Louise Wener | |
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 at the Great Escape Festival in 2023 (by Paul Hudson) | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Louise Jane Wener |
| Born | 30 July 1966 |
| Origin | Gants Hill, London, England |
| Genres | Indie rock, Britpop |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, writer |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals, guitar |
| Years active |
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Louise Jane Wener (born 30 July 1966, Gants Hill, London, England) [1] is an English writer, singer, songwriter and guitarist of the band Sleeper.
Wener is the younger daughter of Donald Wener, an Inland Revenue tax inspector from East Ham who had served in the RAF, and Audrey ( née Dixon), a bank clerk and former nurse. Wener attended Manchester University where she met Jon Stewart which led to the formation of Sleeper. [2] Her elder sister was the writer Sue Margolis. Their brother, Geoff, managed Sleeper after attending Cambridge University. [3] [4]
Sleeper recorded three full-length albums prior to splitting: Smart , The It Girl , and Pleased to Meet You . After the band split up in 1998, Wener began a writing career, [5] and has written four novels: Goodnight Steve McQueen, The Big Blind (also known as The Perfect Play), The Half Life of Stars, and Worldwide Adventures In Love. Her autobiography, Different for Girls: My True-life Adventures in Pop (also known as Just For One Day: Adventures in Britpop), was published in June 2010. Wener co-wrote a BBC Radio 4 drama series, Queens of Noise, with Roy Boulter of The Farm. It ran for two five-programme series in the 10.45am Woman's Hour drama slot, focusing on the rise of a fictional indie band, Velveteens. [6]
In addition to writing herself, Wener has taught novel-writing. With her partner, Sleeper drummer Andy Maclure, she formed another band, Huge Advance, although they only played in and around their residential suburb of Crouch End. [7] By 2011, she and Maclure had married and moved to Brighton, where Maclure teaches at a music college. [8] They have a son and a daughter. Wener has written an article about motherhood for The Guardian . [9]
Sleeper reformed in 2017 to play in four British cities in July and August as part of the Star Shaped Festival. [10] They went on to headline an eleven-date tour in 2018. [11] The band have since recorded two new albums, The Modern Age , [12] [13] released in March 2019, and This Time Tomorrow, released in December 2020.
In 2021, Wener teamed up with the Greater Manchester indie band The Lottery Winners to record "Bad Things", an R&B-laced indie-pop track from the Leigh band's eight-track EP Start Again (with "Bad Things" being credited to The Lottery Winners feat. Sleeper, rather than featuring Louise Wener). [14] [15] [16]
Britpop was a mid-1990s British-based music culture movement that emphasised Britishness. It produced brighter, catchier alternative rock, partly in reaction to the popularity of the darker lyrical themes and soundscapes of the US-led grunge music and to the UK's own shoegaze music scene. The movement brought British alternative rock into the mainstream and formed the larger British popular cultural movement, Cool Britannia, which evoked the Swinging Sixties and the British guitar pop of that decade.
Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in the early to mid-1980s. Although the term was originally used to describe rock music released through independent record labels, by the 1990s it became more widely associated with the music such bands produced.
Alternative rock is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s with the likes of the grunge, shoegaze, and Britpop subgenres in the United States and United Kingdom, respectively. During this period, many record labels were looking for "alternatives", as many corporate rock, hard rock, and glam metal acts from the 1980s were beginning to grow stale throughout the music industry. The emergence of Generation X as a cultural force in the 1990s also contributed greatly to the rise of alternative rock.
The Auteurs were a British alternative rock band of the 1990s, and a vehicle for songwriter Luke Haines. Several bands influenced by the Auteurs have taken their names from the band's songs. The Polish band Lenny Valentino name is derived from a song on the Auteurs' album Now I'm a Cowboy and Valet, a band based in Minneapolis took its name from the song "Valet Parking" from another album, New Wave.
Sleeper are an English rock band formed in London in 1992. The group had eight UK top 40 hit singles and three UK top 10 albums during the 1990s. Their music was also featured in the soundtrack of the pop cultural hit movie Trainspotting. The band split up in 1998, but reunited in 2017.
John David Robb is an English musician and journalist best known as the bassist and singer for the mid-1980s post-punk band the Membranes.
Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Brit Pop is a 2003 documentary film written and directed by John Dower. The documentary is a study of popular culture in the United Kingdom during the mid- to late 1990s. The focus of the piece is the main movement in British popular music during that time, which came under strong media attention and was dubbed Britpop.
Smart is the debut studio album by English rock band Sleeper, released on 13 February 1995 by Indolent Records. It was mixed by Stephen Street. The album's sleeve photo is of the Mercury Seven astronauts. A 25th anniversary deluxe edition was released in 2020 on both vinyl and CD. The CD version has 10 extra tracks.
Black Sessions are performances of live music broadcast on the French radio station France Inter. They are recorded in front of a live audience and feature on the C'est Lenoir show. The name is a pun based on the name of their creator, Bernard Lenoir, translated literally as "Bernard the black"
"Sale of the Century" is a song by Britpop band Sleeper, written by the band's vocalist/guitarist Louise Wener and drummer Andy Maclure. In Europe, "Sale of the Century" was the second single to be released from their second album The It Girl in 1996 and became the group's first top ten hit on the UK Singles Chart.
"Nice Guy Eddie" is a song by English Britpop band Sleeper, written by the band's vocalist and guitarist Louise Wener. It was the third single to be released from their second album, The It Girl. It peaked at number 10 on the UK Singles Chart.
"Statuesque" is a song by Britpop band Sleeper, written by the band's vocalist and guitarist Louise Wener. "Statuesque" was the fourth and final single to be released from Sleeper's second album The It Girl and became the group's last top twenty hit on the UK Singles Chart.
"Swallow" is a song by English Britpop band Sleeper, written by the band's vocalist and guitarist Louise Wener along with band guitarist Jon Stewart, and produced by Paul Corkett. "Swallow" was released as the band's debut single and the follow-up to their debut extended play release, Alice in Vain.
"Delicious" is a 1994 song by English Britpop band Sleeper, written by the band's vocalist and guitarist Louise Wener along with band guitarist Jon Stewart, and produced by Ian Broudie of the Lightning Seeds.
"Inbetweener" is a song by English Britpop band Sleeper, written by the band's vocalist and guitarist Louise Wener. It was the third single to be released from their debut album Smart in 1995. It was their breakthrough single, crashing daytime radio playlists and reaching number 16 on the UK Singles Chart.
"Vegas" is a pop-rock song performed by English Britpop band Sleeper, written by the band's vocalist and guitarist Louise Wener. In March 1995, it was released as the fourth and final single from Sleeper's debut album, Smart, where it followed the success of "Inbetweener" by peaking within the UK top 40. The single release of "Vegas" was backed with a number of specially recorded B-sides, including a cover of the Pretenders "Hymn to Her".
The Lottery Winners are an indie pop band from Leigh, Greater Manchester, England. The band was formed in 2008 by Joe Penny (vocals/guitar), Robert Lally (guitar/vocals), Katie Lloyd (bass/vocals), and Joe Singleton (drums).
Susan Linda Margolis was an English novelist. She is best known for Neurotica (1998) and Apocalipstick (2003).
"She's a Good Girl" is a song by Britpop band Sleeper, written by the band's vocalist and guitarist Louise Wener. "She's a Good Girl" was the first and lead-in single for Sleeper's third album Pleased to Meet You and became the group's seventh top forty hit on the UK Singles Chart.
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