Saturday, February 09, 2008

Never mind the bowlcuts

No Rock And Roll Fun alerts us to the fact that Mojo has focused its obsessive taxonomic inclinations on shy boys with Paisley Rickenbackers, and concocted a list of the 50 Greatest UK Indie Records Of All Time:

50) Huggy Bear - Herjazz; 49) The Delgados - The Great Eastern; 48) James - Village Fire; 47) Swell Maps - Read About Seymour; 46) Camera Obscura - Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken; 45) Half Man Half Biscuit - Trumpton Riots EP; 44) The Wild Swans - The Revolutionary Spirit; 43) The Pooh Sticks - On Tape; 42) Fire Engines - Candyskin; 41) McCarthy - Keep An Open Mind Or Else; 40) Jane And Barton - It's A Fine Day; 39) Josef K - The Missionary; 38) Ride - Ride EP; 37) The Bodines - Therese; 36) Shop Assistants - Safety Net; 35) The Primitives - Really Stupid; 34) Saint Etienne - So Tough; 33) The Sea Urchins - Pristine Christine; 32) Elastica - Line Up; 31) Stereolab - Peng!; 30) The Wedding Present - George Best; 29) Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth; 28) New Order - Temptation; 27) Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out; 26) The Libertines - What A Waster; 25) The Loft - Up The Hill And Down The Slope; 24) The Vaselines - Son Of A Gun; 23) Aztec Camera - High Land Hard Rain; 22) Happy Mondays - Lazyitis (One Armed Boxer); 21) The Pastels - Up For A Bit With The Pastels; 20) Spacemen 3 - Revolution; 19) This Mortal Coil - Song To The Siren; 18) Lloyd Cole And The Commotions - Rattlesnakes; 17) Teenage Fanclub - Everything Flows; 16) Wire - Outdoor Miner; 15) Echo & The Bunnymen - Crocodiles; 14) Belle & Sebastian - Tigermilk; 13) The House Of Love - Destroy The Heart; 12) Subway Sect - Ambition; 11) Felt - Forever Breathes The Lonely Word; 10) Primal Scream - Crystal Crescent/Velocity Girl; 9) The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses; 8) The La's - There She Goes; 7) Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor; 6) Joy Division - Transmission; 5) My Bloody Valentine - You Made Me Realise; 4) The Fall - How I Wrote 'Elastic Man'; 3) Orange Juice - You Can't Hide Your Love Forever; 2) The Jesus & Mary Chain - Psychocandy; 1) The Smiths - This Charming Man

Well, if you really have to have such a list, it's not such a bad one, I suppose. And it does give me a chance to recycle my definition of indie: "Music that got picked last for football". And to plug my book yet again, of course, from which Amazon have deducted another 52 pee. See Chapter 24. It all makes sense.

7 comments:

patroclus said...

An impressive showing from the Scots there, if not (unsurprisingly) from the ladies. I actually approve of this list, especially as it has Lloyd Cole on it. Sometimes I think that Lloyd Cole is/was actually Britain's greatest ever songwriter.

The Curve said...

Who is missing: Cocteau Twins, A Certain Ratio, The Teardrop Explodes, Virginia Astley, The Weather Prophets, The Durutti Column, Super Furry Animals....

Good calls: Half Man Half Biscuit, The Wild Swans, Aztec Camera, The Loft and The Bodines...

Christ on a bike what were they thinking: Elastica, The Libertines, The Primitives and last and very definitely least, The Wedding Present.

Good, glad to get that off my chest.

Tim F said...

Plenty of Scots indeed P, although a good few good ones got left out. Lloyd C of course shows up both as performer and subject of a song (by the magnificent, and Scottish, Camera Obscura).

Good points, re admissions, Curve. I haven't seen the article itself - possibly they were trying to make the list as diverse as possible by only allowing singers a single bite of the cherry (thus, Mortal Coil so no Cocteaus; Loft so no W. Prophets).

More obvious is the near-absence of whole genres: no shoegazing, unless you count Ride; no Britpop, unless you count Elastica.

Still, a good starting point for a 'what is indie' chinstroker, I reckon.

Billy said...

Some of them are songs others are albums.

*confused*

Tim F said...

Yes, but they're all records, Billy. Or whatever the young persons are calling them now.

rockmother said...

What do the young people of today call them - sponsored downloads? Oh gos I suddenly feel a little old and from the jet age like Mark Lamarr.

Tim F said...

They don't have a specific word for them, because they've lost the power of speech. They simply have a particular intonation of grunt that can't be communicated in writing (not that that matters, they can't do that either).