SHINE: 20 Brilliant Indie Hits

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."

Sounds like music that is FUN!!!
Was on emmadle farm douring milking lol!
Too cute in tartan!! X

(I was inspired to look up that Wonderstuff track on YT)

A housemate at uni 99/01 was very into grebo, think it was his musical coming of age and he hadn't moved on. When we went to his childhood house one time we found his bedroom wall had the quote "if the writer Hunter S. Thompson had been a presiding influence over The Beatles, then they might have looked and sounded like The Wonder Stuff" written in giant letters, covering one of his bedroom walls.

Are we gonna redo the whole Shamen thread on the Shine thread? Yay! Bless Will Sin's grebo haircut!

DL, I actually suspect that it was the other way around - the grebo, as a term was something that predated the music genre? Like, it's a type of teenager that has been around since the 70s (or time immemorial) - long, unkempt hair, ripped jeans or long shorts, highly invested in a troglodyte concept of 'RAWK!' and the primacy of the guitar riff. I was aware, from reading the NME/MM was Grebo Music was, but didn't know what a grebo was - so I looked it up in contemporary sources and slang dictionaries, and that's what came up. Because my parents moved to NY in 79, and that's where I spent my teens (the 80s) the word I learned for that type of person was "Hesher". Not quite a metalhead, but definitely HARD RAWK!

Maybe I should revive the Grebo: S/D thread to talk about this - I've always had an interest in hybrids, things that are neither quite one-thing-or-the-other. And so I'm intrigued by all these not-rock-not-dance-kinda-both bands from around the time my musical taste was forming. So bands who would have a ~dance element to their music~ and use drum machines (or even have drummers who were prepared to enter that Jaki Liebezeit 'the drummer is the machine' zone - like, that is what was *good* about the Stone Roses, they had a phenomenal drummer, the rest of it was rockist bullshit, but the beats Reni played were fantastic, and the Can-like dynamics he used when they played those long, 10-minute jams were what made the band interesting) - were far more interesting to me than the Classic Britpop Guitar Band.

So, to take a troglodyte Grebo guitar and stick that on top of a house beat? (If you listen to the guitar riff in e.g. Make It Mine, without the beat, it's indistinguishable from a Nuggets / Pebbles / Troggs troglodyte garage rock riff.) That's really my sweet spot. In a way that 'greasy long-haired dudes worshiping the Beatles' really isn't.

I fully admit that ~thinking in genre~ is not my natural mode of engaging with music, and I find it quite difficult, so... it's likely I will not do it correctly here.

Genres aren't objective facts tbh, if kids are including yr Jesus Joneses and stuff in their notion of "Grebo" now then so be it

I forgot Crazyhead. I don't think I ever knowingly heard Crazyhead. When the Cult decided to cosplay metal that was kinda Grebo adjacent too I guess

I saw the Shamen live probably around first album period, even back then they were too sampler and psyche oriented to be Grebo I think. That "Make It Mine" riff is chunky tho. I got a bit obsessed with the silly video for it

Haha, TBF, I'm 50 and from his self-descriptions I'm pretty sure DL (and his schoolmates) are pushing 40 now, so I don't think any of us are kids around here, ha ha!

That's what The Shamen themselves were saying in interviews - that they totally didn't fit in the C-86 scene coz they loved their samplers and electronic drum kits too much - and they didn't fit in the Scottish RAWK! scene (as it were) either because they were too psychedelic.

Which video for Make It Mine? The very ~cybery~ one with the blonde twins, or the RAWK GAWDS!!! live one?

Blonde twins who I had a mild crush on and the very weird cheap video intercuts of Shamen heads staring oùt at you

The twins were totally cute, and the Shamen heads were ~floating in the noosphere, maaaan~ but what I want to know is... who was the mysterious Third Shamen in the video? I have never figured that out.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/655f9a14b6db86ee00cc3483519a327b/8cdd1823f989a1d5-72/s1280x1920/a223b73b263e8b31c71f35095967644a691cdfd3.png

The bloke on the left - I am pretty certain that is not Mr C, totally wrong eye colour and facial shape. (Obv the bloke in the centre is Colin, still in his Private Gripweed hair/glasses combo, and Will on the right with the dreads, but WHOOOO is this mysterious Third Shamen, is he even real - is he a manifestation of their collective shamanic subconscious, a spirit guide - what?)

(Apologies, I am now totally derailing this thread, and I should take myself back to the Shamen thread - I did try to talk about the Stones Roses and Dodgy, sorry I really did my best.)

There were 4 Shamens originally, I guess I assumed this was a transitional phase

More importantly what are the twins saying???