The Mike Flowers Pops - Wonderwall

What this video is

Released November 1995 during the apex of Britpop's UK dominance, The Mike Flowers Pops' 'Wonderwall' reframed Noel Gallagher's Oasis smash as a lounge-orchestral showband number, exploiting the era's appetite for ironic nostalgia. BBC Radio 1's Chris Evans famously played it as if it were the original version, and the single reached #2 in the UK Christmas chart while the Oasis original was still charting,…

Why it matters

A landmark artifact of the mid-90s lounge revival and novelty pop tradition, this video illustrates how easy listening pastiche could simultaneously critique and celebrate Britpop hegemony. Its commercial success — Top 10 UK, Top 5 Denmark and Sweden — confirmed that ironic genre subversion had…

The director

Zowie Broach is a British creative who graduated from Plymouth College of Art (Fine Art) and Middlesex University (Fashion Textiles). She co-founded avant-garde fashion label Boudicca in 1997 with Brian Kirkby, which in 2007 became one of only a handful of…