Introduction

Hello you. Make a cup of tea, put a record on. Welcome to The A to Z of Britpop, your introduction to the bands, music and characters that defined the most exciting genre of the 1990s.

In this article we discuss The Boo Radleys: restlessly inventive outsiders who veered from shoegaze abstraction to Britpop’s awkward centre stage.

This, as always, is then.

The Boo Radleys – Origins & era

Formed: 1988, Wallasey
Active Years: 1988–1999, 2021–present
Associated Genres: Shoegaze, dream pop, Britpop, noise pop, indie rock, neo-psychedelia
Record Labels: Action, Creation, Rough Trade, Columbia

How it started

Formed in Wallasey in 1988, naming themselves after the reclusive character in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Released debut album Ichabod and I in 1990 on tiny label Action, all fuzz and ambition.

Signed to Creation Records in 1991. The follow-up, Everything’s Alright Forever (1992), lodged them firmly in the shoegaze crowd, but they already had much bigger ideas.

Band members

Simon Rowbottom – Vocals, guitar
Tim Brown – Bass, keyboards
Rob Cieka – Drums, percussion

Former members:

Martin Carr – Guitar, vocals, keyboards
Steve Hewitt – Drums

Definitive lyric

“Wake up, it's a beautiful morning” – Wake Up Boo!

Signature sound & style

Started out drenched in feedback and reverb, somewhere between My Bloody Valentine and Ride. But Carr’s restless songwriting quickly outgrew the genre.

By Giant Steps, they were blending brass, psychedelia, dub and sun-stroked harmonies into something far stranger.

Then came the heel turn. Wake Up! in 1995 sounded like a band chasing chart success, and briefly catching it, with a smile they didn’t quite mean.

Defining moment

“Wake Up Boo!” hit the Top 10 and soundtracked every godawful ITV breakfast segment for the next five years. Suddenly The Boo Radleys were Britpop, whether they liked it or not.

Full album discography

Ichabod and I (1990)
Everything’s Alright Forever (1992) – UK No. 55
Giant Steps (1993) – UK No. 17
Wake Up! (1995) – UK No. 1
C’mon Kids (1996) – UK No. 20
Kingsize (1998) – UK No. 62
Keep on with Falling (2022)
Eight (2023)

Essential listening

Lazarus (1993) – A sprawling, blown-out epic that perfectly captures the ambition and madness of Giant Steps.

What the press said

“If ever a group were deserving of rehabilitation, it is the Boo Radleys. In that grim time, when if you didn't like grunge all you had was Suede or Cud, they synthesised the many factors that had made the Liverpudlian musical past so great.” – BBC, Daryl Easlea

Where are they now?

Reformed in 2021, minus Martin Carr. Released new material that still shows flashes of their old defiance.

Carr moved on to a solo career as Bravecaptain. The others dipped in and out of music, real life and the occasional reunion gig. None of it felt like a cash grab, which is something.

The Boo Radleys in a sentence

Awkward, brilliant and forever stuck between scenes.

See you on down the road.

Boo Radleys (The)