Volume 21 Tracks 6-10 - Radiohead, AC Acoustics, Spiritualized, Suede, Ride

6. Radiohead - My Iron Lung (Parlophone)

Acting as the first single from the legendary "The Bends", it would be tempting to revise history and suggest that "My Iron Lung" was a hotly anticipated and much loved single on its release. In fact, the reception it received got Thom Yorke's goat so much that he could barely contain his contempt for music critics during promotional duties. In one audio interview I was sent by a PR company to promote the single's release, Yorke was asked "It is quite similar to 'Creep' isn't it?"
"Yes!" Yorke is heard to splutter sarcastically. "It has guitars and drums on it! It's exactly like 'Creep'!" (you have to wonder why he gave everyone bait by including the sneering lyrics "This is our new song/ just like our last one/ a total waste of time" then).
Elsewhere, he sneers about how all the music magazines are basically "comics" who changed their minds on a weekly basis as to whether Radiohead were any good or not.

Throughout the interview - sent out to regional journalists for promotional purposes so they could grab key soundbites to publish, unbelievably - there's no sign whatsoever that Yorke thinks they're about to release their pivotal LP. It's a faintly detached and vinegary sounding interview which just makes the group sound like a pile of rank outsiders, or worse still, a group of privileged EMI signed Oxford boys who dearly wished to be as credible as an American underground combo like Dinosaur Jr.

I don't think many people thought much more than "Oh" when the single finally emerged. It's a piece of claustrophobic angst which could quite easily have fitted on to "Pablo Honey" without any issues, sounding more like a continuation of their bitter peans on that LP. Only the rough, very underground sounding discordant guitar riffs which emerge throughout sound like something a bit more daring might be stirring in the group's ranks. It doesn't even have an arty, expensive looking promotional video as their later singles all would.

When it was finally released in March 1995, "The Bends" was a slow-burning album, spending one week at number 6 before crashing out of the top ten and then spending weeks on end bobbing up and down the Top 75. It took over a year to re-enter the top ten again, and the first few singles weren't hailed much outside their fanbase. By the time "Street Spirit" was issued in February 1996 and went straight in at number five, however, a watershed moment occurred, and the group were suddenly being hailed as "the next U2" (though somewhat interestingly, The Bluetones entered the charts above them at number two in the same week and were hailed as "the next Stone Roses". 1996 was obviously, if nothing else, a big year for predicted next big things). If you weren't paying very close attention, the fact they had become huge emerged on you in a moment of shock.

While it's been rather over-exposed and heavily imitated in the years since, there's little doubt that "The Bends" was a masterstroke, and that's understating the case by some margin. "My Iron Lung" is possibly one of the weakest tracks on the album, and a strange choice for the first single. The only thing that can possibly be argued in its favour is that it sounds like a continuation of their previous ideas, a bridge between the old and new, and therefore less of a jarring prospect than "Just", "High And Dry" or "Fake Plastic Trees" might have proven to be.



7. AC Acoustics - Hand Passes Plenty (Elemental)

Glaswegians AC Acoustics initially emerged as underground dinmakers, before easing off a little to produce more intricate sounds which surprised listeners with their considered and slightly experimental nature rather than jolting them.

"Hand Passes Plenty" is a particularly mellow excursion into their mid-nineties catalogue, hanging for so long on a central acoustic riff that it feels impossible to believe it will ever progress. It does, however, eventually finding unexpected sliproads off its main route to get distracted by. It's a single that feels strange and otherworldly without actually doing anything terribly unusual, seeming to jab you in the shoulders with faintly absurd diversions just when you feel you've settled into the womb-like environment it initially offers.

AC Acoustics would continue until 2003 before splitting up, proving themselves to be a durable cult band on the way, but one who were too esoteric to become successful, even in the particularly forgiving mid-nineties.



8. Spirtualized Electric Mainline - Let It Flow (Dedicated)

"Let It Flow" indicated that Spirtualized were blossoming into something far beyond their basic psychedelic roots. Their previous "Electric Mainline" EP left you in little doubt about that, of course, with its four tracks managing to sprawl from lush, rich psychedelia to minimal electronic ambience. This, however, felt like a more powerful hint to their future direction.

"Let It Flow" absorbs primitive electronica, gospel, the excesses of seventies rock, and the angst of mid-nineties indie to create something which is a surprisingly rich tapestry given its very minimal melodies. Hypnotic and shimmering, just as you think you've got the hang of its direction, it taunts you with another element.

The group's rise from cult act to the late nineties go-to group for spliffheads everywhere was so slow and steady that by 1997, it just seemed as if everyone living in a houseshare with three other people, a cat, a light fog of smoke and the perma-whiff of oven-ready pizza had always been listening to them. Never favourites for daytime radio play at any point in their careers, Spiritualized built on their initial post-Spacemen 3 cult following steadily, building on their ideas from one LP to the next until eventually, hardly anyone seemed to be able to ignore them.



9. Suede - The Wild Ones (Nude)

Do my eyes deceive me, or has a bona-fide Suede A-side managed to find its way on to an "Indie Top 20" compilation? And not just any A-side at that, but one of their finest.

One of the most frustrating things about Suede's post-debut album state possibly isn't that it lead to the loss of Bernard Butler, but the strange manner in which they deigned to grace us with their presence again, damning everything with awkwardness. "Dog Man Star" may not have been an album with many obvious singles on it, but the psychotic glam howling of "We Are The Pigs", with its "Peter Gunn" styled horn section and chorus of "We are the pigs/ we are the swine" was an enormous and vaguely unsatisfactory red herring. In my mind I've always had an alternative version of events, which saw them return with "The Wild Ones" as their comeback single, managing to release something that not only appealed to their fanbase but to a much broader audience in the process. I frequently fantasise that it would have changed everything.

Brett Anderson's voice nearly shakes the room when it introduces itself here, sounding like he's auditioning for a new stage musical about the lives of the Righteous Brothers. From there, the track builds, keeping many of the usual Suede lyrical cliches intact but knotting them together with something altogether more relatable and straightforward - the story of a departing lover. "The Wild Ones" is eerie and spine tingling, with faint callbacks to songs such as "Johnny Remember Me" in its bones (is it a coincidence that Anderson is wandering around on the moors in the promotional video? Or that I know at least one person who seems to think the song itself is somehow about death?) but also an astonishingly perfect piece of songwriting. The first time I heard it, I was immediately convinced that it's entire melody must have been stolen from somewhere else, because there was something so familiar about it, something that seemed buried deep within my subconscious - but there are no obvious comparisons. The song's themes, pace and even production echo back to classic ballads from previous decades, but the track itself has its own distinct feel and melody.

"The Wild Ones", while being a song entirely about a love affair that might have been, is also one of the most frustrating non top ten hits I can think of, and begs many "if onlys" itself. Brett Anderson was apparently sorely disappointed with its commercial performance, and out of everything in their catalogue, it's surely the single most due a film soundtrack opportunity to bring it back into the public eye. It's too glorious to go to waste.



10. Ride - I Don't Know Where It Comes From (Creation)

"I Don't Know Where It Comes From" enters seeing Ride sounding like some kind of early seventies studio group, marrying a jangly sixties melody to a distinctly polished, almost bubblegum arrangement. Initially, it's hard not to get the urge to put the theme from "Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads" or an Edison Lighthouse single on instead.

Eventually though, the song builds itself up into a slightly chilled and folksy pop affair, having a breeziness to its arrangement a lot of Ride singles completely lacked. Of course, had this been a debut single by a new group, it's completely impossible to imagine it attracting any attention at all, and by this point there was a sense that Ride were coasting on their previous glories. Nonetheless, the sunshine bursting through the track, despite the gloomy lyrical conceits, does make it likeable.

By this point, the group were on their last legs and bickering about their creative direction. Their final album "Tarantula" would be tossed off in 1996 and widely regarded as one of the biggest disappointments of the decade, to the extent that no member of the band can be bothered to defend it to this day. Their 2017 comeback has provided them with a golden opportunity to put things straight.

Volume 16 Side 3 - Verve, Spiritualized, Pulp, The Jennifers (Supergrass), Spectrum

1. Verve - She's A Superstar (Hut)

While I slightly struggled with Verve initially, "She's A Superstar" was an enormous, towering single which emerged very early in their careers. Riddled with scaling riffs, chiming, music box guitar elements buried deep in the mix, and rumbling basslines, it seeps mood and atmosphere rather than clubbing you around the head with nagging hooks.

Unfortunately, if the finger of suspicion can be pointed at any band in particular for starting the lazy lyrical tropes of Dadrock, it's probably Ashcroft and company. "She climbs so high/ I don't know why", sings yer man airily and lazily, possibly inspiring the by-numbers lyricism of Oasis and their many minions along the way.

Still, "She's A Superstar" scales, swoops and turns at graceful angles like a majestic bird - even if Richard Ashcroft had contributed no lyrics at all and this had been an "Albatross" styled instrumental, it would be hard not to be impressed by it. It's a Verve track you won't hear often on adult rock or alternative stations, but really, for me it was the first sign that some of the hype was possibly justified.



2. Spiritualized - Medication (Dedicated)

Spiritualized were getting more sophisticated too, moving on from being blissed-out underground hippies with a mighty fine lightshow, to creating songs with tight, ambitious and occasionally almost unwieldy arrangements. Their epic and absurdly long single "Feels So Sad" acted as evidence to listeners that they weren't afraid of a challenge, and even if that particular attempt was perhaps too bloated for its own good, it was clear that they had an intent to be more than just an indie group.

"Medication" is a moody and bitter pean to drug addiction which is filled to the brim with dizzy jazzy riffs, eerie organ work, and rushing guitar noises. It's a single that sounds impressive rather than having much impact emotionally - it's difficult not to be taken in by its ambition and conviction initially, but I suspect I'm not alone in saying that I didn't end up listening to it much after 1992 waved goodbye. But for anyone looking for evidence that Jason Pierce had moved beyond his Spacemen 3 roots and was now creating finely sculpted and detailed work rather than the lo-fi psychedelic druggy drones of yore, it was here, and things would only get better.



3. Pulp - Babies (Gift)

Pulp had been around for over a decade by this point, and could actually have featured on Indie Top 20 Volume One had Beechwood been inclined (1986's macabre "Little Girl (With Blue Eyes)" would have been a cracking addition to that cassette, actually). But they were probably never close to being in the running. Pulp were very much a sideshow act in Indiepop's boom years, churning out dark, morbid and slightly twisted songs with claustrophobic, under-produced atmospheres to very select audiences. While I don't count myself among the fans who will argue that every LP the band has ever recorded is great, their debut 1981 Peel Session contains the amazing "Wishful Thinking" (the most under-appreciated Pulp track ever?), the 1983 debut LP "It" is uneven but worthy, and 1992's delayed "Separations" LP is riddled with cheap synthesiser squelches and early eighties dancefloor rhythms as well as Scott Walker-esque patches of melodrama, and is probably their finest pre-fame effort. Only 1987's "Freaks" is a completely undercooked and joyless experience.

Pulp's time had been by no means wasted, but most bands would have packed up before "Babies", going off to get proper jobs and raise families and being satisfied with having a footnote in the world of eighties British indie. The press were not all entirely welcoming by this point. When the group jumped ship from Fire Records (who they felt didn't have their best interests at heart) to Warp's subsidiary label Gift, this was greeted by some journalists with extreme scepticism. The NME were heard to make an off-the-cuff complaint that if those C86 chancers Pulp were being labelled as bright hopes, then something had gone truly, horribly wrong with British music. Others, however, were wowed by Pulp's increasingly energetic live shows, and charmed by Jarvis Cocker's eccentric and charismatic on-stage demeanour.

By this point, they even had a shit-hot Canadian manager who nonetheless didn't seem to quite understand how to best market the group. She wandered around talking to people of influence telling them that she had "the next Right Said Fred" on her hands. Clearly, even at this point, things weren't entirely locking into place.

Thank God for the songs, then, which by now were becoming truly staggering. "Babies" is one of their finest ever singles, and one the marvellous blog "Freaks, Mis-Shapes, Weeds" does a great job of unpacking (though I agree with the statement that it's hard to critically dissect and analyse something so effervescent and enjoyable). The foundation of an incredibly simple, if faintly unusual, two chord riff acts as the basis for all kinds of instrumental diversions for the group, from Candida's synthesiser squelches to twanging guitars and ambient interludes, to the downright euphoric ending... if Pulp described themselves as a "garage band" in the mid-eighties, they had travelled far beyond that now, and were as fussy (if not fussier) than Verve and Spiritualized... except they were playing with shaggy dog story lyrics and pop hooks, not scaling epic rock mountains. Pulp at this point were about smalltown stories and awkward situations and sex, rather than drugs and astral flying.

"Babies" would become the hit it was always supposed to be when reissued in 1994 by Island Records. For now, though, it was a curio, a marvellous single which did get some radio and television exposure - the fact it ended up on "The ITV Chart Show" marked an enormous leap forward - but wasn't really heard as often as you might suspect in 1992. I was a reasonably regular indie/ alternative clubber and gig-goer at this point, and I heard it played by a DJ once, at a small bar called Saks in Southend. Myself and a few friends strode on to the dancefloor to give the DJ our vote of confidence while almost everybody else ignored it. It was a sublime single, and everybody who liked "Babies" wanted to believe that Pulp might finally enter the mainstream... but the odds seemed so frighteningly long at this point.



4. The Jennifers - Just Got Back Today (Nude)

Another Britpop big name checks into "Indie Top 20" incredibly early. At the nucleus of this group were Danny Goffey and Gaz Coombes, both of whom would later form Supergrass. At this point, though, they hadn't even finished school, but after hometime and at the weekends their lives were consumed by the very young indie group The Jennifers.

"Just Got Back Today" sold rather poorly and it's somewhat miraculous it ended up being documented on "Indie Top 20" - I suspect that Nude Records approached Beechwood with a deal where they would pick up the license to a Suede track at a reasonable price if this effort was also guaranteed a place in the track listing.

Nonetheless, you can hear bags of promise in this, and while there's absolutely no evidence of Supergrass at their most turbo-charged, it does sound exactly like one of the group's maudlin moments. A wailing harmonica joins hands with a despairing vocal line, and the band sound heartbroken beyond their years. It's not a perfect track by any means, though. The chorus is rather too laissez faire for its own good, and the ending is clumsy and inconclusive, but given how downright young the group were, it's staggering to hear how developed they already were. This mood and sound would recur throughout Supergrass's career, from the rainy Sunday evening loneliness of "Late In The Day" to most of 2005's understated and under-rated "Road To Rouen" (so much so that I once actually padded my personal CD Rom copy of that LP out with "Just Got Back Today" as a bonus track, feeling that it acted as a sweet, innocent echo back to their early days).

Neither Danny or Gaz were quite ready for the big-time yet, but there's enough here to help you understand how some critics and record label bosses were already excited. In a couple of years time, they would be enormous news.



5. Spectrum - True Love Will Find You In The End (Silvertone)

If Jason Pearce left Spacemen 3 to scale musical mountains, it was starting to become fairly obvious that Pete Kember was quite happy to remain a minimalist. The more time progressed, the harder it was becoming to imagine them ever having been in the same group together.

"True Love..." is a shimmering and simple cover of a naive and hopeful Daniel Johnston track. If Johnston's original is childlike and sounds in danger of toppling over at any second, the Spectrum version is tight and psychedelically inclined, with ringing bells, wailing guitars, and Christmassy glitter toppling all over the well-meant intentions of the original. It manages to make the song sound both still more childlike, and also more stately.

For all that, it respects the simplicity of the original, and manages to make it sound like a hymn to the possibilities of life-long partnerships. There have been moments in my life where I've scoffed and even groaned at the sentiments in this song, but as a middle-aged man I've now come to appreciate that there was some wisdom in it after all.

Volume 13 Side Two - Catherine Wheel, The Telescopes, Moose, Spiritualized, Midway Still

1. Catherine Wheel - Shallow (Wilde Club)

Their last single before rushing off to cash the banker's cheques offered to them by Fontana, "Shallow" was proof that Catherine Wheel had the pop chops to justify the jump away from the indie sector. While "Shallow" edges dangerously close to Ride sonically, the chorus is pure bliss, and the song itself shows no weaknesses at all, charging full-throttle through numerous elated and masterful guitar riffs on its way. "Heaven Sent An Angel" it isn't, being a pleasing tapestry of ideas which occur so quickly that it's initially impossible to realise quite how much is going on in a mere few minutes.

Following this, their career on Fontana was full of mixed fortunes. While they managed to maintain a small and loyal fanbase in the both the US and the UK, they consistently seemed on the brink of success rather than actually breaking through. Singles were released, all of which only just missed the Top 50, only to quickly disappear again. Their sound moved with the times, becoming much heavier and more rock orientated by the mid-nineties, but by 2000 it was all over. Compared to almost every other act of this era, they had a strange, dogged persistence, never giving up even when the scene around them shifted. Indeed, their lifespan went beyond the duration of the "Indie Top 20" series itself; an impressive achievement, but they seem doomed to remain a footnote in any alternative rock story.



2. The Telescopes - Flying (Creation)

The Telescopes had always had a slightly shoegazey sound to their work, of course, and in many ways could have been regarded as one of the earliest groups (along with Pale Saints) to appreciate that a broader listening public awaited for a dense, hypnotic noise. "Flying", though, really pulls things up a notch or two, feeling truly disorientating (still more so when you watch the impressively suitable video) and whooshing past in a rush of sonic mayhem. The sitar overload also indicates that late sixties psychedelic influences were at play, and the whole thing truly soars - appropriately, given the title.

Despite all this, and despite the fact that they had shunted over to Creation Records where a higher profile should surely have been expected, there was a sense that The Telescopes were beginning to become marginalised at this point, and by the tail end of 1992 they would cease to exist. It's impossible to put your finger on quite what they were doing wrong, and really they should have had a head start over their travelling companions - but rather like The Pale Saints, they felt strangely sidelined by the media.



3. Moose - Suzanne (Hut)

"Suzanne" really continues in a similar stylistic vein to "Jack" on "Volume 12", except rather like The Telescopes, Moose really pull out all the stops here to make the track a psychedelic blur. "She walks all over me/ I can't take it from her!" sings Russell, while the band's tune gets locked in the roar of a sonic wind tunnel. The track rattles and canters along to its inevitable chaotic death.

As a single, this got quite a few critics hot under the collar and caused some to revise their expectations of the band's success. The video got "Chart Show" exposure, they were observed being particularly chummy with Blur, and it was felt that perhaps a corner was being turned. In reality, Moose were far too maudlin and self-indulgent (albeit often in an interesting way) to truly vault into the mainstream, and "Suzanne" was and remains an interesting moment where a rather unlikely group became the subject of speculation. Startlingly, the Virgin subsidiary Hut Records didn't lose complete faith in them until 1992, meaning we'll be hearing more from them.



4. Spiritualized - Run (Dedicated)

Fuelled by a cheeky (and credited) steal from JJ Cale's "Call Me The Breeze", "Run" is actually a very repetitive, primal number by Spiritualized's usual standards - their previous single, a version of Lou Reed and John Cale's "Why Don't You Smile Now", took the rough simplicity of the original and turned it into a grandoise epic, whereas "Run" is a bluesy, foggy jog through rock's back pages, and the psychedelic elements do very little to disguise that.

Still, it's an enjoyable few minutes, and while the group had clearly yet to become the Class A gospel preachers of the indie circuit, it shows that a lot of headway had been made by Jason Pierce since parting company with Spacemen 3. Already, a unique and identifiable sound was starting to lock into place, and broader appreciation was theirs for the taking.



5. Midway Still - I Won't Try (Roughneck)

Midway Still represent the idea of forgotten early nineties indie heroes so well that one person even named a blog after them. "Because Midway Still Aren't Coming Back" was the title of one of the earliest online mp3 blogs dedicated to deleted and largely disregarded British nineties indie, and was obviously a bookmark in my web browser's menu bar.

Oddly though, Midway Still sounded far more like an imported American underground rock act than the low-budget Kent boys they actually were. "I Won't Try" is evidence of this, with its almost Lemonheads styled power-pop chorus, rough and ready guitar work, and drawled vocals. Their debut album "Dial Square" would be produced by Sonic Youth dial twiddler Don Fleming, cementing their transatlantic sound still further.

Looking and sounding as if they'd fallen off the back of a Greyhound bus fresh from Seattle did the group little harm in terms of media coverage initially, and almost certainly boosted their profile far higher than it otherwise would have gone at any other period - but they never quite rose above their underground status, and became a near-permanent fixture on the Camden club and pub scene in the early nineties. In fact, almost all vaguely "grungey"/college rock styled British groups failed to find much appreciation on their own shores, a peculiar cultural anomaly which I still struggle to make sense of. Given the fact that they were able to tour here with greater ease and regularity and were also available for media appointments at the drop of a hat, you'd have thought at least a few British grunge-styled acts would have broken through, but success proved elusive (unless you count the artificial one hit wonders Stiltskin, that is...)

Volume Ten Side 3 - Inspiral Carpets, Charlatans, The Darkside, Spiritualized, Family Cat

1. Inspiral Carpets - She Comes In The Fall (Mute)

"This is moody and miraculous with a lovely walking on air melody, but then the organ farts in again and firmly stops them becoming stellar".

I first heard "She Comes The Fall" in its Peel Session guise, and loved it - in typical Inspirals fashion, it was a stirling piece of garage pop, but this time with added flourishes. Barging its way into your mind with almost aggressive verses while the chorus turned you over and rubbed your belly with its sweetness, it also added marching military drumbeats and carefully plucked guitar lines to its arsenal.

The "Life" LP version later on wasn't much different. A bit beefed up, maybe, but pleasing and one of the highlights of a now frequently ignored piece of work.

Then this, the single version, was... well, it was as if the band had travelled back in time, gone to the Sound Techniques studio with Joe Boyd, and played with all the toys in there one merry afternoon. That should make the 7" version an absolute triumph, but oddly it sounds gimmicky and distracting instead. It swirls, honks, echoes and whooshes all over the shop while everyone gets over-excited pressing the "special buttons" in the studio, and it ends up smacking of a poor sixties parody rather than a carefully executed radio edit. It places almost alarming attacks of psychedelia where they feel uncomfortable; those howling electronic sirens during the instrumental break, for example, almost utterly ruin a top drawer Clint Boon performance.

None of this silliness can completely murder the song, of course, which remains strong enough to withstand the assault, but I'll still always reach for the LP version over this.



2. The Charlatans - The Only One I Know (Dead Dead Good)

"The Only One I Know, a track blessed with wah-wah guitar and a hammond organ swirling around a pure hypnotic groove" - Sounds.

"The Only One I Know" was a shock. Firstly, to anyone who hadn't been following The Charlatans closely at this point, which I must guiltily confess I hadn't, something as brightly poppy as this didn't seem possible. "Indian Rope" was slightly psychedelic and meandering, not catchy, bouncy and bouyant.

Secondly, even after I heard it, my first appreciative thought was "That might even get into the Top 40 if it's lucky". The fact that the single then soared into the top ten and could even be caught being used as backing music on keep fit programmes was above and beyond my expectations. It briefly made The Charlatans seem like a serious threat to the Mondays and the Roses - if they could keep this sort of jolly rhumba racket going, who knew what else would be in store?

"The Only One I Know" is so much a part of alternative rock's heritage now that it's actually difficult to take any number of steps back and look at it afresh. The first time I heard it, I adored the bittersweet chorus and those swooping, high basslines, but over the course of thirty or forty listens found myself ground down by one of the main hooks, the repetitive squawking keyboard line, which follows you around throughout like a flock of nagging geese. Like a lot of hook-heavy pop, its instant appeal does eventually become a mild irritant.

For all that, though, I've never once found myself needing to turn the radio off or leave the dancefloor for the bar when it comes on. Two singles in, The Charlatans had managed to pull the enviable (and certainly very profitable) trick of writing an ageless alternative pop tune. This is their "Reward", their "Echo Beach", or their "Birdhouse In Your Soul". It didn't necessarily typify their output, which as we'll see was actually rich and broad, but it did become a very powerful beacon to people who may never have otherwise got to hear the rest of their work - and they'd easily avoid becoming one-hit wonders.



3. The Darkside - Waiting For The Angels (Situation Two)

"an irresistable, etherial psychedelic pop song from the darkside, a trio from the centre of England".

Yet another group who splintered out of the dissolution of Spacemen 3, The Darkside were essentially the other members minus Peter Kember (who would create Spectrum) and Jason Pierce (Spiritualized). Perhaps somewhat inevitably, they were the least successful offshoot of them all, but that's not to say that they didn't create some music of note.

"Waiting For The Angels", for example, is dark, brooding, faintly psychedelic and - while not much of a single, if the truth be told - does slowly and lazily unveil a certain majesty across its playing time. There are mild similarities between this and The Charlatans' next single "Then", mainly around the mood and the bassline, which are surely just a vague coincidence.

The band managed two studio albums before giving up the ghost in 1993.



4. Spiritualized - Anyway That You Want Me (Dedicated) - Vinyl and Cassette Only (for some mad reason)

(no sleevenotes were provided for this track).

Talking of which... it's staggering the way ex-members of Spacemen 3 managed to colonise volumes of "Indie Top 20", and in this case, they're living right next door to each other.

In 1990, opening your new band's career with a cover version of a Troggs single was considered an incredibly suspect thing to do, whether the end result was any good or not. Nothing really says "Actually, we're a bit stuck for ideas" as much as a sixties cover. Jason Pierce seemed to have Brexited out of Spacemen 3 and now didn't have a clue what to do. And yet...

The original "Anyway That You Want Me", if you want to take the time out to listen to it, is a very spindly, pale, uncertain little fawn of a pop song, closer to The Velvet Underground at their most stumbling and unsure than a scaling psychedelic song. And Spiritualized took it and made it mighty, creating an ambitious cover akin to Nilsson's reinterpretation of Badfinger's slightly scrappy "Without You". Crashing, heavy-handed Troggs chords still form the foundations of the song, but surrounding them are a wealth of orchestral flourishes and wailing guitars - it's not a cover so much as a total reconstruction, and it's hard to imagine why anybody would prefer the original. If it can be criticised at all, it's for the overlong ending which tries to be agreeably hypnotic but just becomes blandly repetitious. The single wouldn't have lost much by having 30-45 seconds trimmed off it, and indeed at the time I often found myself skipping to the next track on this LP early.

Obviously, when it comes to Troggs ballads that needed a bit more work, Wet Wet Wet hit what some would call the "paydirt" with "Love Is All Around".



5. The Family Cat - A Place With A Name (Bad Girl)

"The Family Cat present, for your delectation and delight, their second single of 1990. So crank up the gramophone, roll back the carpet and get down to 'Place With A Name'".

"Listening to Leonard Cohen, though heaven knows why", begins this track, a viewpoint that sums up a common human dilemma. We depress ourselves with heavy folk singer-songwriter fare from the sixties when what we probably actually need is some Northern Soul.

"A Place With A Name" is a short, sharp, likeable piece of indie rock which failed to really present The Family Cat as much of a force for the future, but was a distinct improvement on the disappointment of "Remember What It Is That You Love". It lacks the scuffed up aggression of "Tom Verlaine" but replaces it with a lot of sweetness - the brightness was turned up on The Family Cat's world at this point, and that's a side of them that would make itself known on future singles too.