Indie Top 20 Vol 5 Side 4 - Darling Buds, Talulah Gosh, Sugarcubes, Another Sunny Day, Swans

1. Darling Buds - Shame On You (Native)

Ah memories, misty water coloured memories, of the way we were... it sounds almost unfathomable now, but The Darling Buds were an incredibly big deal around this time, featuring in the "Great Hopes for 1989" section of many a music magazine at 1988's tail end. Bursting out of Newport way before Cool Cymru was dreamt up, and fronted by the very blonde and pretty Andrea Lewis with the moody, smouldering Harley Farr on guitar, they looked the part, sounded spiky and could clearly pen a catchy ditty. Whatever could go wrong?

As always with this question, it's difficult to give a precise answer, really, but they never quite hit the same heights as the rather similar Primitives, never mind The Stone Roses or even The Wonder Stuff. "Shame On You" makes some hints as to why - sharp and sparky the whole affair might be, but there's actually very little to set the band apart from their indiepop compatriots apart from presentation. It zips along in one big rush but doesn't sound in any way significant, cheeky, snappy little lines like "Of all the things you could have said/ you had to say 'let's go to bed'" aside.

Away from all the hype, though, it is possible to admire the track's sheer driving force and sassiness. And in fairness to the band, they had better tracks up their sleeves, albeit none strong enough to really push them into the frontline of pop.

Overall, though, another group for the "Not quite as good as The Flatmates" file. And once The Darling Buds of May became a major hit television series, their name became faintly absurd too, rather than them seeming like another indie band named after an old tome.



2. Talulah Gosh - Bringing Up Baby (53rd & 3rd)

Some unintentionally cruel track sequencing here. 1989's great hopes are followed by a group who had largely fallen into irrelevance in the music press by this point. At one particularly fruitful, fresh post-C86 point, you couldn't even pick up a copy of the glossy Record Mirror without reading about Talulah Gosh, but by the end of 1988 eyes had turned elsewhere.

It's not overly surprising, really, because while the music press love to champion fresh new faces and underdogs for a year or two, they tend to lose patience and wander off if the act either remains resolutely underground or just plain doesn't break through. Talulah Gosh were clearly in the former camp - despite the enormous strides they had made by the time we last caught up with them on Volume Two, they remained on a tiny indie, always sounded charmingly amateurish (or irritatingly so, depending on your point of view) and continued writing songs about subject matters which were never going to resonate with the broader public. "Bringing Up Baby", for example, seems to be partly based on a 1938 Katherine Hepburn film of the same name. I've never seen it, but it's apparently a "screwball comedy", which makes the slightly melancholic air and detachment of the song feel rather strange. It seems more likely that this is about an ordinary couple desperately imagining themselves to be like Hepburn and Cary Grant in the film.

It's a sweet, lonely, fragile little song which sounds like the band beginning to explore more interesting depths, but their final single "Testcard Girl" was just around the corner, and that would be the end of that. Like The Flatmates before them, there would be no album, although Amelia Fletcher, Mathew Fletcher and Peter Montchiloff would re-emerge in Heavenly, who became full-on indiepop legends with a much more rounded, tougher style. "Atta Girl" in particular highlights how much their lyrical and musical approach would build on the Gosh foundations.

Fun Indiepop fact - In 2014 Amelia Fletcher was awarded with an OBE for her services to Competition and Consumer Economics.



3. The Sugarcubes - Deus (One Little Indian)

"Birthday" was such a beguiling single that there was a period spent wondering how on earth The Sugarcubes would follow it up. Most journalists predicted a Cocteau Twins styled career, consisting of atmospheric, wobbly songs with disorientating lyrical content. It didn't happen. "Birthday" was a complete one-off, and the follow-up single "Cold Sweat" was an aggressive, almost threatening single about sexual intercourse.

We won't get a chance to discuss that one here - a shame, because it's probably one of the more under-rated singles in their catalogue, forever referred to as a "disappointing follow-up" for not being another "Birthday". Third single, "Deus", on the other hand, did get space on "Indie Top 20" and is different yet again, being a piece of laidback, loping funkiness about a God figure who forces people to have baths upon meeting them. "He was not white and fluffy!" complains Einar about the deity before him. "He just had sideburns and a quiff!"

Musically, the track has chiming guitars and a polished finish - it sounds like laidback, FM, adult pop, with only Bjork's vocal acrobatics and Einar's bizarre interjections skewing it in stranger directions. The group once claimed in an interview that it had been designed to be a French pop hit, in what was widely regarded to be a slightly sarcastic comment to a typically parochial British journalist who enquired about when they were going to have a "proper" hit in the UK charts. However, it may have had some truth behind it. From my parent's house in sub-suburban Southend, you could clearly pick up French and Belgian radio, and "Deus" definitely got on there alongside all the middle-of-the-road pop hits of the day.

In the end, though, it had to content itself with a number 51 placing in the UK and not a great deal anywhere else (apart from, presumably, their home country). I'd also argue it's not the finest single in the band's catalogue - it's enjoyable but the inventiveness begins and ends with the lyrics, and the band were at their best when they all really pushed the boat out. You could imagine elements of "Deus" being given to The Police to use as a backing track, which isn't something you could easily say of most of their other output. Still, if nothing else it showed they had baffling versatility.



4. Another Sunny Day - I'm In Love With A Girl Who Doesn't Know I Exist (Sarah)

Whenever a music journalist seeks to skewer the output of Sarah Records with their case for the prosecution, "I'm In Love With A Girl Who Doesn't Know I Exist" is normally first on the list. And why in hell not, I suppose? This, really, is a mere minute-and-a-half of sparsely recorded guitar plucking and musing on unrequited love, the musical template for weak, fragile young souls with tea-stained Sartre books from the library in their satchels that they're never actually going to read. AmIrite?

Not really. While I can't get geared up for this single in the manner that a lot of Sarah aficionados can, its economy of style and folksy melody are significant plus points. There's an awful lot going on within not much time, in a manner that the best sixties folk rockers managed but very few cult indie figures did.

Lyrically, of course, it's as simplistic as anything ever produced by a hair metal band, if not more so - it has delicate sensitivity in buckets, but Harvey Williams (the main driving force behind ASD) despairs "I could speak to you, you could speak to me/ Oh but it will never happen, what will be will be", which besides being startlingly lazy writing also underlines adolescent romantic idealism. He's in love with a girl who doesn't know he exists, purely because her dialogue with him has been non-existent. All she's aware of is that occasional intense gaze across the playground, which is getting more and MORE intense and uncomfortable by the day... pack it in, Harvey. She probably fancies a boy in the year above anyway.

As I pointed out in my entry about The Razorcuts, though, swap the gender roles around in the song to the more traditional "I'm In Love With A Boy Who Doesn't Know I Exist", and the creepiness and hopelessness somehow fades away. Which is maybe at least half the point.



5. Swans - Love Will Tear Us Apart (Jarboe vocal) (Product Inc)

New Yorkers Swans are usually known for piercing, grinding experimental rock, and tend to repulse as many people as they attract. Their 1988 cover of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" marks a sudden and surprising change of style. Rather than overload the song with harsh, eardrum threatening guitar noises, they handled it with respect and care, recording two versions. One, the Michael Gira sung version, was so close to the original as to be of questionable worth. This, sung by their keyboardist and co-vocalist Jarboe, takes a different tack.

Jarboe seems to interpret the song as a spiritual, hollering the words to a minimal keyboard backing. It sounds at times agonised, other times resigned, sweeping upwards before falling earthbound moments later.

It's ambitious despite its simplicity, and is a worthy reinterpretation, but it's not something I return to very often. It certainly showed that "Love Will Tear Us Apart" was a powerful piece of songwriting which could stand up to all manner of arrangements, but nothing new unveils itself after the first listen here. It does, however, act as a downbeat, sombre and calm resolution to Volume 5.

Indie Top 20 Vol 5 Side 3 - Pop Will Eat Itself, The Shamen, Wolfhounds, Sea Urchins, The Vaselines

1. Pop Will Eat Itself - Def Con One (Chapter 22)

We've been through five Indie Top 20 albums so far, and Pop Will Eat Itself have featured on every single one. This does perhaps underline how prolific the band were at this point, but also highlights how much of a big deal they were too, featuring all over the music press and radio waves. Never universally critically acclaimed - they were truly despised by some critics, in fact - they nonetheless tapped into a strange demand for loud, sample-heavy, hip-hop inspired indie-rock.

This feels strange looking back. "There Is No Love Between Us Anymore" aside, none of these tracks feel vital or exciting today, and most seem rather too clunky for their own good. "Def Con One" is neat enough with its Twilight Zone samples and Motown drum breaks, and perhaps not as clumsy as some of their output, but there's nothing in it that screams "great hopes of the Midlands".

The chorus of "Big Mac fries to go/ gimme Big Mac and fries to go" apparently originated from a nightmare a band member had about the group doing an advert for McDonalds for some spare cash, thereby costing them their credibility. It's a cheeky hook making light of a ridiculous (and unlikely) scenario, a neat try at beating the devil to the punch, and the track as a whole is entertaining - but never anything more than that. There's a goofiness about early PWEI which is often endearing, but sonically they were always lagging slightly behind many of their compatriots. It's worth noting that at this point The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu, aka the KLF, had already released "Who Killed The Jams" and were about to explore Trance and Ambient House, and The Shamen were also about to take to Dance Music like ducks to water. PWEI were instead dancing around to the Twilight Zone theme and chanting about Big Macs.

My mother turned out to be the best critic for "Def Con One", sticking her head through my bedroom door in 1988 to ask incredulously: "Are you listening to Adam & The Ants these days?!" And it did sometimes feel as if PWEI had based their entire early careers on the widely derided "Ant Rap", so full points to her there. She should have had her own column in the NME.



2. The Shamen - Jesus Loves Amerika (Moksha)

"Jesus Loves Amerika" is an angry, irritated stab at American television evangelists and US culture and society in general. "Jesus loves Amerika!" they tell us "But I don't love neither!"

The group were highly politicised at this point, entitling their latest (actually pretty good) album "In Gorbachev We Trust", but there's still not much excuse for this attempt at soapbox ranting. "Yeah, these are the men who put the right in righteous/ Such hypocrisy, stupidity is truly out of sight, yes" they inform us, which does rather undermine any sensible point they're trying to make through forced rhyme. Really chaps... even Duran Duran are blushing in the corner.

There probably are a decent set of lyrics to be written about TV evangelists, but they're not to be found here, and nor can they be found in Phil Collins' "Jesus He Knows Me". For what it's worth, The Shamen just about dodge the Christian Death Adolescent Silliness award by having a half-decent tune beneath their bile, which contains the usual shimmering guitars, sledgehammer beatbox rhythms, and some actually very effective and sickening samples. The Shamen didn't need to highlight the bigotry and smug piousness of these men when their own words speak for themselves, and actually act as some of the most effective inclusions on the single.
By the time we next meet The Shamen, though, their metamorphosis will be complete, and if "Jesus Loves Amerika" sounds like the last gasp of a group due to head off in an entirely new direction, it's because it is.



3. The Wolfhounds - Son Of Nothing (September)

While they were featured on the C86 compilation, Romford's The Wolfhounds were among the more abrasive acts on the cassette who weren't really common-or-garden indiepop. "Son of Nothing" is evidence of that, containing one of the few examples I can think of a furious sounding wah-wah pedal.

Heavily politicised and often somewhat marginalised as a result of their ferocity, The Wolfhounds nonetheless issued a brace of punchy indie singles throughout the eighties, any one of which is worth tracking down. Unlike many bands of their ilk, their work retained an underground punk ethic whilst also containing interesting and mature songwriting. While their travelling companions thrashed and bashed their way through the issues of the day, The Wolfhounds surprised with their often dextrous way with a melody.



4. The Sea Urchins - Solace (Sarah)

It's somewhat peculiar how all the releases on Sarah Records get lumped in with the "twee" tag when in reality, the output of the label was quite diverse. "Solace" by The Sea Urchins is proof of that - this is really under-produced and slightly underheated garage psychedelia. The vocals wail and harmonise like The Gibb Brothers on "Have You Heard The Word", overloaded guitar solos buzz around the room like aggravated wasps, and the whole thing sounds like a sixties demo or outtake.

I can't be alone in thinking that the budget production and distorted elements get in the way of the song breaking through in places, though - I've always had the impression that if "Solace" had actually been given a more sympathetic studio treatment, it could be close to early Primal Scream. But it's also the needles-into-the-red garden shed sound to this single that sets it apart. Very few other bands aping this sound at the time were quite so rough and ready, or so aggressively dreamy.

"Solace" is still very highly regarded as a Sarah Records release today, proof that it was much more than flavour of the month at the point of Volume 5's release.



5. The Vaselines - Dying For It (53rd and 3rd)

The Vaselines couldn't be talked about at a later date without being tagged as "one of Kurt Cobain's favourite bands". "Dying For It" was the single which clearly locked the band close to his heart, as nestling on the flip side were two tracks, "Molly's Lips" and "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam", which would later be covered by Nirvana.

In a sense, Beechwood missed a trick by not including either of those songs on the compilation and instead opting for the obvious A-side, but who could ever have known the significance of either at the time? "Dying For It" is certainly the most full-on of all the choices available, being distorted and throttling as opposed to twee indie-pop. Once again, it's proof that whatever C86 did or didn't do, it certainly can't be blamed for encouraging a sea of jangly bands to emerge over the hills - the harder, rougher edges of it actually inspired emerging grunge bands too.

Eugene Kelly has gone on record as saying that he's "never made any money except for Nirvana royalties" which have allowed him to obtain a mortgage. It does seem to me as if more successful groups should also cover the work of the underground people they admire.

Volume 5 Side 2 - Danielle Dax, Joy Division, Loop, Christian Death, Nick Cave

1. Danielle Dax - Cat-House (Awesome)

"Baby baby you're my heart's desire/ got my engine going and my pants on fire".

Seldom did a track in 1988 burst out of your stereo with a sexual statement of intent as direct as that. This phase of Danielle Dax's career is truly fascinating, because while you can reference its gothic edge as well as the glam and faintly psychedelic elements, the simple truth is that it's old fashioned rock and roll sass on a low budget as well. The honking one-note sax riff here hints to that, but so too does - and I almost dare not say this - the almost Meatloafian tail end to the verses just before the chorus kicks in. And if you don't think that kind of camp, biker rock element exists in "Cat-House", just listen to the way Danielle sings "He's the one with my magic key/ knows my road from A to Z" and try to imagine Cher singing it in biker gear. Far fetched? I rather thought not.

So "Cat-House" is ultimately camp, silly, trashy, hard-edged and sassy all at once, and was a much bigger deal at the time than you'd possibly imagine, despite the fact that a lot of elements of it seemed faintly out of step with everything else in 1988. A big part of that is down to the chaos of the chanting chorus,  which sounds incredibly "alt" even if the surrounding elements of the track aren't always so, and the fact that Danielle sells the song incredibly well. That so many people expected her to become a fully fledged pop star should probably surprise nobody.

"Cat-House" was a significant track for her, and paved the way for her to be signed to Sire in due course - but we'll be coming across her one more time before then.



2. Joy Division - She's Lost Control (Peel Session) (Strange Fruit)

We all know how this one goes, don't we? I mean, don't we? So too, I think, do we understand the inspiration for the track, and the fact that after "Love Will Tear Us Apart" it's arguably one of Joy Division's most important songs.

Interestingly, the Peel Session version of this track really doesn't contain a great many differences from the final studio version, bar the absence of the faintly disorientating echo effect which permeates through "Unknown Pleasures". It has an added grit and harshness to it, and the guitars are much more at the forefront, but basically all the main elements of the track were clearly in place.

The "Substance" compilation of Joy Division singles and pivotal tracks had not long been issued at this point, along with the re-release of "Atmosphere" with its Corbijn directed video. This meant that Beechwood clearly could have legitimately included "Atmosphere" on this compilation as a very recent large indie hit, but obviously didn't. Whether this was due to Factory Records not coming up with a favourable enough deal, I don't know - although it is notable that Factory singles crop up relatively infrequently throughout this series, which does suggest that the label clearly didn't have as sympathetic a relationship with the series as other indies at the time (except Creation, which has been utterly absent from the series all the way along so far).



3. Loop - Collision (Chapter 22)

Harsh, minimal and grating, Loop were a surprisingly big deal in the late eighties for a band so awkward. Sounding faintly like Suicide with distorted, effects-laden guitars instead of synths at times, or the most shimmering, three-chord, droning psychedelia, they were certainly a unique prospect. Comparisons with The Jesus and Mary Chain were inevitable, but Loop could never (or at least, would never) have written "Some Candy Talking" or "April Skies" - compared to Loop, JAMC were The Reynolds Girls, pure Top of the Pops fodder.

"Collision" is a lovely drone as well, which if sped up a bit more could easily be as contagious as the most nagging krautrock tracks.

Loop would continue to make their presence felt until 1990, after which point they split.



4. Christian Death - Church of No Return (Jungle)

Oh please no. Please don't make me listen to this again. It's just so fucking silly.

Christian Death began life in 1979 under the guiding hand of Rozz Williams, who eventually left the group in 1985 to pursue more experimental paths. The lead guitarist Valor Kand took control, and as a result there are fans of the group who argue that all post-85 material is null and void, in the way that some Pink Floyd fans believe that post-Waters material (or even post-Barrett material) is not "proper Floyd".

Whatever, I'm not here to debate the line-up difficulties of the act, of which they had many. What I'm here to do is consider this track, which, if you strip away the lyrics and the band's presentation, is basically very camp seventies glam rock with gothic undertones. A darker version of The Sweet, to be precise, with an air raid siren in place of the police siren at the start of "Blockbuster". Kand's vocals are also very Rocky Horror, which layers campness on top of pre-existing campness.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with any of this - I love The Sweet, in fact, and will happily have loud arguments with anyone who tells me I'm wrong for doing so - but in common with the failings of a lot of the worst Goth Rock acts, you're left with the impression that Christian Death think they produced something mind-blowingly significant with this one, that the theatricality of it and its references to original sin and the church's quaint views on fornication add up to a Big Statement... but unlike Danielle Dax on track one, it's far, far too pleased with itself to make an impression.

Perhaps I'm just far too British, and was brought up in far too atheistic a family, to give a shit about this single. If I were a teenager just beginning to have my first doubts about my faith, and the hypocrisy of organised religion, I can imagine that Christian Death would potentially feel like a lighting bolt, but to me at the time in 1988 - and indeed now - they just seemed quaint, signposting obvious things loudly like a drunk old man in the local pub (though to be fair, the drunk old man in the local pub wasn't big on tight leather outfits).

Another lesson to learn from this one is that, just as horror films lose their impact if there's a grisly death every 15 seconds, controversy from rock bands is at its best when it happens suddenly and fleetingly in the space of one song. When groups layer loaded gesture on top of loaded gesture, it begins to seem comic, as each idea fights for its own space. Subtlety can be a wonderful, wonderful thing, and Christian Death are all about grand gestures introduced with flashing neon signs - really, this couldn't be less my kind of thing if it tried.



5. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - "The Mercy Seat" (Mute)

Come to think of it, this track could very easily have fallen on that particular sword as well, but it somehow falls short of doing so. A big reason behind this is that it's such a rush of ideas - the listener is being asked to step into the mind of a prisoner about to be put in an electric chair, and the sheer rattling pace of the track means that so many of the lyrics (frequently brilliant) get missed until possibly the third, fourth, fifth or even tenth listen.

The lines "Christ was born into a manger/ And like some ragged stranger/ He died upon the cross/ Might I say it seems so fitting in its way/ He was a carpenter by trade" could be satirical and mocking if read one way, or resigned about the sheer ridiculousness of the world if taken another. That's the difference between lyrical poetry and big, self-conscious rock gestures - the former requires the listener to do some of the work, some of the untangling.

At the time, I thought "The Mercy Seat" was a truly fantastic single, taking a subject which could so easily have been mishandled and successfully hitting its marks. The way the different verses and ideas interrupt and break the flow, the way the song is basically one very simple, rattling melodic idea stretched to breaking point, and the carefully weighted drama of it all... it seemed genius. These days, I still like the track, but return to it relatively infrequently. Partly it's because it reveals its full hand melodically very early on, and becomes very familiar very quickly, and also partly I suspect because it's strongest lyrics are front loaded, and I'm more interested in lines like "Those sinister dinner deals/ The meal trolley's wicked wheels/ A hooked bone rising from my food/ And all things either good or ungood" than the dramatic flourishes of "Into the mercy seat I climb/ My head is shaved, my head is wired/ and like a moth that tries/ To enter the bright eye/ I go shuffling out of life/ Just to hide in death awhile".

But in the end, Cave's attempts at bringing macabre subject matters into rock music have always been fascinating, owing a debt to country or folk storytelling rather than sledgehammer shock-and-awe techniques. Johnny Cash covered this, and I was surprised when I first found out - but quickly realised that actually, it made total and absolute sense.

And minimal it may be, but the melodic framework of the track is hypnotic, and locks you into its ideas without escape. Turning your head and looking away is impossible.

Volume 5 Side 1 - Robert Lloyd, Wire, New Order, King Blank, Quireboys

Format: Double Vinyl/ Cassette/ CD
Year of Release: 1988

Volume 5 was a significant issue for the series, being the first ever Indie Top 20 LP to come out on Compact Disc - finally, the digital age had reached Beechwood Music, and listeners could (if they chose) listen to all manner of underproduced indie groups in high quality sound. Some of them had never even had releases on CD before. Marvellous. WERE WE NOT MEN?

Of course, I never owned this album on CD myself (or not until much, much later on when I chanced upon a second hand CD copy for £2). I didn't have the kind of money necessary for a CD Player at this point in my life, still listening to all my records on the turntable of a Saisho stereo unit my brothers bought me for Christmas. So whatever revolution this represented, it entirely passed me by.

I can distinctly remember this being a Christmas present too, at the tail end of 1988 - and I was delighted when I ripped the wrapping paper off and found this double vinyl LP waiting for me. When I finally played it at home, though, I was struck by what a gloomy sounding record it is compared to any of the previous volumes. There are obvious exceptions, but this is overwhelmingly a contemplative, moody record as opposed to a varied buffet. Despite the fact that Indiepop was a bit of a busted flush at this point and the music press had largely moved on to other concerns, it appears to be in denial about that fact, probably containing the highest number of slightly shambolic, vaguely twee, low budget bands since Volume One.

There's some good moments on the album, but no really great ones (in my opinion) and some downright baffling inclusions. Perhaps in this halfway house, this motorway travel tavern sleepover between Indiepop and Indie Dance, a slight loss of focus could only be expected. But you may well disagree as we travel through the tracks:

1. Robert Lloyd & The New Four Seasons: Something Nice (In Tape)

Robert Lloyd, normally lead singer of Brummie indie group The Nightingales (victims of endless lazy and slightly inaccurate "They're Birmingham's answer to The Fall!!!" music press reviews) and one of the heads of indie Vindaloo Records was well known as a scene stalwart. Behind numerous cult indie classics with wiry, angular guitar noises, once The Nightingales split in 1986 he clearly decided that his solo career would veer in a more pop orientated direction. The false group name Robert Lloyd & The New Four Seasons was created for this very purpose (and very quietly and quickly dropped again to become plain old "Robert Lloyd", presumably when someone got antsy that the actual Four Seasons would take legal action. Somewhere on a cutting room floor, perhaps this was even a subplot in the "Jersey Boys" film - "I cannot believe da noive of this Nightingales guy").

"Something Nice" proved Lloyd could clearly have a pop career if he wanted and had enough of a tail wind behind him. It's a stomping, bold, brassy and incredibly catchy track lyrically focused on some kind of mid-life crisis. "I get scared that something nice will fly by", Lloyd panics. "Every time I'm ill I think I'm dying" he clarifies later on, "every time I'm sad I feel like crying/ this is the state I've got myself in". For all that, this propels along in a strident, chirpy, almost festive fashion, sounding like a hit Edwyn Collins never had.

This received a strong amount of evening airplay on Radio One, and ensured that the ears of A&R staff at Virgin Records pricked up. Doubtless hoping for a whole album of glossy alternative pop, he was signed to the label and released the "Me and My Mouth" LP and the rather ace single "Funeral Stomp" which utterly and undeservedly stiffed. Virgin dropped him, and there would then be nothing much from Lloyd until The Nightingales reformed in 2006.



2. Wire: Silk Skin Paws (Mute)

We last met Wire on Volume 4, with the fantastic "Kidney Bingos". "Silk Skin Paws" also emerged from the LP "A Bell Is A Cup..." and despite being a brilliant track in its own right didn't seem as obvious a single. A gloomy, atmospheric pean apparently about bankers throwing themselves out of windows, it's again rich with atmosphere, chiming guitars and icy synths.

As an LP, "A Bell Is A Cup Until It Is Struck" created a short-lived wave of renewed critical focus for Wire, and there was a feeling that while they never truly achieved everything they could have done (in terms of sales) in the seventies, perhaps now was their time. Mute apparently hoped that they would eventually at least match their levels of success on EMI, and perhaps even usurp them. They were not without their famous supporters, either - David Bowie was even spotted buying a copy of their CD in HMV on Oxford Street.

Wire always were an awkward bunch of sods, though. A lot of their material in the eighties was sublime, but as time wore on some of their projects became either successfully or unsuccessfully experimental, and baffled critics and sometimes on occasion fans. The largely forgotten LP "It's Beginning To And Back Again" was a live-in-the-studio reimagining of other tracks of theirs, often so distanced from the originals that only the lyrics gave the game away - it's a great listen in places, actually, once the disorientation wears off. On the other hand, the "Drill" project, consisting entirely of different versions of the same song, was just completely fucking silly. An appearance from the group on an American chat show performing the track underlines their stubbornness hilariously. What would a band like Wire do with a prime time TV slot? Be as aggressively inaccessible as possible, obviously.

For Wire fans like me, this brief period is as thrilling as it is frustrating. In my opinion, the band should be on the tip of anyone's tongue when the subjects of punk or art-rock are raised, and should have managed at least one bona-fide hit, but they seem to have remained a cult act who never managed to prove their worth to a wider audience. Tracks like "Silk Skin Paws" and "Kidney Bingos" prove that even during their less fashionable, non punk scenester phase, they were more than just an arty, angular act - they were great songwriters as well. It's a shame that's talked about so infrequently.



3. New Order - Dreams Never End (Peel Session Version) (Strange Fruit)

Volume Five of Indie Top 20 is the very last time we'll be hearing New Order and Joy Division Peel Session tracks. Thank the Lord for small mercies. It's not that I don't like their work, it's just that they were clearly given slots on the albums as bait to floating voters in Our Price, and all their efforts date from a period years before the release date of these LPs. Therefore, putting them into meaningful context for the purpose of this blog is impossible.

"Dreams Never End" is a bizarre track in New Order's canon in that Peter Hook is given the mic rather than Bernard Sumner, and it makes a strange difference to the sound. His braying voice bears a slight resemblance to Andy Partridge of XTC here (even though it's probably trying to ape Ian Curtis) and almost in sympathy, the band clatter and jangle behind him. It's one of the least New Ordery sounding New Order tunes ever.

Despite this - or perhaps because of this - there's nothing remotely essential about it at all, and it's a curio rather than anything else. If New Order fans were asked to contribute to a poll of their finest work, I highly doubt "Dreams Never End" would be a prime entry unless Hooky himself rigged the contest.




4. King Blank - Blind Box (Situation Two)

As we trawl through the volumes of Indie Top 20, we're going to encounter a number of slightly baffling bands who have since been mostly forgotten, but were critically fancied for about two or three weeks in their given year. King Blank are the most obvious example so far, though I have no recollection at all of them being music magazine cover stars - I just have hazy memories of some complimentary gig reviews and the odd positive nod.

There's no way I can possibly be kind about this track, unfortunately. I lived in a small town in Essex at this point, and occasionally our local gig venue would put on a local groups gig bonanza, highlighting all the up-and-coming talent in the area. Tickets would be about £5, and you could stand all night and watch indie, rock and alt-rock talent from the regional Sunday leagues. Without exaggeration, there was always at least one band who sounded like King Blank on every bill. They would have the same bluesy swagger, the same raw sound, and similar vocals delivered through gritted teeth. None of them ended up with record deals.

King Blank, on the other hand, did, and I've never fully understood that. There's nothing exceptional occurring here at all, and the song constantly tries to bear its teeth and attack, but couldn't sound more staged and less threatening if it tried, like an amdram English take on the harder edges of the American underground. The production of the whole thing is so hollow and skeletal it also feels like it would collapse if you prodded it for long enough.

After one LP, "The Real Dirt", the group went their separate ways and guitarist Nigel Pulsford became one of the founding members of nineties grunge legends Bush, ironically becoming one of the few British bands to become hugely successful in America during that decade. King Blank give no hints away that this would ever be the case.



5. Quireboys - Mayfair (Survival)

Another truly baffling addition to the LP. The Quireboys eventually became far more successful than King Blank, of course, being a much-fancied old-school boozy rock group in the vein of The Faces. Renowned for their raucous live gigs, they gave the national scene a raw, balls-out sound it had clearly been missing for a long time by the late eighties. While they were never fashionable as such, they certainly beat Primal Scream to the Southern boogie punch bowl on a number of occasions as well.

Despite being on an indie label at this point, they really didn't have a keen indie following, attracting the long-haired denim wearing boys and girls much more keenly. They sound unbelievably out of place on this compilation as a result, like total gatecrashers.

"Mayfair" is a neat track, though, sounding like a lost piece of 1973 rock and roll. Stemming from a period when Ginger of The Wildhearts was a member of the group, it seems so authentic that you could possibly even fool someone by telling them that it's an out-take from a much more legendary band - and that bar-room piano and those growling vocals are expertly handled. It's not really surprising that their time in indieland would be limited, and EMI stepped in to sign them fairly swiftly, giving them a number two hit album in "A Bit Of What You Fancy" in the process. A long career in the limelight seemed assured, but disappointing sales of the follow-up "Bitter Sweet & Twisted" put paid to that idea and their demise was cruelly swift.

They've since undergone some line-up shuffling and reformed a couple of times, and remain active to this day.