#80

steve spacek

#81

Yeah, the third one is definitely the weakest of the first four - it’s still very good and has a few major high points (Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby, Speedway, St. Robinson in His Cadillac Dream) but is kind of missing something.

I highly, highly recommend giving Hard Candy a shot though. Maybe it was a right time, right place album for me, but I think it’s kind of a secret masterpiece.

#82

Oh yeah, agreed, they completely sterilized themselves. They became so glossy.

There’s still a decent amount of good or even great post-Swoon material at least, but yeah, one of the most disappointing trajectories I can think of for a band.

Underrated post-Swoon song here, just ignore the opening lyrics.

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#83

Pat Benatar

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#84

Tom McRae

#85

All these comments about Silversun Pickups just reminds me of Silver Sun, the one single band I can’t believe never crossed over into being huge. I mean, that debut had everything and now they’re not even the most remembered band with with words ‘silver’ and 'sun in their name

It’s worth listening to the debut Silver Sun album again. It still rules. The production is unbelievable.

#86

I’ll See You Around is a massive tune tbf.

#87

Jim Steinman. Yeah, he’s not the coolest guy in the room But I have a long-standing admiration for a dude who just can’t do anything except be HUGE and ridiculous and go to extremes.

CV as writer/producer includes: Bat Out of Hell, Total Eclipse of the Heart, All Out of Love, I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That) Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through (which he recorded by himself because Meat Loaf wouldn’t do it - the album version is amazing - it fades out and then comes back in with only vocals). and ‘It’s all Coming Back to Me Now’ by Celine Dion. All bonkers over-the-top maximalist theatricality that you can totally attribute to his style.

He also produced This Corrosion by Sisters of Mercy, which is nuts, and Never Forget by Take That, which everyone remembers as their swansong even though it wasn’t. I guess to many people he is the Michael Bay of music, but I kind of like that

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#88

Studio’s West Coast is fifteen years old this year. There won’t be any deluxe remasters or box sets. It’s an album that never troubled the charts or the arbiters of cool. I can’t even remember how I came across it. There’s no origin story, no great rock n roll myth, to the band. They were just two guys from Sweden who thought it’d be a good idea to make an album that sounded like Can, Neu, Happy Mondays and The Cure dancing together in the rays of the rising sun somewhere in the Balearics. Somehow they pulled it off and gave us this gem, effortlessly pretty disco, krautrock, dub, and indie pop replayed through a sun kissed filter without falling into generic Cafe Del Mar blandness. Perhaps that makes it sound like Record Collection Rock, a faithful ticking off of the approved influences, but to think that would be to miss just how invitingly lush and lazy, blissful and beautiful, this music is. These are long hypnotic tracks that somehow stay the same while shifting and reinventing themselves like old Underworld records used to do, all delay and echo, off kilter afrodub rhythms, synth washes and trebly guitars. Music to get lost in.

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#89

I will always love him for his involvement with The Sisters Of Mercy. He did this one for the girls as well, which should tick all your ridiculous bombast boxes.

It showed up again on the last Meat Loaf album just a year or two ago. It wasn’t as good then.

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#90

Oh I love Studio. Their two ‘Yearbook’ albums deserve a place in history as two of the best compilations of an artists work ever. For me, their remix of Love is All’s ‘Turn the Radio Off’ is not just one of the best remixes of all time, but one of my favourite tracks ever released. I often play it at house parties, and it without fail, gets people’s interest. I hate the fact I have to explain 'err it’s a remix of a Swedish band that nobody really loved, but an amazing Swedish due that er… are not that famous either - It should be the opposite!

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#91

Yeah! Yearbook 1 and West Coast are basically the same thing. I’ve never known a band with a discography that is so tiny yet so complicated. This is my favourite of their remixes, just utterly gorgeous

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#92

I presume there still is, but that time 2007/2008 there was so much cool stuff coming out of Sweden. I also think about Andreas Kleerup’s debut album. He wrote and produced Robyn’s ‘With Every Heartbeat’ I think in Sweden it was released under his name - as well as this banger from the same album https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muHO3bWWvSQ

I think Daniel Lissvik from Studio still releases music as the name D.Lissvik or just Lissvik, but those two Studio albums transport me right back to those years when I listen to them and I get so nostalgic

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#93

I’ve just bought a copy of Yearbook 2 based on this thread.

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#94

Matthew Sweet. OK he’s become a bit of a heritage rock bore now, but Girlfriend is one of the most joyously brilliant alternative rock/power pop albums ever.

Anyone who loves Big Star/Teenage Fanclub would love him but he seems to be completely ignored.

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#95

Agreed. I was listening to ‘I’ve Been Waiting’ on the way to work this morning! That song is a jangle-pop classic. ‘Girlfriend’ is a great album, however, i haven’t listened to any of the others. Are they any good?

#96

Altered Beast and 100% Fun are both really good - very similar to Girlfriend (if not quite as perfect). There are diminishing returns after that to be fair.

#97

By chance I just found Yearbook 1 (which is West Coast+) whilst looking unsuccessfully for something else in my CD deep storage. Haven’t listened to it for ages - it’s great.

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#98

I actually really like In Reverse from '99 too. He was also a member of Velvet Crush at the time and made Free Expression with them which is also great.

Probably my favourite underrated power pop record is Beezewax’s South of Boredom (also from 1999 as it goes). Amazing Norwegian band but this is still their best - the Posies’ Ken Stringfellow produces too:

#99

Do Motorpsycho count? I’m pretty sure they’re huge in their home country, but you don’t really see them mentioned a lot. Absolutely astounding band

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