Inspired by the Thousand Yard Stare thread, I dug out an old Best of
indie Top 20 CD that I have not listened to for over 10 years, and decided to wallow in the music of my mid teens. Here’s a sentence or two on each track, ah the joy of hindsight.

Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere 4:09 Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine
Adored them so much as a teenager, then thought them embarrassing throughout my twenties. Now not sure

Ten Little Girls 4:28 Curve
Wonderful, had forgotten how good early Curve were. Need to listen to the first three eps again. Strange to remember that in early 1991 according to Sounds (which was unfortunately on its deathbed then), MM and NME they would be to 1991 what Happy Mondays were to 1990 and Stone Roses were to 1992. Then if I remember correctly the first album being slated by MM & NME. My first experience of ‘build em up, knock em down’

My Insatiable One 2:57 Suede
Only managed to listen to a couple of tracks off the new B. Anderson before succumbing to boredom. So it was a delight to listen to this again

God Knows It’s True 4:54 Teenage Fanclub
The sound of a band on the verge of Bandwagonesque

Precious One 5:48 Chapterhouse
Has not aged well.

Catch The Breeze 4:21 Slowdive
Hear bits of Maps and The Besnard Lakes in here, has aged very well

Called Sun 5:42 Verve
The track that gave Mansun their name. Typical pointlessly indulgent hippish codswallop from this massively massively overrated act. Awlful
Car Wash Hair (The Bee’s Chasing Me) Full Pull 6:43 Mercury Rev
One of my favourite Mercury Rev tracks, so no rediscovery here, but after the tedium of the last track a real tonic

Do You Love Me Now? 2:42 The Breeders
Typical Breeders, was this track a non-album single / B-side. Pretty good.
Run 3:13 Spiritualized
Was this a cover? Love it, a delightful drony, reverby pop song
Magic 4:03 Cud
Very heavy handed production has caused this to age badly. Was looking forward to this as well

Sunshine Smile 5:03 adorable
Couldn’t see the point of this at the time, still can’t. Why have the two worst tracks so far been the longest?
For Love 3:33 Lush
Another tonic. It’s easy to forget about lush after their mid-90’s indie-by-numbers atrocities (Single Girl etc), but it retrospect the early stuff is quite distinctive and rather wonderful

Nadine 1:22 Levitation
High hopes dashed, indulgent sludge, very long 1:22
Kaleidoscope 5:38 The Boo Radleys
So so under rated. Everything’s Alright Forever suffered from being released in the same week as MBVs Loveless (Creation shooting themselves in the foot as always), like the TFC track early on you can hear a band on its way to producing something of note. In this case Giant Steps

Shallow 3:23 Catherine Wheel
No Black Metallic

Flying 2:53 The Telescopes
The sound that the previous track was trying to achieve
Siva 4:20 Smashing Pumpkins
It’s strange seeing this lot here. Was never much of a fan, I find Corgan‘s whiny voice unpleasant. This is tolerable Still undecided whether I’ll check them out at Primavera or not.
Handsome And Gretel 1:59 Babes In Toyland
The first time I heard this lot on the John Peel show, was one of those ‘what was that moments.’ Women really screaming on records wow. Brilliant, whatever happened to them