combined with Ian Broudie’s made layered voice.
7. “I Know It’s Over” by The Smiths
Alright, this is actually not a song from Britpop era, but because Morrissey wrote the song, let me put it as the ultimate heartbreak to end this list. It’s such a distinct act by The Smiths to release this song within those post-punk era, when being a lad in Manchester is about being ultra-macho, never talk about your sad feelings, a tough cookie without any possibility of whining to your mum desperately saying “Oh mother I can feel the soil falling over my head..” Scrutinize through the whole explicit lyrics from beginning to end, and Johnny Marr‘s brilliant guitar picks highlighting from “It’s so easy to laugh it’s so easy to hate..” so on to the very last second of the track. This, mate, is the saddest song ever made.
Got enough dosage of misery? Now wipe those tears away, 2015 is knocking on your door.