The Rise and Fall of ...

As Tony Wilson once told Newsweek Magazine in 1990 - "If there is any idea at all, it is about community and collective strength. There is power in people being lovely to each other." It might be more than 30 years ago but today, Madchester both made its mark and left its mark. Madchester did more than just transform the music of its own city – it rewrote the rule book on how a movement could emer...

In 1995, after five years of court cases, silence and mounting expectation, The Stone Roses are finally back. The Second Coming has been released, and a Glastonbury headline slot awaits. Then on a rare day off in America, guitarist John Squire falls from his bike and breaks his collarbone. The momentum snaps. Meanwhile, Britpop storms the charts. Blur and Suede set the tone and Oasis inherit Manch...

Barbados was supposed to save them. In early 1992, The Happy Mondays are flown to the Caribbean to record their next album. Fresh from the success of Pills ’n’ Thrills and Bellyaches, this should be consolidation. Instead, Shaun Ryder drops his methadone at Manchester airport, the studio fills with smoke rather than songs and the budget disappears pound by pound. A sun lounger is sold for drugs. B...

1990 does not begin quietly. London burns during the Poll Tax riots. Strangeways prison erupts in Manchester. Margaret Thatcher stands outside Downing Street for the last time. Britain is shifting politically, socially and culturally. At the very same moment, Madchester explodes into the mainstream. The Happy Mondays release Step On as smoke rises over the city. Ecstasy fuels a new chemical confid...

By 1989, Manchester is no longer underground, it is now unavoidable. Baggy jeans, bucket hats and loose jumpers become a uniform. Market stalls and record shops replace boutiques and fashion houses. The look travels as fast as the music and the city has found its silhouette. The Happy Mondays record Bummed in a blur of ecstasy and mischief, then quietly redraw the indie rulebook by handing a track...

In 1985 two Manchester bands release their first records on the very same day. The Stone Roses and The Happy Mondays barely register beyond the city. They are promising, scruffy… and largely ignored. But elsewhere in Manchester, something far more seismic is taking shape. In community halls, tower blocks and semi-legal parties, imported house records from Chicago and Detroit begin changing the tem...

March 1983. New Order take to the stage on Top of the Pops to perform their new single, Blue Monday. The machines misfire, the sequencer slips and Bernard Sumner glances upwards as if waiting for help that never comes. On national television, it looks like chaos. Within weeks, Blue Monday becomes the biggest selling 12 inch single in British history. Inside the Haçienda, the early nights are spars...

Manchester in the late 1970s is a city in retreat. Industry is collapsing and jobs are disappearing. Whole neighbourhoods feel abandoned. Out of that stillness comes a stark, unsettling new sound. Joy Division capture the mood of a city that has lost its rhythm. Their music is tense, mechanical and unflinching. When Ian Curtis dies in May 1980, just as the band stand on the brink of America, it fe...

In the wake of their final show, the Sex Pistols split, torn apart by addiction, betrayal, and manipulation. John Lydon returned to London, disgusted. Steve Jones and Paul Cook escaped to Rio to record with fugitive Ronnie Biggs. And Sid Vicious, already spiraling, began his final descent in New York. This is the tragic coda to punk’s most dangerous band. From the Chelsea Hotel to Rikers Island, f...

By the end of 1977, the Sex Pistols sat at the top of the UK charts… while simultaneously hitting rock bottom. Sid Vicious was imploding, his partner Nancy Spungen was fuelling the chaos and Johnny Rotten was growing disillusioned with Malcolm McLaren’s toxic games. Still, the band pushed ahead with a final run of gigs, including an unexpectedly wholesome Christmas Day show for children of strikin...

After the chaos of their Jubilee riverboat stunt and the media storm around God Save the Queen, the Pistols were marked men. Attacked in the streets, vilified in the press, and hated by half the country, Britain’s most notorious band were now public enemy number one. But manager Malcolm McLaren had no intention of retreating. Amid rising paranoia, infighting, and Sid Vicious’s self-destruction, th...

1977, and as Britain prepared to celebrate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, the Sex Pistols were plotting something else entirely. Fresh from being dropped by two major labels, they signed with Virgin Records and unleashed God Save the Queen… a blistering punk anthem that tore into the monarchy and shattered British tradition. It was banned by the BBC, blacklisted from shops, and allegedly kept from re...

In the aftermath of the Bill Grundy interview, the Sex Pistols became Britain’s most notorious band, not for their music, but for the chaos that followed. To some, they were a threat to society itself, and instead of ignoring them, middle England lost its collective mind. Episode 4 of the Rise and Fall of Sex Pistols plunges into the wreckage of that moment: a UK tour collapsing date by date, sack...

In just three months, the Sex Pistols went from unknowns to the most feared band in Britain. After headlining the infamous 100 Club Punk Festival, they landed a major-label deal with EMI and released their debut single, Anarchy in the UK. Radio wouldn’t touch it, and record shops banned it. No matter, as within weeks the Pistols were on everyone’s lips… for an entirely different reason. Episode 3...

Britain in the summer of 1976 was hot, angry, on strike and broke; a country on the brink. In the shadows, four raw, unpolished young punks were limbering up on the sidelines, unaware of the impact they would make. From half-empty art school shows to now-legendary gigs at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall and London’s 100 Club Punk Festival, Episode 2 takes you inside the band’s earliest and mos...

“Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” spat a deflated Johnny Rotten before walking off stage in San Francisco. The Sex Pistols were finished. One album, a handful of singles, and a trail of chaos that changed British music. But where did it all begin? How did a green-haired kid from Finsbury Park, nearly killed by meningitis and raised in poverty, end up fronting the most incendiary band in...

So here we are, twenty years on... The UK indie guitar scene was a brief, bright moment where exciting new bands emerged from all corners of the UK, and made themselves available to fans. It was a time when young people controlled the culture and left the major record labels in the dust. It was an intoxicating era of community, messiness and hedonism. And actually, there is a hunger for all of tha...

Just six action-packed years after the start of the UK indie sleaze music scene, The Word magazine coins the derisory term “Landfill Indie” to describe the oversaturation of guitar music, turning the entire genre into a joke. Major labels are falling over themselves to sign the next big indie thing, but many of these hopefuls aren’t ready for the limelight. And audiences seem ready for a new, enti...

The UK indie guitar music scene hits the tabloids. Johnny Borrell, Pete Doherty and Luke Pritchard partner up with A-List celebrity girlfriends. Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse become unhealthy media obsessions. And most shockingly of all, Preston from the Ordinary Boys goes on Celebrity Big Brother and actually has a great time. This red top frenzy builds to a messy crescendo that includes phone hac...

What’s a music scene without fighting and feuding? Brace yourself for Art Brut versus Bloc Party, Razorlight versus The Kooks, and The Libertines versus themselves. With all the booze, drugs, and partying, things are bound to get messy. Especially at the notorious NME Awards, where Ryan Jarman of the Cribs has a near death experience. Featured interviewees include Luke Pritchard, Johnny Borrell, E...

2005 to '06 is the pinnacle of UK Indie Sleaze, as Razorlight, Arctic Monkeys, The Kaiser Chiefs and The Kooks well and truly take over the mainstream. Scrappy guitar bands are now dominating the BRIT Awards and playing to an audience of 2 billion at Live 8. But with success comes the inevitable backlash... Featured interviewees include Johnny Borrell and Luke Pritchard Presented by Kate Nash Prod...

A new tribe is born: The Indie. You can spot an Indie a mile off. They are in skinny jeans, scarves, and trilbies, in a random configuration designed to look as dirty and debauched as possible. The early internet - MySpace and band forums - solidifies this fun new scene, and breaks down barriers between artist and fan. 'Guerilla Gigs' become a thing, with spontaneous shows sprouting up in funeral...

Now that being in a band is cool again, and now that grotty indie guitar music seems a viable career choice, every corner of the UK sprouts an exciting new group ... or two, or three. Glasgow's Franz Ferdinand seize the moment, winning the Mercury Music Prize. They are the undisputed early leaders of this new scene-without-a-name, setting a tone that is unashamedly artistic and literate. And also...

Noughties UK indie music was iconic, fashionable and thrilling. These days the kids call it 'Indie Sleaze', although at the time there was no cohesive name for the collection of bands - from Franz Ferdinand to The Libertines, The Long Blondes to The Cribs, Bloc Party to Razorlight, Arctic Monkeys to The Kooks - that erupted from all corners of Britain. These young artists exploded with attitude, t...

It's the moment so many people had been hoping for - Oasis are back. Steve and Jo reunite to tackle the biggest musical story of the year, the return of Noel and Liam. But what do we know about the reunion so far? Presented by Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley Written and produced by Paul Sheehan and Phil Smith for BBC Audio