I have a confession to make. Not long ago I joined an indie music group on Facebook. At first it was an opportunity to reminisce over neglected Britpop B-sides or impress people with the fact that I’d heard of The Jasmine Minks, but after a while it was the heated arguments about genre and canon that became both hilariously petty and horribly addictive. Group members would set out inflexible rules for what bands, scenes and albums should be regarded as properly indie that rivalled the Treaty of Versailles for complexity (and effectiveness). Did indie strictly mean independent or was it a particular sound, style or spirit? What happens to a band deemed indie who move to a major label and make their greatest record? Are they written out of indie-history (or indstory) because they turned their backs on a 4-track recorder and a drummer who was permanently out of time? Such disputes are of course completely pointless yet kinda fun at the same time.
The use of the term alternative rather than indie in this three part spectacular is deliberate then. There can be multiple alternatives to something whereas independent feels more tied to a particular set of circumstances. These albums are both highly influential and of high quality and the level of both of these facets is considered in the subsequent rankings.
The other big question about an idiotic enterprise like this is where do you start? If alternative rock is a slippery beast at the best of times then attempting to trace a starting point is equally foolhardy. Many would opt for the late 60s and the emergence of The Velvet Underground and The Stooges; others would point to the scorched earth iconoclasm of Punk and The Sex Pistols in the UK and The Ramones across the pond. I don’t claim 1980 as a lodestar for alt-rock or indie but it did deliver two albums crucial to the emergence of the genre as a whole (although you will have to wait until part 3 to find out what they are) and so it seemed as good a place to start as any.
There may be few surprises here and nothing goes beyond the opening years of the 21st century - Fontaines DC and Wolf Alice may be all very well but they simply haven’t had the benefit of time for any long-term judgement to be made - but I hope you enjoy the well-intentioned ramblings and aren’t too scandalised by number 21.
Part Two: http://roundthelist.blogspot.com/2021/07/my-little-underground-30-essential.html?m=1
Part Three: http://roundthelist.blogspot.com/2021/07/my-little-underground-30-essential_11.html?m=1
30
PULP
Different Class (1995)
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a musical movement with brazen ambitions to reshape the mainstream, Britpop really stands or falls on the glitz and swagger of its anthemic singles. The era’s albums have worn less well; Definitely Maybe - lionised as the future of British rock at the time - now feels lumpen and crass, Blur’s Parklife is an intriguing yet ultimately hyperactive mess and even the majestic Dog Man Star’s more pompous moments now sound a bit silly rather than toweringly grandiose. Different Class stands out in part because of Jarvis Cocker’s lyrical acuity - the excoriating Common People is still the sharpest pop diatribe of the 90s - and in part because it’s so deliciously nasty. For every feel good mega hit like Disco 2000 or Misshapes there is the stalker’s lament of I Spy, the sinuously creepy Pencil Skirt or the spectral chill of F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E. Despite this the album would make Cocker a louche national treasure and usher in the even darker This is Hardcore; proof, if any were needed, that Britpop’s true legacy wasn’t sunny laddism but sinister suburban kink.
29
DEPECHE MODE
Violator (1990)
In the space of a decade Depeche Mode went from peppy new wave synthpoppers to greasy purveyors of brooding electro-goth and the public loved them for it. When Violator was released in LA a record signing ended in a riot due to the slavering hordes of rabid fans that descended whilst the success of its quartet of spectacular singles appeared ample evidence of an ability to bridge the gap between radio friendly pop hooks and a monolithic work of leather jacketed menace that would ordinarily have breakfast DJs blowing into a paper bag. Martin Gore’s lyrical skills may be almost as facile as Bernard Sumner’s but Dave Gahan’s stentorian vocals, the haunted, inventive arrangements of its finest songs and a general aura of dirty, dangerous sexuality mark this out as the Depeche album you really should not be without.
28
THE STROKES
Is This It (2001)
As if gearing up for a massive musical kiss off to Y2K the last three years of the 20th century were an indie wilderness with only a handful of quirky troubadours from Belle and Sebastian to Neutral Milk Hotel fending off the unwanted attentions of a slew of faceless dance acts. The revolution, when it came, harked back to the glory days of CBGB and spindly riffs recycled from Blondie, yet The Strokes carried it off with such nonchalance and boho cool that it felt as fresh as a daisy. That may however be an inappropriate metaphor for an album of artfully scuzzy new wave slivers such as the all-conquering Last Nite, relentless Hard to Explain and raucous New York City Cops and where lead singer Julian Casablancas sounds like he’s literally phoning his vocals in via a knock off Nokia. There were others in the vanguard of course, not least the thumping retro blues of The White Stripes, but Is This It has the tunes, the pose and the charm and for that it remains nigh on untouchable so far this century.
27
JANE’S ADDICTION
Nothing’s Shocking (1988)
An album cover boasting two naked female Siamese twins with their heads on fire. A seven minute rock-funk opus centred on notorious US serial killer Ted Bundy followed by a charming ditty about pissing on yourself in the shower. The sophomore LP from Perry Farrell’s band of Sunset Strip freaks may have been a stranger to good taste and earnest songcraft but there’s nothing wrong - nor necessarily shocking - about that. At a time when LA’s premium hair metallers Guns N Roses were unleashing Appetite for Destruction, Jane’s Addiction fused cock rock and art rock into a heady brew knotted together by the incendiary guitar playing of Dave Navarro. Nothing’s Shocking was gaudy and excessive yet the band’s chops were so accomplished and their sideways take on contemporary culture so idiosyncratic that the preening indulgence felt more Stones or Dolls than Whitesnake or Van Halen. And when Farrell dropped in devastating changes of pace such as the swirling steel drum power ballad Jane Says or the psychedelic meditation Summertime Rolls into the mix, they left pallid imitators like the Red Hot Chili Peppers trembling in their hedonistic wake.
26
ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN
Ocean Rain (1984)
By the time of their fourth album, Echo and the Bunnymen had ridden the wave of post-punk through bedsit pop to knowing goth to full on rock melodrama. Ocean Rain contained elements of all three styles but crystallised them into a big, shiny whole that felt as fluid and slippery as the LP’s titular precipitation. Above all it’s a record packed with great songs, whether keening with bucolic promise like Silver, wrapped up in Halloween camp like Nocturnal Me or trembling with sublime power like the title track. And then of course there is The Killing Moon, the song that Bunnyman-in-chief and all round incorrigible big-head Ian McCulloch regards as the greatest ever written. Such a supposition is, of course, nonsense but the track is still a marvel of atmosphere and enigmatic thunder that provides the perfect centrepiece to a record rich in endearing charity shop romanticism.
25
THE REPLACEMENTS
Let It Be (1984)
The US Hardcore Punk scene of the early 1980s could be called many things - groundbreaking, intense, austere (particularly it’s hair shirt Straight Edge sub genre) - but lovable is not one of them. Minnesota’s Replacements started out as identikit thrash and squall merchants but by the time of their third album lead singer and songwriter Paul Westerberg was kicking against both the musical and lyrical constraints of the genre. It’s cheeky title a tacit acknowledgment that not even the Fab Four were sacred, Let It Be still possesses the frenzied attack of We’re Coming Out and the obnoxious punk of Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out and Gary’s Got a Boner, but interspersed with the rollicking party tunes are sensitive, fragile ballads like Unsatisfied and Sixteen Blue which demonstrate a winning vulnerability that cast Westerberg as the perennial misunderstood rascal - not to mention the startling Androgynous, whose empathetic lyric of gender fluidity was nearly four decades ahead of its time.
24
DINOSAUR JR.
You’re Living All Over Me (1987)
Brits may revere Johnny Marr and John Squire as plectrum wielding deities non pareil but your average American slacker will point with much justification to J Mascis’ two bone-shattering solos in alt-rock classic Freak Scene before lethargically dropping the metaphorical mic. Freak Scene resides on Dinosaur Jr’s third album Bug but it’s their sophomore long player You’re Living All Over Me that really captures the Massachusetts combo in all their swampy, aw-shucks glory. You can hear the building blocks of grunge being sloppily cemented together on the epic Sludgefeast whilst Little Fury Things and In a Jar layer frantic, ragged riffs across disarming melodies and Mascis’ plaintive vocals. The laconic axeman’s future nemesis Lou Barlow pitches in with the giddy Lose and experimental closer Poledo but this is Mascis’ record; a gargantuan, muddy ejaculation of guitar heroics which so awed Sonic Youth they wrote a song about him being installed as President.
23
NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998)
These days any underfed hipster with a copy of Sunshine Superman can graft on a suitably Dadaist band name and get their mellotron infused nu folk album studio time. But back in 1998 the singular musical excursions of Jeff Mangum’s Neutral Milk Hotel raised more than a few eyebrows, allowing a devoted cult following to grow around its strangely arranged vignettes of two headed boys and kings of carrot flowers. Inspired by an emotionally cathartic reading of Anne Frank’s diary, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is a breathtakingly complex jigsaw puzzle of memory, revelation and Salvation Army horns delivered with the strained howl of a man who understands that all the bizarre imagery of his opus makes perfect sense if you just surrender yourself to its internal logic. Oft imitated but never equalled, this is a twisted phantasmagoria where each fresh listen yields an esoteric new gift.
22
PRIMAL SCREAM
Screamadelica (1991)
By rights Screamadelica should’ve been dead in the water by the time it came out in September 1991. Technique, Fool’s Gold, the Second Summer of Love all lay twitching in a lysergic haze of days gone by whilst all the cool kids were either battling through their fringes to see their effects pedals or channelling their angst through oversized plaid. Yet the perennially shape shifting Scream somehow contrived to craft the ultimate fusion of loose limbed classic rock and euphoric acid house, co-opting along the way soundbites from Easy Rider and the Reverend Jesse Jackson as well as a gloriously woozy take on The 13th Floor Elevators’ Slip Inside This House. The titanic loping beats of Loaded, the blissful carnival of unity that is Come Together, Movin’ On Up’s gospel-tinged pop savvy; all these and more blended into a genre-bending whole that has endured where a million glow sticks and Smiley Face t-shirts have withered and died.
21
U2
The Joshua Tree (1987)
Small wars have been fought over less contentious issues than whether or not U2 have ever been regarded as alternative rock. It’s an easier case to make for the martial post-punk of their early years but arguably there were still vestiges of experimentation and cussedness clinging to their cinematic attempt to remake a battered Americana in their own image. After The Joshua Tree they were incontrovertibly the biggest band in the world but the epic soundscapes of their 1987 masterpiece - powered largely by The Edge’s chiming guitar and Bono’s gothic preacher schtick - fused the earnestness of Springsteen with the theatrics of the Bunnymen delivering huge windswept anthems like Where the Streets Have No Name and With or Without You with unwavering zeal and commitment. And just when it all feels a little too polished for comfort they pull the stunning volte face of the album’s closing two tracks; the stark serial killer lament of Exit and the impossibly fragile hymn to bereft Argentinian matriarchs, Mothers of the Disappeared. Remember them this way.
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