C86 to C94 Listening Club - 14 Iced Bears - 'Wonder' - Post #1204

Music
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Would anyone be interesting in participating in an album listening club for indie music circa 1987-1993? There’s not a huge amount of chat about pre-Britpop stuff on here, but I think there’s a few of us who like that kinda stuff.

Yes you would. Great - ok, it’s one album a week nominated and then chat away and do a vote at the end etc.

Leaderboard
Th’ Faith Healers - ‘Lido’ - 8.89
Leatherface - ‘Mush’ - 8.5

Spacemen 3 - ‘Playing with Fire’ - 8.25
Swervedriver - ‘Mezcal Head’ - 8.14
The Charlottes - ‘Things Come Apart’ - 7.92
The Boo Radleys - ‘Giant Steps’ - 7.87
Throwing Muses - ‘House Tornado’ - 7.69
Ned’s Atomic Dustbin - ‘God Fodder’ - 7.65
McCarthy - ‘I Am a Wallet’ - 7.64
Pop Will Eat Itself - ‘This Is The Day, This Is The Hour…This Is This!’ - 7.6
The Shamen - ‘En:Tact’ - 7.6
Kitchens of Distinction - ‘Strange Free World’ - 7.56
808 State - ‘Ninety’ - 7.47
The Wonder Stuff - ‘The Eight Legged Groove Machine’ - 7.42
The Fall - ‘I Am Kurious Oranj’ - 7.41
House of Love - ‘House of Love (1988)’ - 7.14
Therapy? - ‘Nurse’ - 7.13
The Field Mice - ‘For Keeps’ - 7.11
Julian Cope - ‘Peggy Suicide’ - 7.11
New Fast Automatic Daffodils - ‘Pigeonhole’ - 7.08
A.R. Kane - ‘69’ - 7
Basti - ‘B’ - 7
Bettie Serveert - ‘Palomine’ - 7
Earwig - ‘Under my Skin I Am Lauging’ - 6.89
Mega City Four - ‘Tranzophobia’ - 6.89
Renegade Soundwave - ‘In Dub’ - 6.89

Carter USM - ‘1992: The Love Album’ - 6.82
The Hummingbirds - ‘LoveBUZZ’ - 6.73
Cud - ‘Leggy Mambo’ - 6.71
Microdisney - ‘39 Minutes’ - 6.33
Gallon Drunk - ‘From the Heart of Town’ - 6.2
Teenage Filmstars - ‘Star’ - 5.88
Poisoned Electrick Head ‘The Big Eye Am’ - 4.36

Our Indie Top 20 Vol.1

1 Th’ Faith Healers - ‘Love Song’
2 Leatherface - ‘Dead Industrial Atmosphere’
3 Swervedriver - ‘Duel’
4 The Charlottes - ‘Liar’
5 The Boo Radleys - ‘Lazarus’
6 Ned’s Atomic Dustbin - ‘Kill Your Television’
7 McCarthy - ‘Way of the World’
8 The Shamen - ‘Hyperreal’
9 Kitchens of Distinction - ‘Drive That Fast’
10 808 State - ‘Pacific 202’
11 The Fall - ‘Big New Prinz’
12 House of Love - ‘Christine’
13 Julian Cope - ‘Safesurfer’
14 The Field Mice - ‘Coach Station Reunion’
15 A.R. Kane - ‘Baby Milk Snatcher’
16 Renegade Soundwave - ‘Thunder’
17 Mega City Four - ‘Severe Attack of the Truth’
18 Cud - 'Robinson Crusoe
19 Microdisney - ‘Gale Force Wind’
20 Poisoned Electrick Head - ‘Bobby Simpson’

Our Indie Top 20 Vol.2

1 Spacemenr 3 - ‘Revolution’

2 Throwing Muses - ‘Juno’
3 Pop Will Eat Itself - ‘Def Con One’
4 The Wonder Stuff - ‘Unbearable’
5 Therapy? - ‘Teethgrinder’
6 New Fast Automatic Daffodils - ‘Big’
7 Basti - ‘Sticky’
8 Bettie Serveert - ‘Kid’s Alright’
9 Earwig - ‘Every Day Shines’

10 Carter USM - ‘The Only Living Boy in New Cross’
11 The Hummingbirds - ‘Tuesday’
12 Gallon Drunk - ‘Arlington Road’
13 Teenage Filmstars - ‘Loving’

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That’s my era. ‘Indie Music 1987-1993’ is pretty vast as a category though. My listening would be bands from labels like Homestead, SST, Touch & Go, Flying Nun on top of all the C86 stuff. You might want to narrow down a bit? Maybe stick to UK stuff initially?

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Sounds like the Late-Gen X listening club. I’m in :grin:

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I’ll jump in :grin:

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My era, so sure

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It’s just a very wide theme that would allow anything from that time to be suggested. I’ve big gaps in what I’ve heard from the labels you’ve mentioned there as, yep, I’m mostly into UK stuff so that’d be great.

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I’d be interested. If only Mega City Four’s best albums were were on streaming…

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Ah, yes, there may be an issue there. I’m just on my old MP3s but we’ll make that a condition that it needs to be on the old Sp*tify at least.

Guess we can do Sebastopol Rd or Magic Bullets though :slight_smile:

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How does everyone feel about starting up on 3rd November? I’m on holiday just before that and it’ll give time for everyone who’s interested to see this.

I’ll nominate an album for that week and then we can go week about after that if you like?

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How many people are in? If it’s not many, could we have everyone nominate an album each week for a given year, starting with 1987 and lasting 7 weeks, or is that too ambitious and too many albums to listen to? Not gonna lie, I’m not going to listen to anything by The Shamen or Faith No More.

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Not sure we’ll get any more, so 7 is probably okay. I was just going to make it a cycle to be honest - some people might prefer the 1993 end and others might prefer the 1987 end. And, also, not going to be too prescriptive - if someone wants to go for a 1982 album that’s in the same ilk then cool.

Entirely up to you what you listen to too. You never know, you might like the Shamen’s stuff from before they went dancey :slight_smile:

I mean, if anyone nominates something from the boring blues bastard end of grunge then I won’t bother with it either.

Just a fun club that might open up some new stuff to people and allow us to discuss it :slight_smile:

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Fair comment on Shamen. I just really, really hated everything about Ebeneezer Goode :grinning:

I was thinking if we only have about 6 people then everyone nominates an album every week, so we have about 40 albums in total to listen to in a 7 week period, which I guess is too much for most (I can listen to music at work).

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An album a week is more than enough I think :face_with_monocle:

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There are so many genres and scenes between these years, even if we stick mainly to the UK/Ireland. These were my musical formative years, 13-19, which makes the difference between 1987 and 1993 feel like a chasm.

I was into Chicago House/Detroit Techno in 88/89, so many compilation tapes doing the rounds, and the UK’s response through the Second Summer of Love/Rave felt - at least to me - like our generation’s punk movement. Then there’s what came after, that really fertile period, with Orbital and Warp’s bleep phase etc.

Like a lot of people, I got into indie/alternative through the bigger names. New Order, The Cure, The Smiths and Depeche Mode always felt like the ‘big four’. I started reading the NME/Melody Maker from around early 89, and felt like I’d stumbled upon the UK indie scene. Maybe it was just a quieter period, idk, but it wasn’t until Madchester/Baggy that the music papers seemed to champion any particular UK thing that hard… they were more in awe of Sonic Youth. Bands like The House of Love and Spacemen 3 were reasonably big, and the twee stuff on Sarah Records seemed to get decent coverage. Would love to explore that post-C86 world a bit more.

Grebo seemed to gain traction around the same time as Madchester. I remember heading off to Sixth Form College and there were loads of Ned’s, PWEI and Carter USM t-shirts on show. Shoegaze was massive and I fell hard for pretty much every band going. Then there were the pre-Britpop year(s) with some very individual artists, like PJ Harvey, Stereolab and Spiritualized. Also the early-Britpop of Suede and The Auteurs, even Blur’s Popscene and MLIR.

One genre (it isn’t really) I’d love to champion, though, is this one:
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/friday55/post-rave-indie-dance/

And that’s just for starters… I know plenty of folks are into heavier music, which I tend to overlook, and if we head to the USA there’s shedloads we could cover… I’d be more than happy with Pixies, Throwing Muses, The Breeders and Belly appearing in the club, for example.

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I’m 3 years younger than you but this is EXACTLY where I was and am coming from with this - will be a pleasure to work with you :smiley:

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Yes, to make clear, it’s one distinct nomination by one member per week and we just discuss that leisurely throughout the week :slight_smile:

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100% with you on post rave indie dance!

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Is this happening?

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LCD Soundsystem are outside the scope of this thread.
Sorry.

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I was referring to The Paisley Lemoncups debut album on Sarah Records in 1988. I’ve no idea who LCD Soundsystem are.

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