Thanks to the record-breaking live return of Oasis, this has been a year heavy on Britpop nostalgia. But did anyone expect 2025 to include a rerun of the notorious Blur-versus-Oasis battle of August 1995, where the two bands dominated multiple media cycles by releasing head-to-head singles in a race to the top of the charts?
History doesn’t repeat, but, like a good chorus, sometimes it rhymes. So almost exactly three decades on from that Britpop ding-dong, it is tempting to frame a similar rivalry between two cinematic bands vying for your eyeballs as well as your eardrums. The films they feature in could not be more different.
One is a caffeinated animated movie aimed at tweens, soundtracked by state-of-the-art synthetic pop. The other is the lugubrious sequel to an improvised rock mockumentary classic that leans heavily into an already heavy-sounding back catalogue. But these contrasts are what make pitting the musical stars of KPop Demon Hunters and Spinal Tap II: The End Continues against each other so compelling.
It’s east versus west, pop versus rock, young versus old, streaming versus cinematic release, the future versus the past. In this week’s Big Issue, we dive into the battle.
What else is in this week’s Big Issue?
Britain is burning. But we can still extinguish the chances of a more flammable future
More than 46,000 hectares of land have burned across the UK so far this year – a national record, equivalent to an area the size of Nottingham. Across Europe, more than one million hectares have gone up in smoke; the worst wildfire season since records began. What can we do about it?
Lifetime ISAs are meant to help young people onto the property ladder. But there’s a catch
Young people can get up to £1,000 from the government each year towards buying their first home by putting their savings in a Lifetime Individual Savings Account (LISA or Lifetime ISA). For the majority of first-time buyers, it gives them a leg-up to the property ladder by boosting their deposit savings. But it’s not working for everyone.
