Cool Cymru


Cool Cymru was a Welsh cultural movement centred around music, independent film, and other artistic endeavours by young Welsh figures prior to and during the new millennium. It was highlighted in 1999 when the BBC announced that year as the "year of Cool Cymru".
The UK was at the time gripped by Britpop, but a distinctively Welsh culture would grow to compete, led by the popularity of bands such as the Stereophonics, Manic Street Preachers, Catatonia and the Super Furry Animals.

Socio-political context

The United Kingdom as a whole, and etymology

The prefix of the term, "Cool", was attributed to the general period of growth seen in the arts and music industries across the UK. The name derives from the English trend, named Cool Britannia, which was a pun on the title of the British patriotic song "Rule, Britannia!"
Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales.
Commentators have alluded to Cool Britannia and Cymru as a by-product of the widespread 1970s economic and social malaise seen in the United Kingdom, particularly affecting Wales following the closure of the South Wales Coalfield, and the Winter of Discontent. The South Wales Valleys had seen economic deprivation following the downturn, leading to high unemployment and social discontent.
The 1980s however brought initial optimism, with the Big Bang, and this was cemented by the 1997 election of the New Labour class led by Tony Blair. The Labour Party won a landslide election and positioned itself near to political devolution for Wales and Scotland, and a PR campaign which involved association with the UK arts scene and social engagement with figures in the Britpop movement such as Noel Gallagher. However some have debated whether Labour were merely positioning themselves to benefit from the popularity of the arts, rather than supporting it, and some have instead referred to how Conservative Party politicians instead were the first to refer to the notion of 'Cool Britannia'.

Welsh identity

Author Iain Ellis attributes some of the attitude behind Cool Cymru figures to the perception that Wales had, for much of the 1960s and 1970s, been 'perennial underachievers' of the Union, stuck with "old-fashioned crooners" like Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones while England was represented across the globe by Beatlemania, The Rolling Stones, and The Who.
Ellis describes how "Scotland and Northern Ireland awoke to the call of punk, post-punk, and indie rock", from international names like Primal Scream, Average White Band, the Bay City Rollers in Scotland; and The Undertones and Van Morrison in Northern Ireland.
In contrast he describes how Wales had "a largely barren rock history". This perceived inadequacy, Ellis argues, spurred the rebellious and unconventional direction of pioneers like Cerys Matthews and Richey Edwards.
Wider political developments had taken to the fore in the 1990s, such as S4C taking a widened remit in the Broadcasting Act 1990, commercial sponsorship of the National Eisteddfod of Wales reaching over £1 million for the first time ever, the construction of the Millennium Stadium, the redevelopment of Cardiff Bay, the establishment of Newport Riverfront Arts Centre, and the wider political and architectural construction which followed the 1997 Welsh devolution referendum. First Minister Rhodri Morgan was also a keen advocate for the Welsh arts.

Wider culture

Wales in the 1990s was enjoying a particular period of international prominence. Its reputation was heightened by the performances of sporting individuals such as Joe Calzaghe, Ryan Giggs, and Scott Gibbs, as well as the notorious headlines generated by figures like Howard Marks.
Actors of prominence included Ioan Gruffudd, who appeared in Solomon & Gaenor, as well as Rhys Ifans and Anthony Hopkins who both appeared in the Chekhov tale August, and Llangefni born Huw Garmon who starred in the Oscar nominated Welsh language film Hedd Wyn.
1997 saw the release of House of America, and that same year Newport-born director Julian Richards released Darklands.
A particular figure of the era was the Kevin Allen produced black comedy Twin Town which holds cult status in Swansea and internationally. It showed Wales' second city in a then-controversial light of "excessive profanity, drug-taking and violence as the order of the day", and provoked the outraged response of Liberal Democrat MP David Alton who railed against the show as "sordid and squalid, plunging new depths of depravity."
The era is aptly represented in the 1999 coming of age independent film Human Traffic which was hailed for its provoking social commentary and the use of archive footage to provide political commentary while depicting the club scene and drug-fuelled weekends of young people in Cardiff.
The Guardian in a 2004 review of Cool Cymru described a road map of the scene as a "proud nation of footballer Ryan Giggs, movie star Catherine Zeta-Jones, clothes designer Julien Macdonald, rappers Goldie Lookin Chain and, to a lesser extent, Rhys Ifans and Huw Edwards."

''Cool Cymru'' exhibit

Llanelli born photographer and artist Terry Morris was close to events and figures in the era, and as a result managed to document much of the decade. His book and exhibit was titled Cool Cymru, launched at the Wales Millennium Centre and opened by Charlotte Church. The series later became a three part television documentary by Llanelli-based Tinopolis.

Music culture

Conscious and unconscious Welsh-ness

Iain Ellis describes his interpretation of Welsh music developments of the era as forming two "poles":
Self consciously Welsh Acts
To Ellis, Super Furry Animals, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, and Catatonia were "ambitious beyond their borders", yet "asserted national identity by integrating Welsh language songs into their repertoire".
Neither eschewing nor celebrating Welsh Acts
In contrast stood Manic Street Preachers, Stereophonics, and Mclusky, who "saw its identity more through musical genre than geography. Neither eschewing nor overtly celebrating their Welsh roots, these bands implicitly looked beyond their borders, indeed any borders."

Stereophonics

The Stereophonics' debut album, Word Gets Around, was released in 1997, and the band drew attention when they became the first to sign for Richard Branson's V2 Records. The album went on to receive acclaim, with its asking of potent questions for 1990s young people in Wales, including the line from Traffic:
"Is anyone going anywhere?
Everyone’s got to be somewhere."
Stereophonics - "Traffic"
Tackling the topic of youth unemployment was also a focus of the era:
"I don’t live to work,
I work to live,
I live at the weekend."
Stereophonics - "Last of the Big Time Drinkers"

Super Furry Animals

Ellis describes Gruff Rhys' psychedelia driven art as "the heart and soul of the "Cool Cymru" movement", yet he acknowledges it was the act's resonance with the "London-based Britpop movement and its attendant media" which helped its growth, thanks to their dissonance with the more standardised acts of the era such as Oasis. The group famously reached number 11 in the UK charts in 2001, to much surprise given the presence of a full ten Welsh language songs on the album.

Welsh Music Foundation

lead singer Huw Williams, who helped raise the profiles of 60 ft Dolls and Catatonia, co-founded the Welsh Music Foundation, a now defunct Government supported organisation which in the Cool Cymru era was praised for raising the profile of Welsh music internationally and at home. The organisation is credited with individual successes such as the growth of Lostprophets and Mclusky, as well as bringing BBC Radio 1 on its first visit to Wales for Sound City in Cardiff.

Cool Cymru revival

Amid the growth of Welsh Language Music Day, Horizons Gorwelion, Sŵn Festival, Tafwyl, and the wider proliferation of contemporary independent Welsh musicians, the BBC has asked whether Cool Cymru is back. Huw Stephens addressed the idea in his BBC Radio 4 programme, Cymru Rising.

Notable musicians

Groups

Actors and actresses

Authors