Volume 20 Tracks 1-5 - Oasis, Echobelly, Lush, Veruca Salt, Tiny Monroe

Formats: CD/ Cassette
Year of Release: 1994

If Volume 19 seemed to express some of the confusion that existed in a pre-Britpop, post-Grunge liminal period, and filled itself with a big old jumble of styles and sounds, Volume 20 is a clear pointer. In fact, it's probably one of the closest volumes in the series to what the "Shine" or "The Greatest Album In The World... Ever!" series became. At almost every turn there's a pointer towards alternative stars of either middling or stadium-filling potential (though there are admittedly honourable exceptions and a few instances of arguable filler).

The Melody Maker sponsorship has suddenly returned out of nowhere as well, like a long-lost friend. Other versions of this LP with a differently ordered track listing have also apparently emerged, as documented on another very old Indie Top 20 chronicling website (which contains many spoilers if anyone is actually waiting to see what other surprises are in store). I've never seen such a copy myself, and nor does Discogs seem to document them, but if anyone has the rogue version, please let me know.

By the time this came out, I was the music editor of my university's magazine, a role I took far too seriously given that it was a scruffy, poorly designed paper barely anybody actually read (bar the "sportos" looking at the university match reports in the bloated sports section). The more effort I put into it, though, the more guest list places, singles and albums I was sent, meaning that by the time "Volume 20" emerged, my attitude to this series had become "Huh! Tell me something new, Grandad! I've already heard that band's next single!" It's at this point that new "Indie Top 20" releases stopped becoming records I bought within the first couple of weeks of their release, and often left on the record store shelf for months before buying. Of course, had Beechwood sent me any promo copies I'd have happily waxed on about them to the five readers who cared, but they were too thrifty and sensible to bother.

1. Oasis - Supersonic (Creation)

Oh Jesus. Where do I even begin? Track one, straight out of the traps, The Future (for the next few years at least, anyway). And if you think giving a completely new band like Oasis prime spot on this album was an obvious thing to do, I urge you to think again. While some journalists in the mainstream music press were convinced of their status as huge stars, there were plenty of other people who were cautious about their possible chances. The phrase "reheated baggy" was used a lot around Oasis by generally astute people like Justine Frischmann, who told her record label Deceptive not to bother investigating the band.

Her tag isn't necessarily as lazy as it sounds. The general public's first chance to hear the group came with a demo of "Cigarettes and Alcohol" slapped on to the NME cover mount cassette "The Mutha of Creation" in February. It sounded half-arsed and unimpressive, a limp piece of bar-room boogie worthy of any number of unimpressive ageing local bands I'd had the misfortune to watch that year. Liam Gallagher sounds as if he's doing guide vocals - they have no charisma or power behind them, and the trademark punk sneer he later adopted is absent. In retrospect, the fact that Alan McGee felt it was worth showing off to the public seems like a staggering piece of misjudgement. If, as he claimed, he knew he was sitting on the best band in Britain at that time, why the unflattering introduction? Did The Beatles introduce themselves to the world with free give-aways of their failed Decca audition tapes?

Then came a round of hysterically funny press interviews, and then the release of "Supersonic", which was a vast improvement on the "Cigarettes and Alcohol" demo but was (and is) good rather than great, surely? There are moments that sound thrilling - Liam's confident new vocal style, Noel's crashing guitar slides, the sheer bloody swagger of the thing. Still, though, go back to old recordings of bands like The Real People and Bedazzled (in particular!) - the latter of whom were brutally slagged in the music press for having the audacity to emerge at the tail end of baggy - and the sound Oasis finally emerged with was frankly not terribly far off. We may privately chuckle when pesky foreign types get confused about Britpop and place The Stone Roses and other assorted baggy bands into a long timeline in error, but it's an understandable mistake.

Still, while I strongly suspect that "Supersonic" would probably have climbed to number 94 in the charts before buggering off again if it had been released in 1992, it does pack such a punch that you're forced to stop and listen. Oasis did, seemingly within a matter of months, manage to change their sound into something that sounded slightly threatening, powerful and adrenalin-packed.

I was offered a guest list place for their gig at the Portsmouth Wedgwood Rooms, a 350 capacity venue. It probably speaks volumes about my laissez-fare attitude towards them at the time that, due to an impending exam the morning after, I sent someone else along to review the gig instead with his choice of plus one. The reports I got back were both mocking and confused, probably not helped by the fact that their support band were local progressive rockers Strange Attractor, a bunch who were perfectly good at what they did but couldn't have been a less suited choice if everyone involved had tried. We were surprised to learn that the supposedly vicious, dangerous Gallagher brothers were courteous, friendly and encouraging towards them on the night. Maybe they were pussy cats after all. Cuh! Imagine Damon Albarn even giving them the time of day, eh?

"You won't believe what the lead singer said after the gig as well, Dave!" one of the attendees told me. "'Right, now I'm off to pull some birds!' That's their credibility in the dustbin! Ha ha!"

They were different times, viewers. The 1993 intake of indie listening university students were largely right-on and really couldn't have predicted what lay ahead. Lad culture hadn't come back into fashion again yet. Oasis, at this point of time, felt like some kind of weird outlier to some of us, a quaint act reviving ideas from a mere few years before and attitudes from decades before that. Giggling up our sleeves at them seemed like the only course of action. "First they laugh at you...."



2. Echobelly - I Can't Imagine The World Without Me (Fuave)

There was clearly something in the air by mid-1994, though. Echobelly may have been collectively much more right-on and politically astute than the Gallaghers, but "I Can't Imagine The World Without Me" was essentially lead singer Sonya Madden's celebration of her own ambition. This obviously has an entirely different context and layer of meaning when it comes from the lips of an Asian woman in 1994 at a point in time where the BNP were gaining political ground. However, it doesn't, as a whole, make the song itself particularly interesting or effective.

In fact, "I Can't Imagine The World Without Me" is essentially one big amphetamine rush whose lyrics sound incredibly contrived, as if a back-room Denmark Street songwriter penned them in 1963 to describe the sensations of teenagers. "And in this world we spin and shout/ We want it all we want it now/ They said 'oh shut your mouth/ You don't know what you talk about'" sings Sonya, not long before finishing the song by singing the word "me" multiple times over. To be honest, it would have been more interesting, and more hilarious, if she had just sung the word "me" throughout.

This pretty much sets the template for the worst elements of Britpop to come. A belief that self-belief is somehow an important or interesting message in itself, combined with a series of high speed, distorted riffs and copped Beatles elements (in this case, the Sgt Pepper styled horns and peculiarly out-of-place psychedelic spasm the group have halfway through). Echobelly produced some good singles, but by Christ, this wasn't one of them, and it actually seems more cringe-inducing with the passing of time. Horrendous video, too.



3. Lush - Hypocrite (4AD)

Lush lay accused of cynically adopting Britpop sounds towards the end of their existence, but the fact that "Hypocrite" can be placed next to Echobelly in this tracklisting and not sound like a jarring gear change is telling. In fact, the group had always "had a Britpop element to their sound", as it were, and "Hypocrite" is actually one of the finest examples.

Allegedly penned about a female friend in another Camden scene indie band at this time, "Hypocrite" is a hurt, agitated, spiky and occasionally spiteful rush of noise with Miki and Emma's vocal harmonies providing the only sweetener in sight. It's much more of a New Wave styled thrash than any of their previous singles, though "Deluxe" clearly had the same aggressive rush beneath its surface.

Bizarrely, 4AD took the decision to issue two Lush singles on the same day, this and "Desire Lines". The impact of both was diluted by this perplexing marketing decision, and neither broke through in quite the way it should have done.



4. Veruca Salt - Seether (Minty Fresh)

"Seether" hung around the indie charts seemingly for an entire season and remained an evening radio favourite, proving that while the times were changing, there was still a huge appetite for fresh American alternative rock at this point. "Seether" didn't really do anything particularly new - though it has considerably more zest and zing than the likes of Stone Temple Pilots and Smashing Pumpkins, sitting closer to Elastica on the treble-heavy punk thrash spectrum - but did strike an enormous chord with the indie kids on dancefloors.

Having an almost Ramones styled rock and roll simplicity to its structure and a nagging chorus, "Seether" was brilliantly naive and could probably only have emerged from a new, relatively inexperienced young band making their first tentative steps. Like a much needed kick up the arse and slap to the face, it still sounds strangely invigorating even now.

Formed in Chicago, Veruca Salt went on to release numerous albums, including one for the major label Geffen, and are still an active concern today. Their presence in the UK waned a little after their first LP "American Thighs", but their following the US remained strong enough to ensure that they remained a powerful cult band.



5. Tiny Monroe - Cream Bun (Laurel)

With this single, Tiny Monroe show a considerably more diverse set of influences than the last time we met them on Volume 19. Slowly awaking to life like an early Verve track with an eerie, stoned and foggy atmosphere, it doesn't take long before the guitars brickwall their way through your speakers with malevolent intentions.

"Cream Bun" is at least an interesting and incredibly meandering 45, though, with the big bold stripes of the chorus cutting between periods of black melancholy 3am pondering. I'm not convinced it completely works as a whole, and it's certainly incredibly hard to remember anything about the record an hour after the needle leaves the single's grooves - but it has a clear ambition many of their peers at the time clearly lacked.

Tiny Monroe would continue for another couple of years before releasing their solitary LP "Volcanoes", after which they called it a day.

Indie Top 20 Vol 14 - Lush, Moose, Revolver, Mercury Rev, Throwing Muses

Format: Double LP (plus bonus 12" single), CD, Cassette
Year of Release: 1992

This was the beginning of a very brief revamp for the "Indie Top 20" series, which saw it rebadged as "Independent 20". The volume number was not specified on the sleeve (a quick look at the spine and the TT014 catalogue number was the only way you would know if you'd been out of the country or in a coma for some time). We were instead treated to a random and seemingly unrelated image to tell the volumes apart - in this case, some pelicans. Later volumes would include a water slide, and a picture of some smiling children on a day out. Don't ask me why. Presumably this was some kind of attempt to go a bit 4AD/ Factory with the series design and present some sleeves which were a little artier.

The sleevenotes returned too, and were a little less half-arsed this time around.

On vinyl this was a hugely expensive purchase at the time. It came with glossy inner sleeves and a "free" bonus twelve inch single (which mostly consisted of demos and studio doodles, and I honestly don't want to review separately) but I winced at the price tag which was far higher than usual.

The volume also coincided with British independent music hitting a creative and commercial trough. I had a friend at this time who would regularly correct my statement "This has been such a bad year for music" with the answer "Dave, every year is a good year for music". His logic was simple. Whether I knew it or not, good music was being released or played all the time, and even if one year was a particularly fallow period for new sounds, there would still be plenty of brilliant old music I hadn't discovered yet. Fair points all, but for the purposes of this blog, Volume 14 really coincides with a period where the alternative scene seemed to mostly slink back apologetically to the underground.  Bands playing in small bars and groups issuing singles with wrap-around Xeroxed sleeves in polythene bags got more press and late-night airplay than they could have seriously imagined possible. Unlike C86, though, many of the groups were underground punk dinmakers. Nothing wrong with that, and there are some fine noises to be had here - but in many cases, some of these groups we'll be discussing were one-trick ponies who will never feature on the series again.

It's a peculiar LP and I must admit, probably one of my least favourites in the series. It's a very, very good snapshot of the kind of bands you would hear performing in dingy venues with overflowing urinals in late 1991 and 1992, but perhaps inevitably, lots of it fails to stand up to repeated listens.

1. Lush - For Love (4AD)

"Since their formation in 1988 and the release of the first mini-LP "Scar" in 1989, Lush have had to develop under the spotlight of the nation's music media. The 'For Love' EP and the recent Guthrie produced album 'Spooky' have proved beyond a doubt that Lush have been worthy of the attention which has been paid to them over the past three years".

In many respects, Lush kicking off the LP creates the impression that little has moved on since Volume 13. "For Love", though, is a peculiarly fragile little record, with a delicate wind-up music box melody and frail vocals. Here, Miki Berenyi's voice veers strangely close to that of the woman who sang the theme tune to the sit-com "Dear John" - an absurd style, but the high-pitched hushiness of them is well-suited to a song about the naiveté of adolescent romance.

Of all Lush's singles, even the later "Britpop" efforts, "For Love" feels strangely unrepresentative of the group. It's gently reflective and faintly satirical, and presents itself as a piece of fey contemplation on teenage love while biting hard with a noticeably feminist angle if you listen hard enough. "Happy just to be a prize/ Happy just to see his smile" suggests servitude, and choosing the role of the "girlfriend" as a secure badge of identity rather than genuine romance. It's easy to miss that through the chiming prettiness of it all, though.

"For Love" is a rather strange moment in Lush's catalogue, but not an unlikeable one.



2. Moose - Last Night I Fell Again (Hut)

"Moose shot out of musical obscurity in the early part of '91 with the release of their 'Jack' EP on the Hut label. 'Cool Breeze', their second EP, quickly followed and established Moose still further as an important and exciting new band. 'Lsat Night I Fell Again' is featured on their third EP 'Reprise' which sees Moose in a more melancholic mood. Do keep an eye on Moose as they have the talent to produce something rather remarkable in the future".

With its incessant shimmering backing and despairing, hungover sounding vocals, "Last Night I Fell Again" does indeed catch Moose at their moodiest, with their usual love for psychedelic effects pedal twiddling sidelined slightly for a lovelorn feel. While it was tempting for many critics at the time to write the group off as being another shoegazing band, time and more releases would prove that they actually had considerably more talent than that. Also tucked away on the "Reprise" EP is a track many consider to be their finest moment, the heartfelt ballad "This River Will Never Run Dry" - a full six minutes of jangly guitars, and fragile vocals singing of romantic commitment. "I wanna marry in the morning/ with the sunlight in our eyes/ I'm always near/ This river never will run dry" Russell Moose declares to a steadily building, innocent melody. It's one of those moments indie bands excel at where conventional mainstream groups often fail - sometimes you need imperfection, a cheap sounding guitar, and a wobbled vocal note to bring home how cracked but special the blessed ordinariness of life can be.



3. Revolver - Don't Ever Leave (Hut)

"Revolver emerged in '91 as the torch bearers of new order in independent music. They soon signed to Hut and have released two critically acclaimed singles to date. The first, 'Heaven Sent An Angel', silenced those journalists who claimed the band were just hype. The following 'Crimson' EP which 'Don't Ever Leave' is taken from, is a collection of tender tracks which prove that Revolver will definitely be a force to be reckoned with in the months and years to come".

Whatever. To be honest, few things fill me with less hope than the declaration "Here's something from a Revolver EP which isn't the lead track", and in this case that wouldn't be remotely unreasonable of me. "Don't Ever Leave" is four minutes of heavily distorted bass noises, DIY wooden box drum patterns, and woe-filled vocals. Full credit to the group for taking things in a much less obvious direction and experimenting with the possibilities of sound in an unpredictable way, but the song itself is so simplistic that no amount of lo-fi sonic shenanigans can save it. The initial, elephant-thudding, mocking three-note riff dominates throughout, making for a deeply dreary listening experience, and it's a blessed relief when the damn thing is finally over.



4. Mercury Rev - Car Wash Hair (the bee's chasing me) Full Pull (Mint Films/ Jungle)

"Mercury Rev are a six-piece from Buffalo, New York who took the independent music scene by storm in '91 with the release of their 'Yerself Is Steam' LP. They have been compared to various bands such as Sonic Youth, Pink Floyd, Jane's Addiction and Butthole Surfers. 'Car Wash Hair' was their debut single which earned Mercury Rev a Melody Maker single of the week".

"Car Wash Hair" had the distinct advantage of sounding very little like any of the other bands being thrown at us in late 1991. Simultaneously psychedelic, mellow, ponderous and preposterous, it recalled the post-summer of love comedown noises of obscure sixties American psychedelic bands. Few bands had ever entered the fray with such a damaged sounding record - "Car Wash Hair" sounds like the product of a group who have already enjoyed their fair share of hallucinogenic drugs and are now freaking out in Studio Three trying to record their final flop album in a fried and tragic state. The pinging radar noise throughout sounds like a hint that the group are looking for life - something, anything tangible to cling on to.

It's a fine piece of work, obviously. A fluttering, steadily building piece of soft beauty which never quite falls over into total chaos, however much it threatens to. Mercury Rev would eventually reach success with a more conventionally epic sound, but this single indicates that their beginnings were almost entirely grounded in a frail and occasionally frightening kind of psychedelia. There was a slight sense that they didn't quite know what they were doing, but the whole thing worked out fine anyway. It's a thrill to hear the group walk the tightrope successfully.



5. Throwing Muses - Not Too Soon (4AD)

"Over the past six years Throwing Muses have been one of the most consistent bands to have come out of America. Signed to 4AD in '86, they have released a total of four EPs, one mini LP and four full length albums. 'Not Too Soon', taken from '91's "Real Ramona" LP, was written by Tanya Donelly who has since left the group. Both Tanya and the Muses are currently recording LPs for release this autumn".

Perhaps inevitably, "Not Too Soon" ends up sounding more like Tanya Donelly than most Throwing Muses tracks here, and - intentionally or otherwise - appeared to act as a showcase for her forthcoming work with the group Belly. While Hersh was always popularly regarded as the eccentric and creative genius within the group, her stepsister Donelly was often left to flounder somewhere in the background - doubtless a frustrating situation for someone with bags of talent of her own (and a very separate personality with an arguably more conventional charisma attached).

"Not Too Soon" is immediate evidence that Donelly could cope by herself. A killer riff is matched by her growling vocal force, and the tracks bursts into life from the first split second, Tanya snapping the track wide open with the words "She... colourblind, tired eyes..." while the Muses weave their magic behind her. The pounding drums and somewhat absurd, inarticulate chorus reveal that we're still very much in their territory, but this is nonetheless an oddly catchy and compelling single.

With Belly, Donelly would go on to become a mainstream media figure for awhile, and scored a number one LP in the British Charts with her debut LP "Star". Seldom have individuals breaking away from groups had so much success and acclaim so quickly on their own.

Side 4 - The Sundays, See See Rider, Galaxie 500, AC Marias, Lush

1. The Sundays - Joy (Rough Trade)

"...Equally as important for giving style back to the independents as putting integrity back into the mainstream". NME, Jan '90

The Sundays emerged in a blaze of publicity in early 1989. In those days, the inky music press were still obsessed with finding "the next Smiths", and alongside the likes of Wedding Present and The House Of Love, The Sundays were deemed to be prime contenders. Debut single "Can't Be Sure" stayed atop the indie charts for what felt like the whole winter season, dripping with delicately jangled guitar lines and Harriet Wheeler's expressive and almost folksy vocal stylings. It then topped John Peel's Festive Fifty for 1989.

So far, so incredible. The trouble is, The Sundays were damned on two fronts - not only has their work-rate been consistently sloth-like (their debut LP didn't emerge until 1990) but they were also signed to an ailing record label which was about to go belly-up. "Joy" seemed to have been slated as their follow-up to "Can't Be Sure", and had a video made to accompany it, but beyond white labels no copies have ever turned up. Given that it received airplay and television exposure, the only plausible explanation is that Rough Trade's precarious circumstances were to blame for its non-release.

"Joy" is actually a beautiful track, rich with an incredibly wintery and mournful atmosphere, but it doesn't sound like a single. It probably would have edged its way into the Top 40 purely by dint of the group's status had it been granted a release, but it's a strange atmosphere-piece to be considered as a 45.

Following Rough Trade's collapse, The Sundays would move on to Geffen and we won't see them on Indie Top 20 again. Suffice to say, they remained a cultishly successful act until their demise in 1997, consistently selling tens of thousands of records to their fanbase while never quite managing to reach out beyond that core group.



2. See See Rider - She Sings Alone (Lazy)

"Stumbling and sliding through a morass of sexual sophistication with S as a central cypher in the iconography of See See Rider"

Though if you want tangles with misfortune, See See Rider take the cake. Much-touted at the time, within moments of "She Sings Alone" receiving favourable reviews, members Stephen Sands and May Rock Marshall were involved in a motorcycle accident which rendered them inactive for an extended period. By the time they returned a whole year later with new material, other members had buggered off and they were forced to reacquaint themselves with the gig circuit all over again with a new line-up.

While 1990 has often been noted as being an absurdly generic year for British alternative rock, with baggy beats and wah-wah guitars seeming to work their way on to every other record, See See Rider did stand out. The moody vocals of Lewis Chamberlain and May Rock Marshall created an unholy alliance, the gravelly imperfections of the former combining with the disappointed sourness of the latter like some kind of nineties indie Hazelwood and Sinatra. "She Sings Alone" truly soars as well, the guitar lines continually building throughout the record until they're almost scraping the sky.

Whatever hopes anyone had for the band, it's hard to imagine them ever being huge, and in the end only two singles emerged - this and "Stolen Heart" in 1991. "She Sings Alone" did show vague signs of commercial promise when it entered the UK Top 100 at Number 99, however. This might not sound like much, but even in 1990, a showing on the official Gallup chart was a huge deal for an indie band, and a sign that the real world was waking up to them. With better fortune on their side, it's possible greater things could have been achieved.



3. Galaxie 500 - Blue Thunder (Rough Trade) - vinyl and cassette only

"...is the sound of a storm brewing, oppressively, in the eventide." Everett True, Melody Maker, 27/1/90

Thanks for that, Everett. Though the sound of the storm brewing was possibly also Rough Trade's imminent bankruptcy, which brutally impacted on Galaxie 500's lives, forcing them to bid for the rights to their own albums back at an auction.

"Blue Thunder" stems from the band's later period, but it's fair to say that throughout their careers they were deeply divisive, with many listeners and critics feeling that their approach was too shambolic to be worthy of praise. Others, however, adored their naive approach and saw parallels between them and the Velvet Underground and also other current indie twee artists.

What very few people seem to have commented on - at least from memory - is how redolent of Neil Young "Blue Thunder" is in places, with even Dean Wareham's fragile vocals edging close towards the great man at times. It's threadbare and brooding stuff, but actually astonishingly powerful despite its delicate framework.

"Blue Thunder" seemed to come in two versions, an acoustic version and a version with a honking saxophone sprawling all over it. My vinyl copy of "Indie Top 20" is fully saxed up, but I've heard talk that other pressings apparently aren't. If there's a good reason for this, I'm damned if I know it.



4. AC Marias - One Of Our Girls Has Gone Missing (Mute)

"...This is lovely... AC Marias "One Of Our Girls" is marvellous, revelling in melancholy and loss just so them big ole ice guitars can come a-rolling in one mo' time". David Quantick, NME

A.C. Marias was the adopted stage name of occasional Wire video director and collaborator Angela Conway. She's joined on this track by Bruce Gilbert of Wire, Barry Adamson of the Bad Seeds and Rowland S Howard of The Birthday Party.

It seems unfair to point it out, but "One of Our Girls" is incredibly Wiry, right down to that precise, metronomic rhythm track and those ringing guitar lines. Gilbert co-wrote it, and clearly had a huge hand in its production, and while Wire's days on Indie Top 20 really finished on Volume 8, this track acts as a nice coda.

Innocent, delicate, melancholy and faintly choral, this is a ghostly little single which really didn't sell in enormous quantities, but sounds oddly of its time despite the heavy involvement of the indie elder gentry. The vocals actually pre-date the early nineties Rave single habit of putting innocent, pie-eyed female vocals over looped rhythm tracks, and make it sound like a spooky precursor to a lot of commercial electronic music.


5. Lush - De-Luxe (4AD)

"Lush's first single reached number 53 in the Gallup chart in March".

And really, this was it. The rude young interloper to the baggy beat party. Without a trace of funky drummer samples or Dance remixes, Lush achieved more with their debut release than many new artists on major labels were managing at the time. They single-handedly proved that the market for fresh new alternative music was far bigger and broader than anyone supposed, and you didn't have to be dancefloor friendly just to chart in the "real world". That would have an impact on the scene as a whole (though Ride's debut January release was also a similar event).

Lush were self-confessed naifs at the time, which is staggering when you consider the richness on offer here. This isn't a bunch of Talulah Gosh soundalikes fumbling their way around their instruments - "De-Luxe" has innocence and abrasion in spades, as well as a peculiar arrangement which never quite reaches any kind of traditional chorus but swaps between two distinct elements - the almost folk-rockish melodies of the "I've been waiting on the slide" part, and the very slight chorus beginning with "Inside of me". The vocal interplay between Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson also resembles something akin to "Scarborough Fair", giving an actually quite abrasive track a very haunted, ancient atmosphere. It holds you glued to the stereo by the force and beauty of its detail alone.

I'll be rude enough to suggest here that Lush were very often an imperfect band, producing large numbers of album tracks and even singles which never quite gelled. "De-Luxe" was a storming single for the group to announce themselves with, though, and almost couldn't have been bested. This is how to make an entrance.