The Top 50 Greatest Landfill Indie Songs of All Time (2020)

(Actually Editors did end up with a few No. 1s, I should have said a UK No. 1 debut)

getting the feeling my idea of what comprises "landfill" is wildly different from what others consider it to be

one man's trash...

i seem to be labouring under the illusion that it's incurious mod revivalist plod pop with loud guitars. everyone else seems to be understanding it as retro post-punk rapture / franz ferdinand etc

Why do the young whippersnapper kids talk about the good old days of Indie Sleaze when no such thing existed?

Interesting that in the hinterland between landfill dying and the unsuccessful NME Next Big Things era, White Lies emerged and bested the near-identical Interpol/Bravery/Editors in getting a UK No. 1 album. I'm not quite sure how they fit into the picture.

― you can see me from westbury white horse

I seem to remember White Lies releasing their first album right at the beginning of the year when album sales were really low. I can't imagine they had much competition. The Departure were another band who did that whole Interpol/Editors thing and had a couple of hits.

xp Here’s a thinkpiece on that…

Can someone from the UK describe for me the Venn Diagram of "landfill indie" vs. "student disco"? (As musical selections, but also as like, concepts)

cf. NME's Student Disco Anthems Of All Time Poll

My experience of student discos is that they did not play Joy Division and I presume this NME poll was of people who read the NME at the time

Can we please have a name for early-mid 2010s NME Next Big Thing comic strip characters like Spector, Temples, the Strypes, Superfood, Swim Deep, Palma Violets and Drenge.

i like that Double Dutch song actually. admittedly i forgot that it exists, but i like it.

This thread is having real-world repercussions:

Arctic Monkeys Perform “Mardy Bum” Live For First Time In 10 Years

the san cisco song is still distinctly one of the worst songs i have ever heard

I just backtracked to listen to this… holy moly

i seem to be labouring under the illusion that it's incurious mod revivalist plod pop with loud guitars. everyone else seems to be understanding it as retro post-punk rapture / franz ferdinand etc

i don't think franz ferdinand or the rapture are landfill but dog latin was arguing for a definition of it unrelated to quality or britishness that seemed broader than just mod revivalist plod pop (the strokes certainly aren't that, maximo park are definitely post-punk influenced) and i was trying to figure out where he was drawing the line

even the wombats had a clear post-punk influence, as dire as they were, and they're surely as landfill as it gets? personally i would just argue for landfill being the shit end of 00s uk indie on the garage rock/post-punk spectrum - the core of the 00s uk indie sound. i don't really know if a bunch of the acts we've talked about like maximo park, the cribs, futureheads etc. are shit enough for me to really count them even if i don't really care for them

all you need is two chords and a bit of confidence eh

(xp)

Nothing wrong with two chord songs.

anyway, the elephant in this particular thread is that, a year and a half ago, ILM voted a landfill indie song its favourite track of 2021. no notes

It’s curious how the Noisey piece cites two absolutely terrific songs as near contenders, but for their American-ness:

We’re focusing on British bands only – so, while Black Kids’ “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You” and We Are Scientists’ “This Scene Is Dead” may be worthy soldiers for the cause, they are American and therefore too unique to be included in this homogenous group of Isle of Wight Festival fodder.

I actually think of those two bands (plus the Blood Arm, whom most here probably won’t know, but we saw them play a ton in L.A. back in the day) as constituting a “literate, slightly melancholy party music for overthinkers” mid-2000s micro-genre.

For some reason I think of Los Campesinos when those bands are mentioned. They were fun

There you go - late 00's UK guitar band who probably didn't sell a lot of records but definitely weren't part of the "landfill" thing.

yeah lc! were definitely not landfill, they had a completely different set of influences and were backed much more by the american press than the uk press

the noisey piece was not really concerned with quality as the dividing line, black kids don't really sound like most of this stuff anyway but i guess were a hyped up act that was quickly abandoned by the press, so there's a parallel there at least

i think we are scientists definitely fit sonically though?

Yeah I don't think of Black Kids as landfill at all

I do, or rather I didn't disambiguate between them and UK bands at the time nor feel the need to now.

That first Black Kids EP is really fantastic and still stands up. The album was a disappointment though for sure. Underwritten songs and the production was way too slick.

This thread reminds me that Bernard Butler produced his fair share of crap bands. 2008 was Duffy year for him though - in a parallel universe he is a Mark Ronson.

Where would Scottish band Sons and Daughters fall within all of this? The Repulsion Box (2005) was wild Celt-punk rowdiness; This Gift (2008, which was produced by Bernard Butler) was a bit more radio-friendly while still maintaining that spirit.
I don't think they did anything after 2011's Mirror Mirror, which traded the folky stylings for darker, Goth-leaning vibes. "Rose Red" was the apotheosis, just a glorious track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXaRTb6CMec

I guess I don't know what I'm talking about, and the definition of landfill indie actually isn't what I stated upthread, but in fact it's "when 3 people on ILM say a band sucks." You cleared it up, thank you.

That seems to be it yes

whatever people say landfill is, that's what it's not

It's the Goth principle