“Shoegaze(r)” is more than an early-1990s English pop music genre. Come with me and explore the late 1980s and early 1990s on DDN-808AM … where shuffly beats, baggy trousers and fey looks are provided, plus complimentary NME.
I was a massive fan of the band when they first started getting airplay in Australia in 1990 (and yes, I’m absolutely on a nostalgia bent right now: must be something about reaching a certain age).
The format of the podcast is intriguing, if daunting: an episode devoted to each song the band released, with special bonus episodes about individual albums (12 in total so far) and EPs. Meaning they’ll be at it for years to come.
Crucially, each episode starts with a full broadcast of the song in question, which for the early EPs the band recorded may well be their first ever digital release. Episodes also feature interviews with the band, producers, rock luminaries, snippets of onstage banter and quirky (but fascinating) analysis of the drum tracks.
Right now, they’re wrapping up a series of posts devoted to the first Fauves EP I bought, The Scissors Within (1992). I used to listen to these six songs constantly, wrote poems inspired by the lyrics and music, and still think it stands up today as a well-produced and atmospheric record.
Funnily enough, Jon Bampton, one of the guys who produce the podcast contacted me recently via this website (probably in response to this post about the band’s early EPs) and asked if I’d like to guest on an episode or two.
We’ve now recorded hot takes of three songs the Fauves recorded for a compilation album, entitled Dress Ups, which also featured The Glory Box and Pray TV.
Anyway, check the podcast out if you’re into early-1990s OzRock nostalgia!
Crossposted on FaceCrack.
Preoccupations perform as a five-piece, possibly for the first time, on their 2022 European winter tour.
Yesterday I woke to the mildly interesting news that Indian pace bowler Mohammed Siraj struck an Australian batter, David Warner, on the helmet during a test match in Delhi. Under the game’s like-for-like concussion laws, another left-handed batter, Matt Renshaw, replaced Warner in the team.
As followers of Australian cricket know, this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. A few years ago, star batter and disgraced Test captain Steve Smith copped a blow to the head, too, during a test match against England, bringing Marnus Labuschagne into the team.
These two personnel changes had more or less dramatic effects: Labuschange has since gone on to become one of Australia’s most successful batters; while Warner’s absence from the team playing India in Delhi allowed Travis Head, the so-called Bogan Bradman, to open the batting with a modicum of success.
Today I woke up to the no-less-interesting but slightly depressing news that the Australian team had, despite yesterday’s final-session heroics by Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne, capitulated and lost the test match against India, with two days still left to play.
Size is not everything: just ask My Bloody Valentine
When I think about early-1990s indie, my mind immediately turns to a song by My Bloody Valentine, ‘Soon’. Originally released in 1990 on the Glider EP, it’s a swirling, strangely danceable mish-mash of deep grooves, shimmering guitars and barely-there vocals. It sums up the whole MBV vibe. And it’s also seven minutes long.
My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Soon’—this is the ‘radio’ video-only [h/t: Andrew in comments] edit of the song originally released on the Glider EP in 1990 and later remixed by Andy Weatherall (RIP).
For listeners who’ve grown up on free-form jazz or dub—or even Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation—a track of this length might seem trivial. To take one example, there are seven tracks on Miles Davis’ 1970 opus Bitches Brew, six of which clock in at 10 minutes or more. The title track alone is almost 27 minutes long.
In comparison, Wire’s debut album Pink Flag crams 22 songs into its exhilarating 35 minutes. The Pixies have only ever released one song that breaks the five-minute mark. Clearly, size is not everything. And in the context of pop, anything longer than three minutes could also be seen as extravagant.
Remembering My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Soon’
In the case of ‘Soon’, however, the surface-level extravagance quickly gives way to brilliance. Every second of ‘Soon’ is a triumph. From the opening snatches of faraway drum-machine sound effects through to the washes of guitar raining down on the massive fade-out, this is early-1990s indie at its absolute peak.
The front cover from My Bloody Valentine’s Glider EP, issued in 1990. Sleeve by Designland.
MBV have not issued a longer or better track, before or since—unless you count Kevin Shields’ own remix of ‘Glider’ which, coming in at 10:20, is surely the most pointless thing they’ve ever done. You could also count every live performance of ‘You Made Me Realise’ (complete, naturally, with ‘holocaust’-style instrumental break) but that would be cheating.
Apart from the towering edifice that is ‘Soon’, MBV are reasonably consistent in terms of song length. This is not to say that anything else about the band is predictable. For instance, 1991’s Tremolo EP lists four tracks but actually contains three unlisted ‘codas’. Oh, and there’s that 20-plus year gap between albums thing.
My Bloody Valentine, ‘Soon’: “the vaguest piece of music ever”
With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to think of ‘Soon’ as a remarkable and unusual piece of music. Who else would have the audacity to release such a song as a single? Brian Eno, in a 1990 lecture at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, apparently described it as “the vaguest piece of music ever to get into the charts”.
Even a glancing review of the song’s lyrics would seem to confirm Eno’s observation. Sing this with me, if you can (otherwise, just hum along):
Wake up Don’t fear I want to Love you Yeah (doll of pain) I let you get to me Yeah yeah
My Bloody Valentine, ‘Soon’ (lyrics by Kevin Shields)
Then again, as MBV’s Kevin Shields himself admitted in a 1992 interview, the ‘official’ lyrics (and therefore any online annotation of them) are a load of absolute gobshite:
These people don’t just not want to talk about their lyrics. They’ll go to any lengths to avoid people even knowing what the lyrics are. They’ve even got round the problem of letting their publishers see the lyrics.
“I give them the titles,” says Kevin. “Then a girl at Creation listens to the songs and writes down what she thinks I’m singing. And that’s what she gives them. They’re actually more her lyrics than mine. And some of the discrepancies are hilarious.”
When Bilinda [Butcher] is asked about this later she bursts out laughing and says she never knew that. She seems delighted at Kevin’s ingenuity. But she then refuses, even in the face of undignified journalistic begging, to reveal so much as the first line of ‘Loomer’ off the [Loveless] album. Kevin himself admits he has “absolutely no idea” what she is singing.
David Cavanagh, ‘3AM Eternal’, Select (February 1992)
Indeed, it now seems quite extraordinary that the Glider EP did as well as it did. Wikipedia tells us the EP reached #2 on the UK indie charts in May 1990. Think about that while listening to the extended version of the challenging title track and let me know what you think about the musical tastes of the British listening public at that time.
Perhaps another reason for the success of My Bloody Valentine’s Glider EP was its availability as a ‘specially-priced mini-cassette’, although I have no data on what that price actually was.
But speaking of the UK listening public, it would be wrong to assume that ‘Soon’ was the longest or even the most challenging piece of music inflicted on them back then. There were at least 20 longer songs by indie acts released at the time (see Table 1). Including, ironically, ‘Soon’ itself, which is two seconds longer than the version later included on the Loveless LP.
Table 1. 20 early-1990s UK indie songs that are longer than My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Soon’*
Rank
Band
Track (Year)
Length
Notes
1.
Swervedriver
Never Lose That Feeling/Never Learn (1992)
11:51
First appeared on the Never Lose that Feeling EP; later appended to the Mezcal Head LP.
2.
The Stone Roses
Breaking Into Heaven (1994)
11:21
The opening track from Second Coming.
3.
Ride
Grasshopper (1992)
10:56
B-side to ‘Leave Them All Behind’.
4.
Primal Scream
Screamadelica (1992)
10:46
Appears on the Dixie-Narco EP.
5.
My Bloody Valentine
Glider–Kevin Shields Remix (1990)
10:20
Appears on the 12″ version of the Glider EP.
6.
Primal Scream
Come Together (1990)
10:21
Album version, not to be confused with the 12″ Weatherall remix (10:12)
7.
Verve
Feel (1992)
10:42
Appears on the ‘She’s a Superstar’ single.
8.
The Stone Roses
Fools Gold (1989)**
9:54
Released as a double a-side, with ‘What the World is Waiting For’.
9.
Verve
She’s a Superstar (1992)
8:54
Released as a single.
10.
Verve
Gravity Grave (1992)
8:21
Released as a single.
11.
Ride
Leave Them All Behind (1992)
8:17
Appears on Going Blank Again.
12.
The Stone Roses
I am the Resurrection (1989)**
8:15
Appears on The Stone Roses.
13.
Slowdive
Avalyn II (1990)
8:10
Appears on the Slowdive EP.
14.
The La’s
Looking Glass (1990)
7:51
Appears on The La’s.
15.
The Stone Roses
Something’s Burning (1990)
7:50
B-side to ‘One Love’.
16.
The Stone Roses
One Love (1990)
7:45
Issued as a single only.
17.
My Bloody Valentine
Soon–Andrew Weatherall Remix (1990)
7:34
Appears on the 12″ version of the Glider EP.
18.
The Charlatans
Opportunity Three (1991)
7:29
Appears on the Over Rising EP.
19.
Verve
One Way To Go (1992)
7:17
B-side to ‘All In the Mind’.
20.
My Bloody Valentine
Soon (1990)
7:00
Appears on Glider and Loveless.
* The version of ‘Soon’ released on the 1991 Loveless LP has a track length of 6:58, while the original version on the 1990 Glider EP has a track length of 7:00. Therefore, ‘Soon’ is technically longer than itself, allowing it to constitute the 20th and final entry in this table. The table does not, of course, exclude the possibility of the existence of other songs by My Bloody Valentine (or by other bands that could be described as early-1990s UK indie) that are longer than 6:58. ** The Stone Roses’ eponymous album was released in 1989 in the UK but not until 1990 elsewhere, with ‘Fools Gold’ added as its final track.
20 early-1990s UK indie songs that are longer than MBV’s ‘Soon’: the playlist!*
* Note: the above playlist, compiled on Spotify, does not include several of the tracks listed in Table 1. To take one obvious example, My Bloody Valentine removed all of their tracks from Spotify in 2019. Primal Scream’s Dixie Narco EP is also not available on the Spotify platform—at least, not where I live. So, I’ve added Happy Mondays’ ‘W.F.L. (Think About the Future Mix)’ and the Wedding Present’s ‘Take Me’ as special bonus tracks, even though they were both released in 1989. And, to show that there are potentially hundreds more tracks that could go on this list, a couple of extra-special bonuses from Spiritualized and Stereolab.
Excessive and self-indulgent?
The question is: if size isn’t everything, then how should we evaluate these tracks? What’s remarkable is that Table 1 reveals that the excesses and indulgences of the period are concentrated in the releases of a handful of bands. The only big act missing is the Happy Mondays, who released their big remixes in 1989.
The over-10-minutes club
Be that as it may, let’s get critical. At the risk of repeating myself, Swervedriver’s ‘Never Lose That Feeling/Never Learn’ (11:51) is a totally bodacious track, and one that is fully deserving of its spot at the top of the table. If only because its long-form ‘coda’ featured unironic sax and sheets of reverb-drenched guitars.
But the Stone Roses’ ‘Breaking Into Heaven’? Well, it starts off okay, with four-and-a-half minutes of field recordings, tribal drums and atmospheric effects. But, 11 minutes and 21 seconds later, we’re left in no doubt as to who hogged all the cocaine during the recording sessions for The Second Coming.
This feeling of indulgence continues with the next five entries, all of which also ‘break’ through the 10-minute mark. Ride’s non-album track ‘Grasshopper’ (10:56) is all right, I guess, despite its lairy intro and OTT drumming. But, as with Kevin Shields’ ‘remix’ of ‘Glider’ (10:20), you’ll never get any of those 10 minutes back.
Things take a turn for the psychedelic—in a good way—once we reach the first of Primal Scream’s entries. In contrast to another of Ride’s turgid non-album tracks, ‘Going Blank Again’, I have no idea why ‘Screamadelica’ (10:46) never made it onto the Primal Scream album of the same name. It’s an absolute masterpiece.
Dixie Narco is apparently a brand of vending machine found in the United States. But I’m sure there’s some other reason why Primal Scream chose it as the name for this underrated EP.
‘Come Together’ (10:19), on the other hand, suffers from the fact that it has been played to death ever since its first release. To be honest, I’ve never totally understood the fusion of dance and gospel in early-1990s rave music, genre-wise. All that preachy hands-in-the-air crap really just lost me at the time and still does.
The less-than-10-minutes club
Verve’s early works, on the other hand, will never get old for me. Which is just as well, as with four tracks included here, I’ll need to say something significant. I’ve covered this territory before, but ‘Feel’ (10:42), ‘She’s a Superstar’ (8:54), ‘Gravity Grave’ (8:21) and ‘One Way To Go’ (7:17) are all blissed-out and barmy.
The inclusion of two Stone Roses tracks from 1989—’Fools Gold’ (9:54) and ‘I am the Resurrection’ (8:15)—may seem controversial. But in my defence, I only heard The Stone Roses in 1990, and these tracks both belong to that era, too. But the less said about ‘One Love/Something’s Burning’ (7:45 and 7:50, respectively) the better.
I always come back to Ride’s ‘Leave Them All Behind’ (8:17) as one of the cruellest stunts ever pulled on a band’s fans. Coming hot on the heels of the Today Forever EP, ‘Leave Them All Behind’ was a jaw-dropping, if bombastic, statement of intent whose true power was best experienced in a live setting.
You want fey? You want shoegaze? You got it. Ride live at Brixton Academy, 27 March 1992.
‘Leave Them All Behind’ suggested that Ride would continue exploring the noisy dynamics of earlier releases. It was obvious that this track would kick off the band’s second album, Going Blank Again. It all sounded so promising. And then Ride chose ‘Twisterella’ as the follow-up track and second single, and it all went to shite.
The 8-minutes-or-less club
How relieving, then, to turn to the ultimate shoegaze band, Slowdive, who could never be accused of selling out in the first place. ‘Avalyn II’ (8:10) is literally the blueprint for early-1990s dream pop. It takes a whole lot of time to get where it’s going, and that’s more than all right by me.
We now come to the La’s, the band who should have had it all. They released two single in 1990—I speak, naturally of ‘There She Goes’ and ‘Timeless Melody’—that wiped the floor with every other pop-rock song at the time. ‘There She Goes’ was actually first released in 1988 and has since been re-released three times.
‘Looking Glass’ (7:51), on the other hand, the epic final track on their eponymous 1990 debut LP, showcases frontman Lee Mavers’ gritty Liverpudlian accent. Its slow build and epic climax are reminiscent of the Stone Roses’ ‘I Am the Resurrection’. Sadly, once the song ended, so too did the recording career of the La’s.
The La’s perform ‘Looking Glass’ at LOndon’s Town & Country Club on 26 May 1989.
And so we come, finally, to the Charlatans, a band destined forever (in my mind at least) to be the poor person’s Stone Roses. But for a while there, around the release of their debut album Some Friendly, the Charlatans had a serious late-60s edgy vibe going on. It was like a duel between the Hammond organ and the indie riff.
‘Opportunity Three’ (7:29), which appeared on 1991’s Over Rising EP, might just be the most perfect encapsulation of that duel. It might also be around five minutes too long. And here we return to the problem of the ideal length of a song. Or to be specific, the perfect indie song length in the early 1990s.
The back cover from My Bloody Valentine’s Glider EP, issued in 1990. Sleeve by Designland.
My Bloody Valentine, ‘Soon’ and the ideal song length
Because when it comes right down to it, some of us like long songs and the rest of us prefer something much shorter. The songs in Table 1 amount to over two hours of listening time. That’s about four Wire albums, or the entire Pixies discography up to 1991. It’s longer than a football match, or even a longish movie.
What was the thinking behind the release of these songs? Admittedly, some of them were b-sides, or else appeared on early EPs on which bands were ‘finding their voice’. But for other songs, one can’t help but think that the decision to release a 10-minute-long guitar track was simply self-indulgent.
In this context, My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Soon’ actually seems like an act of self-restraint. It’s also one of the very few tracks discussed in this post that is truly danceable, meaning that its length (7:00) is more than appropriate. There’s also something satisfyingly neat about the exactness of that run time. Perhaps, just perhaps, it’s the luckiest number of them all?
1990s UK indie bands were the best bands. You can take my word for it, even though I wasn’t in the United Kingdom at the time. But the older I get, the more clear it becomes that I’m actually a child of the early 1990s. A hazy period of my life which ended in 1994 with the release of Oasis’ Definitely Maybe.
Or let me put it another way. I’m a child of the 1970s and 1980s who left home in 1990. Which, um, was when early-1990s UK indie began. The fact that I graduated from university and got my first full-time job in 1994 provides a way to bookend that era. It also functions as a symbol of the personal nature of this post.
You could also argue that 1989 was an even more significant year for 1990s UK indie. No to mention indie worldwide. That’s the subject of another post I don’t have time to write. ‘Or at least, not yet’, as David Gedge would say. But before we can get to the end of the era, we have to go back to the start.
1990: [definitely not just] time for Guru
Do you remember Guru Josh? He was the guy who drew a line in the sand between the 1980s and the 1990s. Sure, he was doing so for reasons of self-interest and self-promotion. But the fact remains that 1990 was the start of a decade. One in which 1989 would never play a part. Guru Josh told us so.
“1990s: time for Guru.” RIP Paul Walden, Jersey’s greatest post-acid house DJ.
I left home the week Oxford shoegazers Ride released their first extended play (EP) record. This was back in the day when a lot of records still came out on vinyl. It was January 1990, the beginning of the greatest couple of years in UK indie. I was living in Australia at the time but in my mind I was living in the UK.
Unfortunately, I knew nothing about shoegazing, Ride or UK indie. So there was a problem. Here’s another: I was a passionate R.E.M. fan, and still thought John Cougar Mellencamp had something. I listened to commercial FM radio. Noiseworks was the soundtrack to my antipodean summer of 1989/1990.
It’s okay, we can all move on now. Okay?
The first rumblings of indie? Maybe . . .
Then again, in my defence, in 1989 I was also into Australian indie. This was the actual soundtrack to my first summer out of high school. Ratcat’s That Ain’t Bad EP was brilliant. ‘That Ain’t Bad’, was not released in the 1990s. But by God Simon Day was indie. Didn’t hurt that he was hot as hell, either.
Simon Day, of Ratcat, wasn’t from the UK. His best song, ‘That Ain’t Bad’, was not released in the 1990s. But by God he was indie.
The Hummingbirds’ loveBUZZ album was also fantastic. They named it after the Shocking Blue song Nirvana covered on Bleach. It was fourteen singles in a row. All with that R.E.M.-style Rickenbacker jangle. Which made sense, as Mitch Easter produced the album. That jangle was so hot at the time.
But by 1990 it had dated a little. Despite my supposed indie credibility, I was in for a shock. I started university in 1990 and fell in with a bunch of guys who were into indie music. They were not only aware of UK indie but also lifetime subscribers to New Musical Express. Or so it seemed.
Through them, I discovered a whole world of indie beyond R.E.M. And let’s face it, by 1990, R.E.M. were no longer indie anyway. They’d left behind the moody jangle of their IRS albums, starting with Murmur (1983). Instead, they’d begun taking a more direct and less mysterious approach. How fast things change!
My quickfire indie education
Well, to bring it back to me again, I started university in 1990. I spent my first two years of university living at a college on campus. I was in for a special kind of musical edumacation during those first heady months. My friend D.—whom I hadn’t seen since primary schol—had a formidable collection of music, all on cassette.
Some of what he played me was from the United States. The first time I heard Pixies’ Doolittle I almost shat myself. Music was not supposed to sound like this. FM radio had conditioned my ears to receive Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Nothing Compares 2U’. A song like ‘Tame’ was like a bottle of industrial toilet cleaner to the head.
Sonic Youth’s music had a similar effect. Goo, when you think about it, is a terrifying album. Especially its second side. A song like ‘Mote’ or ‘Mildred Pierce’ would never get airplay on commercial FM radio. At first I wondered why a record company would even agree to release such music.
Sonic Youth performing ‘Mildred Pierce’ from their 1990 album, Goo.
By the time I figured out where Triple J was on the FM dial that summer, it was all I listened to. But a lot of the local indie I listened to on Triple J was less aggresive. Ratcat and the Hummingbirds. Falling Joys, Clouds, the Fauves, Ripe. From across the Tasman, The Bats and Straitjacket Fits.
Even so, UK indie had the biggest impact on me. Radio DJs spoke of these bands in hushed, even reverential tones. My Bloody Valentine, Ride, the Charlatans, the Wedding Present, and on and on and on. But what was 1990s UK indie anyway?
And when did it end?
Definitely defining early-1990s UK indie
Definitions are annoying. But when you’re trying to be specific about something they can also be quite useful. Even when you’re trying to define a concept as slippery as early-1990s UK indie. The big question raised by such a concept, of course, is that of time. When did the early-1990s begin? And when did they end? But here are some more questions.
When did the early 1990s begin?
I define the early-1990s as starting in January 1990. We can argue all day about when a decade begins and ends. This kind of technical pedantry is not important to me. January 1990 is when I enrolled at university. So that’s when it started. 1990 was also the year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, so that’ll do me for significance.
The cover from Ride’s debut LP, Nowhere (1991). Not a Gallagher in sight.
What’s indie music?
I define ‘indie’ as independent. That means music issued independent of mainstream record labels. Or else via small, non-mainstream labels. This can be problematic. Many mainstream record labels own indie subsidiaries. But I don’t think it’s that big a deal. If it looks indie, sounds indie and feels indie, it’s indie.
What’s the United Kingdom?
I define the UK as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. At least for now. The Republic of Ireland is thus excluded from this definition. But bands featuring Irish-born musicians are okay. As long as they signed to a UK-based record label in the early 1990s and sounded indie.
Okay, ‘early-1990s UK indie’ what?
Good question. In this post I’m referring, in the main, to indie rock, or guitar-based indie pop and/or rock. I also have a special fondness for bands who issued EP records rather than singles. Although, as you can no doubt imagine, this is not a hard and fast rule.
When did the early 1990s end, then?
The early-1990s ended when Creation Records released Oasis’ Definitely Maybe in 1994. Which may sound harsh but write your own post if you disagree. Regardless, we’re talking about a very brief window in time. Needless to say, I do not regard Oasis as being an early-1990s UK indie band, in any shape or form.
Oasis’ Definitely Maybe and the end of early-1990s UK indie
But why? I hear you ask. What’s wrong with Oasis, anyway? Well, I need to back up a little and clarify a few things. Even so, Oasis fans are not going to like any of these clarifications, either. So let me state it straight: I dislike Oasis’ style of music. And the rest of this post will be about the reasons why I dislike it.
Okay. The end of the early-1990s came not with a bang but a whimper. This whimper took the form of Oasis’ first single, ‘Supersonic’. But do you know what else happened in April 1994? Kurt Cobain shot himself, that’s what. The fact that he did so six days before the release of ‘Supersonic’ is irrelevant.
The cover of Oasis’ ‘Supersonic’ single, from 1994. Artwork by Brian Cannon/Microdot.
By the time Definitely Maybe came out on 29 August 1994, early-1990s indie was dead. You might say the era had been on life support ever since the release of Ride’s third album, Carnival of Light, on 20 June. Definitely Maybe amounted to indie’s grieving relatives flicking off the switch.
To be clear: I don’t mind driving guitar rock, as long as there’s an attitude that comes with it I can also stomach. That’s why I can listen to Bob Mould excoriate himself on the harrowing Sugar EP Beaster. It’s also why Swervedriver are so choice. But I cannot bear the Gallagher brothers’ whining swagger. I can’t stand it.
The casualties of Oasis’ war on indie
The fascinating thing about Oasis is the way they managed to kill off many of their predecessors. Take Ride, for instance. Although Oasis waited until 1999 to recruit Andy Bell, the damage was already done. Many indie bands either disbanded or reinvented themselves around 1994. And for that I also blame Oasis.
Verve were doing great until 17 May 1994. That was when they released the b-sides album No Come Down under the moniker The Verve. Sure, they’d changed their name to head off a legal battle with Verve Records. But when Definitely Maybe came out three months later, Verve were yesterday’s news.
The cover of Verve’s ‘She’s a Superstar’ single, from 1992. Artwork also by Brian Cannon/Microdot. Do you see a pattern emerging here?
Lush, another of the great early-1990s indie bands, released some top EPs and albums. Then, on 13 June 1994, came Split, a mish-mash of melancholy in search of a pulse. It marked the end of the band’s indie sound. The Britpop style evident on the 1996 follow-up, Lovelife, said it all. Oasis was to blame.
I could go on. Is it a coincidence that My Bloody Valentine failed to release anything at all between 1992 and 2013? Or might Oasis have been to blame for that as well? And why did The La’s find it impossible to release anything after their 1990 debut? Because Noel Gallagher gave them the kiss of death, that’s why.
Remembering (and letting go of) Oasis and the early 1990s
Nostalgia is a complex beast. It makes us long for whatever was good about the past, while shielding us from what was crap. I’ll be the first to admit that my feelings about the early 1990s as a cultural moment remain compromised. I can still conjure up the emotions evoked by the music of that time. But I’ve forgotten the time itself.
This is inevitable, of course. Many people who grew up in the 1990s now find themselves contemplating mortality. We should be so lucky to have lived so long, unlike some of our heroes at the time. I count myself lucky to have seen some bands at the height of their powers. And to have avoided a real run-in with death.
Because death is never far away when you contemplate the end of a specific era. In my case, the death is metaphorical—it’s a letting-go, or an acceptance of time passing. It won’t stop me from slagging off Oasis, or writing blog posts about early-1990s bands I love. But maybe—erm, I mean, definitely—that’s what life’s all about.
The older I get, the more clear it becomes that I’m a child of the early 1990s. I feel like I grew up with the sounds of early-1990s indie music, most of which came from the UK. So, without further ado, here is my definitive list of the top UK indie bands of the early 1990s.
1. My Bloody Valentine
My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Soon’—this is the ‘radio’ edit of a song originally released on the Glider EP in 1990 and later remixed by Andy Weatherall (RIP).
How does an Irish band formed in the 1980s top a list of 1990s UK indie bands? Well, My Bloody Valentine did an awful lot of indie, over a very long period of time. Most of it in the UK in the early-1990s. In fact, their sophomore album, Loveless, is the pinnacle of early-1990s indie. And if you don’t agree with that, I suspect you shouldn’t be here.
Taken from their second EP, Play (1990), Ride’s ‘Like a Daydream’ contained a two-chord riff eerily reminiscent of The Police’s ‘Invisible Sun’ and a continuous guitar solo by Andy Bell that foreshadowed the band’s later descent into Byrds-inspired, self-indulgent noodling.
If you’d asked me in 1990 which band was the greatest exponent of UK indie, I would have said Ride. They released three EPs in the space of eight glorious months in 1990. Their debut album, Nowhere, was a jaw-shuddering statement of intent. Ride set a standard by which critics would later judge all other UK indie bands. Including themselves.
Lush’s ‘De-Luxe’, taken from their 1990 EP, Mad Love. It doesn’t get much better than this if you’re a fan of reverb-drenched, early 1990s indie.
Lush provided a melodic antidote to Ride’s ultimate ‘fey’ boy-band aesthetic. Signed to 4AD, the band released two fantastic EPs in 1990. Their debut LP, Spooky, arrived in 1992. Lush’s music was hook-laden, harmonic and edgy. Dare I say ethereal? It doesn’t get much better than this if you’re a fan of reverb-drenched, early-1990s indie.
4. The Stone Roses
The official video for ‘Fools Gold’, which was unfortunately four or five minutes too short.
There was something peculiar about being a fan of UK indie while living in Australia. New music took a while to arrive. That’s why I’m claiming the Stone Roses for the early 1990s. Their influence was massive but delayed. Epic track ‘Fools Gold’ laid the blueprint for the ‘indie-dance crossover’ phenomenon. If only they had left things there, and retired with dignity.
Swervedriver dropped ‘Never Lose That Feeling’ on an unsuspecting listening public in 1992. Fans of the band were in for an even bigger surprise: it had a twin. ‘Never Learn’, a bodacious long-form ‘coda’, featured unironic sax and sheets of reverb-drenched guitars.
Of course, there’s something self-selecting about band lists from a certain era. Sharp-eyed readers may already see a pattern emerging. At least in the kind of early-1990s UK indie bands I deem worthy of writing about. Swervedriver is no exception to my cobbled-together rule. But boy did they know how to shred the early-1990s indie space-time continuum.
Well, this is handy for those seeking a soundtrack to a theoretical administration of herbal remedies: Primal Scream’s ‘Higher Than the Sun’, from Screamadelica.
Primal Scream, of course, pre-date the 1990s. But there was no missing their influence on the UK indie scene of the early 1990s. They took the best of ecstasy (and acid house) culture and created something unique. We all wanted to get high on music that was all about getting higher than the sun. And that’s where Primal Scream came in.
7. Verve
When ‘Mad’ Richard Ashcroft’s band, Verve, changed its name to The Verve, it signalled the end of a phase in the band’s musical development. ‘All In the Mind’ showcases just what’s possible when you discover that the drugs do actually work.
Back in the early 1990s ‘The’ Verve were still called Verve. They started off as a freewheeling, psychedelic act. Their sound was genuine 1960s heritage in timbre. I mean, it was out of step with everything else going on around them. But they did not care. And that’s why I loved them. Then they changed their name and the rest, as they say, is ‘History’.
Yes, this is Happy Mondays lip-syncing on Top of the Pops in 1989 and yes that is Kirsty MacColl gurning away on the right.
You could say that Happy Mondays, not Guru Josh, invented the early 1990s. Their appearance on Top of the Pops in November 1989 signalled a change of the guard. The fact that this new guard were absolute gurners set the scene for what would be a wild few years. Happy Mondays’ irrepressible hedonism was pivotal in the Madchester scene. Which makes them so early 1990s it hurts.
9. The Charlatans
If Mark Gardener of Ride and Tim Burgess of The Charlatans were somehow able to produce a lovechild, there is a strong possibility that said child’s lips would be larger than the London Eye.
Critics often overlook the Charlatans in favour of other more well known UK indie bands. But the Charlatans chose to bury their hard edges beneath layers of Hammond organ. They reproduced the 1960s aesthetic on their early releases with reverence. And, more than any other band, they embodied the indie-dance crossover phenomenon.
10. The La’s
The adorably mop-topped Lee Mavers of The La’s could have released ‘Timeless Melody’ as a single and then retired, and still have had a greater impact on early-1990s indie than pretty much anybody else.
It may seem ironic to include the La’s in this top 10 list of early-1990s UK indie bands. After all, they’re a band idolised by Oasis. And they only released one album. But the La’s symbolised a spirit that was both hopeful and doomed. Without the La’s, the early 1990s as an historical moment would be meaningless.
1990s UK indie bands: 10 honorary mentions
Top-10 lists are so reductive, doncha think? Well, go tell it on the Intramanet. In the meantime, I’m covering all my bases by making 10 honorary mentions. These bands were indie enough, UK enough and active early enough in the 1990s to count. But I’m not quite ready to write a full paragraph about any of them. Yet.
Teenage Fanclub deserve an entire post of their own. If you took the best bits of the Waterboys and U2, you might get The Wonder Stuff. Huggy Bear were the agit-pop answer to Bikini Kill, and DIY as all get-up. The Stairs made the Stones sound ironic and cool. And Cornershop managed to fight the power and mock Morrissey at the same time.
Slowdive were the quiet/sad-face merchants of shoegaze. Curve adhered to the ‘three EPs followed by an LP’ rule. The Wedding Present released 12 singles in a year and also recorded an album in Ukrainian. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin were worth a listen for the name alone. Oh and Pop Will Eat Itself? Mkai, Grebo.
1990s UK indie bands: dishonorable mentions
No top-10 list would be complete without its anti-list. In this case, there are at least 10 bands I’d never bother listening to again. It may sound harsh, but life’s too short to put oneself through such a wringer.
Thus, I won’t tolerate any discussion of Inspiral Carpets, even if their t-shirts were cool as fuck. Northside were a bit too Hammond for me. Cud, to borrow Shaun Ryder’s immortal phrasing, can go do one. James? I mean, come on. Adorable were up themselves and only half as good as Aussie dream-pop merchants Glide.
I can’t even recall anything The Farm put out. Chapterhouse were borderline Grebo. Moose drifted too far up their own fundament. Birdland were pathetic. I have always despised Manic Street Preachers.
And I couldn’t care less about Carter USM, Revolver, Sultans of Ping FC, Jesus Jones, EMF, Soup Dragons, Mock Turtles, Ocean Colour Scene or The Shamen. Got that?
In subsequent posts I’ll explore the musical careers of my own personal top 10 early-1990s UK indie bands. Stay tuned, as they say. Until then, please feel free to leave a comment below. Or message me with your thoughts on early-1990s UK indie!
