SHINE: 20 Brilliant Indie Hits

The song here I loved the most at one point is How Soon Is Now but I can't bring myself to vote for anything Morrissey-related at this point.

CAAL's list is approximately right but I never need to hear Parklife again and *whispers* I quite like Size Of A Cow (I don't expect anyone to agree with me on this) so I have mentally swapped them - though even I will concede there is no way the latter should be above Weirdo. Don't really care about the Charlatans but I could listen to the intro of Weirdo on loop for hours. Shame he starts singing.

Going to leave it to a last-minute whim whether to vote Pulp or Elastica.

(OK I just watched the Size Of A Cow video on youtube and maybe now I understand why everyone else hates them, that is one annoying-seeming bunch of people there)

I never bought any Shines because the tracklistings seemed too obvious to spend money on, plus my friends had a bunch which I could've just asked to tape except I was too much of a snob, but I did have Steve Lamacq's "Weekenders" compilation so yeah, I lose.

(I think I got it for a quid, tbf, plucked out of a bargain bin because a couple of the otherwise quite obvious tracks appeared in a remixed form which sounded potentially interesting, but I still lose)

The Indie Top 20s were mostly before my time - think the last came out in '96 so Shine (1995-1998) may even have killed them off, though I didn't really notice them pre-Shine so they may already have run out of steam or marketing money - but I have the '88 one (Wire! Cardiacs! HMHB! ACR! Sonic Youth! The Shamen, hi Branwell; that explains why I knew "Jesus Loves Amerika" already) and it is bronzed to hell now, one of only a couple of bronzed CDs I've noticed in my collection. Hope the whole series didn't do that.

'Weirdo' made me think the Charlatans were good

they're not a bad band necessarily, but Weirdo is definitely one of their very best

I secretly thought Size of a Cow was an out of character good song at the time but he wasn't called Hunt for nothing

Yeah, the Indie Top 20 series started very indie and gradually got more & more mainstream although even the later volumes would still throw up the odd track by the likes of The Cramps or Urusei Yatsura xps

Hi, Space Cadet! Wow, that sounds like a great compilation. I have weird feelings about Jesus Loves Amerika, but it makes sense that's where you encountered it.

After going down the memory hole of YouTube over the past few days, I'm very sheepishly admitting that I kinda wanna change my vote to Jesus Jones not Electronic. (Especially after seeing how much love the latter is getting on this thread.) Yes, they were a shameless Shamen rip-off act, but that was some Pavlovian nostalgia to hear them again.

I wasn't fond of Size of a Cow, but going back and listening to the singles from Eight-Legged Groove Machine, I did kind of recapture the frothy joy of what I liked about The Wonder Stuff. Were The Wonder Stuff Grebo? Should I start a Grebo thread to hash out what Grebo was, because Stirmonster never told me anything except what Grebo *wasn't*.

This stuff is silly pop joy:

https://youtu.be/cY446CO6USQ

https://youtu.be/7Aw-JYtdW4o

But listening to this with an adult's ear rather than a teenager's, the monetary preoccupation in these singles really kind of stands out - like at the time, it really passed me by, but now I'm really wondering if this is unironic celebration of Thatcher-era 80s greed, or if it's a politically charged lampooning of the attitudes expressed in the songs. They never struck me as a political band, far more a silly jokes bants-type band. But looking back on it now, I don't know?

I sometimes wonder about Jesus Jones. What we're they about? What were their hopes and dreams? Was it baggy? Was it industrial? Was it grebo? Indie? Pop? Were they more like PWEI or more like EMF? What exactly were they going for? Just what was the deal?

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/27896382e82c4ea7e34e2c4fda97d92f8a152c96/0_529_3564_3969/master/3564.jpg

this reveals little

haha especially if the photo worked

It's weird because Jesus Jones were so astonishingly successful - especially in the States but seemed to fit nowhere in the UK music press's plan for what music was doing at the time.

It wasn't that they didn't come from a scene - as I said on the Shamen thread, they shamelessly piggybacked off the Shamen's work. It was more that they weren't legible as belonging to a music press standardised Thing - the way that the music press presented Baggy, or presented Shoegaze or Britpop or The New Wave Of New Wave as being "a-ha, we, the music press have spotted The Next Trend".

They just combined a bunch of stuff that was zeitgeisty and popular, and combined it with a heartthrob looks singer, and had this skyrocketing success that the Uk music press didn't know where to assign.

I'm just glad the Tatu cover of How Soon Is Now exists

WTF is “grebo”???

WTF is "grebo"? Obviously it is the music favored by diving birds of the order Podicipediformes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grebe?wprov=sfla1

No one knows what Grebo is, or where it came from, or what it means. They will only ever tell me what it isn't.

How Soon Is Now came out like 10 years before all these other songs so im assuming it's some remix from the grosse point blank soundtrack or something

it got reissued in 92 with a fancy 2cd single package when the label released a greatest hits set

https://www.discogs.com/The-Smiths-How-Soon-Is-Now/release/490493

https://www.discogs.com/The-Smiths-How-Soon-Is-Now/release/490503

Also I feel like this series always had a side strategy of padding out new tracks with indie disco classics.

xps The Smiths singles compilation came out in 1995.

Oddly Pulp's has the most warm evocative vibe, it actually reminds me of the era and conjured up some of the old late-teens early-90s magic, perhaps purely because it wasn't played as often as some of those other bangers.

Great video too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPGepgWupTw

I wrote a thing about DYRTFT a few years back, re-reading it, it's not a very good thing, however might be good for a dive into the track

https://pulpsongs.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/129-do-you-remember-the-first-time/

Dodgy were in most respects pretty shit, but I do miss the days when a band could have a hit with something so unabashedly and uncynically exuberant and positive as Staying Out For The Summer. It's definitely a song that could only have come out when it did, even if it was a straight sixties rip off

Dodgy winning Gary Crowley's demo clash on GLR five weeks running with Lovebirds. The shit ya remember, although not the song itself without going to YouTube. I'm curious to hear that demo again now.

Dodgy were embarrassing but actually not *that* bad as a band, not good enough for me to ever consider buying any of their records, but respect due for filling a particular niche well.

Before they embraced Britpop, bleached hair and ripping off the Rugrats theme tune, they cast themselves as ganja-worshipping caravan-dweller types. I remember being quite underwhelmed by their very non-psychedelic sound once I eventually got to hear 'So Let Me Go Far', although it has a certain charm that's grown on me, I'll admit. 'In A Room' was not a bad single either

also, they have definitely written their own Wikipedia page

Dodgy is such a terrible name for a band

It really is.
In A Room was surprisingly good, considering.

'Good Enough' was the worst of the Britpop era big hits

but staying out for the summer was good

Haha, after Kinder's reccommendation, I actually went and checked it out because I don't think I'd ever heard it, and I wish you could see my face right now?

I wanted to turn it off around 40 seconds in, but I stuck it out to 1.13 to see if they ever got to a chorus, but the whole thing is just so... ~not for Branwells~

(It does genuinely make me wonder, how much of the stuff I do have positive feelings towards these days, is based mostly on nostalgia for how I felt when I first heard it. Like, how many of the bands where I felt "this is my favourite thing!!!" in 1992, if I were hearing them for the first time now, would they even be something I even liked, let alone ~my favourite band~?)

((Like, if I first heard e.g. Kenickie or Lush for the first time today, I think I would still respond positively to it. But if I heard Blur or Suede for the first time, I'm genuinely not sure.))

'Good Enough' was the worst of the Britpop era big hits

It's up against some fairly stiff competition. For me, "Dancing in the Moonlight" just edges it out in the ghastliness stakes.

xp, you talking about 'In A Room', Branwell? I'm almost certain that's my favourite of Dodgy's singles, which is medium praise indeed but nevertheless

I don't count Dancing In The Moonlight as Britpop at all really - not even in the right era

with a lot of this kind of stuff, especially mid 90s Britpop, you wouldn't really be able to get away with that style of songwriting past 2009 at a large push. even back then, you had shite like 'She's So Lovely' by Scouting For Girls getting into the charts. I might be wrong here - I don't really listen to Radio X but maybe there are still loads of UK guitar pop bands singing about sunny days and cups of tea and factory work and charity shops?

Yeah, DL, it was In A Room and my reaction was not good. I'm sorry! (I tried the Summery one, too, and it was just too much like a cheap lager advert. No, no, no.)

BTW, did you get a chance to listen to The Shamen singles I suggested for you on the Jesus Jones thread? I don't know if you'd like the tracks or not, but I think it would reveal more about the connection between the two bands' sound at the time.

not even in the right era

Oh? What's the cut-off point?

21st August 1997

summink like that. summer 94 to end of 96 I'd say was peak Britpop by my reckoning,with a bit of give and take. DITM was during the darkside era of 2000

xxxp yup, see my reply in the JJ thread

oh god, yeah, In A Room is certainly not objectively "good", sorry Branwell! i think i hate Staying Out For The Summer so much that I remembered In A Room as being pretty tolerable. I should have caveated that I doubt I've heard it since i was a teen... might give it a listen now...!

actually no, it was Good Enough that's the absolute worst.

yeah, staying out for the summer is harmless, I remember it fondly as the theme music to Glastonbury 1995 on channel 4

Good Enough is awful. SOFTS is harmless fluff. In A Room was catchy. Melodies Haunt You was kinda sweet. So Let Me Go Far was passable. They were not a good band, but my rose tinted specs put some of these songs in a nicer light for me

No one knows what Grebo is, or where it came from, or what it means. They will only ever tell me what it isn't.

Grebo was the pre-grunge grungey rock sound of early PWEI and Gaye Bikers on Acid and etc

― no ifs, no buts, no scampo nation (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 16 August 2020 12:23 (four weeks ago)

Grebo being a variant/corrupting of "greaser" I think

― no ifs, no buts, no scampo nation (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 16 August 2020 12:24 (four weeks ago)

To me grebo was associated with the Wonder Stuff and Neds Atomic Dustbin. It was the opposite of sexy

― I am using your worlds, Sunday, 16 August 2020 19:26 (four weeks ago)

NV OTM, grebo was Gaye Bykers On Acid and the pre-drum-machine version of PWEI

― poparse's eye (sic), Sunday, 16 August 2020 20:15 (four weeks ago)

Did you honestly not understand my post as a joke, or do you just feel compelled to explain things to me?

When I was at school, a good few years after grebo had come and gone, "grebo" was used as a catch-all pejorative for anyone who was into rock music

Attempting to watch the GBoA film is a good way to ensure you never want to ask the question ever again.

In a way I can respect grebo as a version of rock n roll entirely free from aspirations towards cool or authenticity or ideals of any kind beyond perhaps low grade hedonism. Some might say that makes it inherently rubbish, and they may be right but um.. what was I saying?

everyone is saying "grebo this," and "grebo that." but no one is saying "worship this" and "jericho that."