Ultra Vivid Scene - Guilty Pleasure

Track from the second UVS album, Joy 1967-1990. It's a bit overproduced - some would argue that's par for the course on this record - but catchy enough you stop noticing after a while.

Colourbox - Arena

Like "The Moon is Blue", my favourite Colourbox track (which I've already posted), this is kind of an oddity in terms of the general style of the album, which is oriented towards a much more upbeat type of dance music. Unlike "The Moon is Blue", this one didn't grab me the first time I heard it - or the second time or even dozens of times later. It's not really my kind of music at all, to be honest. But after two and a half decades of hearing it just because I put the album on to hear "The Moon is Blue" and didn't bother taking it off afterwards, I guess you could say it's grown on me. And I now think it's rather stunning.

Belly - Dusted

This is an album track (from their debut, Star) but a slightly different version preceded it on EP and was really the start of Tanya Donelly's "solo" career. As someone who always thought she was wasted in Throwing Muses, I snapped it up and fell in love with it instantaneously. And it still kicks my ass almost twenty years later.

One fucking great song.

Modern English - Just a Thought

I would guess that over 90% of the people who know Modern English at all know them only for that song. And most of them would probably hate this. It's from their 1981 debut album, Mesh and Lace, which is a pretty dark affair...sort of Bauhaus meets the Sound or the Comsat Angels. They were on 4AD after all!

Pale Saints - A Revelation

B-side to the 1990 Half-Life EP, a short one with a very sing-song melody and particularly shoegazey guitars (bearing in mind that Pale Saints weren't usually as shoegazey as the other bands they were lumped in with). Actually, in retrospect I think they sound a bit like the Boo Radleys here. But maybe that's just me.

His Name is Alive - Is This the Way the Tigers Do?

From HNIA's remarkable Dirt Eaters EP from 1992. It's more abrasive than the other tracks on the EP, though less so than the scratchy and sireny bits might lead you to expect at the start.

If anyone has a clue what the words are about, don't tell me, I probably don't want to know.

Lush - Bitter

Great track from Lush's debut EP Scar. I'm putting a shoegaze tag on it just because it's Lush, but there's really nothing shoegazey at all about this one: it's a simple two-minute rockin' guitar rush with lyrics that, let me just say, I really identify with at the moment. You don't want to know.

From 1989.

The Pixies - Here Comes Your Man

Have I really not posted this yet? The Pixies at their most straightforward - just a simple, utterly irresistible pop song. The way that Doolittle manages to cover such a wide range of styles and still sound so cohesive and, well, Pixies-like is what makes this such a remarkable album. Still think it was their best.

On a completely unrelated note, if you're in Dublin, don't forget to check out Hello Moon at Crawdaddy tonight for the launch of their debut album, Only Count the Sunny Hours. It's only a fiver in and I guarantee you it'll be worth it.

Pale Saints - Little Hammer

A track I've always loved from Pale Saints' wonderful 1990 debut album, The Comforts of Madness. Short and...well maybe "sweet" isn't the word, it's kind of haunting really. Ian Masters apparently wrote it after learning he had a heart murmur.

Lush - Nothing Natural

Here's another one from Spooky, the first and strongest single from that album. Actually, I think this was one of their best songs ever - it's certainly stood the test of time better than most.

Lush - Untogether

A track from Lush's first proper full-length, Spooky, from 1992. It's a disappointing album overall; some of the songwriting isn't really up to scratch and it all gets buried in Robin Guthrie's overly, erm, lush production. This is a nice little offbeat pop tune though, and a good foretaste of the direction their sound was going in.

Colourbox - The Moon is Blue

Colourbox's sample-heavy electronic dance music was an odd fit for 4ad in the mid '80s, and their lone, self-titled album wasn't one of my favourites of the era - but then sample-heavy electronic dance music rarely is. Which of course is not their fault. People who are generally into this sort of thing seemed to think it was a masterpiece and I'm sure they're better placed to judge than I am. Aren't I being very diplomatic today?

I bought it on the strength of this track, a modern torch song sort of along the lines of the Style Council's exquisite "The Paris Match" (though Lorita Grahame's formidable voice can't match the aesthetic qualities of Tracey Thorn's). Alas, nothing else on the album sounds remotely like it.

From 1985.

Red House Painters - New Jersey

I never really got into Red House Painters in the way some of my friends did. In part, I put that down to a residual suspicion of Mark Kozelek, which may not be entirely fair. Some of their music, in fairness, really is quite exquisitely beautiful, if a bit... self-indulgent.

In 1993 they released two self-titled albums, both of which contained different versions of this track. I'm apparently the only person in the world who prefers this one, the more upbeat of the two, from the second of the albums (their third overall). But judge for yourself - the first version is here.

Ultra Vivid Scene - Crash

This wouldn't have been one of my favourite UVS songs back in the day but I've developed a new appreciation for it lately. They might have been known as a shoegaze band but this is closer to classic '80s new wave than anything else.

From their 1988 self-titled debut album.

Throwing Muses - Green

The first Throwing Muses album was a stunning piece of work, ten amazingly well-crafted songs showing diverse influences, clever wordplay and total unpredictability. It's particularly impressive when you consider they were only teenagers when these songs were written.

"Green" was Tanya Donelly's sole contribution, and my personal favourite on the album. It's probably always a bad sign when your favourite song on an album is the one not written by the main songwriter - and sure enough, I think it was all downhill for the Muses after this, but Tanya's songs would continue to stand out for me.

The Breeders - Drivin' on 9

A great Breeders track from their second album, Last Splash. I really think Kim Deal might have my favourite voice ever.

His Name Is Alive - The Dirt Eaters

HNIA were far and away my least favourite 4AD band in the early 1990s, so to say I was pleasantly surprised by their 1992 EP The Dirt Eaters would be a bit of an understatement. Blown away, more like.

The title track's gentle, rolling folk (with incongruously creeply lyrics) is the EP's highlight, but there's also the similarly-styled "We Hold the Land in Great Esteem", a haunting cover of Rainbow's ""Man on the Silver Mountain", and the cacophonous but addictive "Tigers". Only "Are We Still Married?" falls flat, although frankly, it sounds like it was intended to.

It is really an astonishing release, and I can't understand why Warren Defever didn't do more of this sort of thing.

Lush - Thoughtforms

Here's a lovely track from Lush's debut release, the six-song Scar from late 1989.

Their subsequent Mad Love EP included a re-recorded, sped-up version, for reasons I've never been clear on. Why tamper with perfection?

Cocteau Twins - Wax and Wane

Here's an early one from the Cocteau Twins, off their debut album Garlands. It's my favourite Cocteaus album, which might be kind of surprising, since it's overall the darkest and least pop-like thing they've ever done. But I just find it more interesting than their later work, which always seemed a bit samey and gimmicky to me. Though still pretty good, most of the time.

Pale Saints - Half-Life, Remembered

Here's a great song from one of my favourite 4ad bands ever. The title track (sort of) to an EP released in-between their first and second albums, it also marked the debut appearance of second guitarist Meriel Barham, whose addition really filled out their sound a lot. It's still a little too offbeat to characterise simply as pop music, though it's undeniably catchy.

You need to turn this one up a bit.