Aztec Camera - Oblivious

1983 single, from their classic debut album High Land, Hard Rain. It's hard to convey how nostalgic I get hearing this. I think I played this album so many times I actually know every drum beat by heart.

Sounds so innocent today, doesn't it?

Band of Holy Joy - What the Moon Saw

Heard this song the other day for the first time in a good while and was struck again, as I always am, by what a wallop it packs in its (not quite) three minutes. Especially considering how slow it starts off. BoHJ are an acquired taste, no doubt, but what a reward you get for acquiring it.

From 1989.

Disco Inferno - It's a Kid's World

Just a quickie today as I have to head out for the Hard Working Class Heroes festival, something I never miss. I've had a few readers lately arrive at this blog by searching for Disco Inferno songs, which I'm always happy to make it easier to find. This is a 1994 single.

The Smiths - Girl Afraid

Don't think this would be remembered by most as a Smiths classic but I've always been particularly fond of it. Upbeat, fantastic jangly guitars, clever couplets, and clocking in at just under 3 minutes - what's not to like?

From 1984, I think.

The Go-Betweens - Man o' Sand to Girl o' Sea

There's always room for another Go-Betweens song on this blog. This was a 1983 single and has the distinction of kicking off with one of the best couplets Robert Forster's ever written, followed immediately by one of the worst lyrics ever written by anyone, ever. Have a listen and you'll know what I mean.

The song was re-recorded for the Spring Hill Fair album but this is the version you want.

Stiff Little Fingers - Barbed Wire Love

While I'm in a nostalgic mood, here's a great track from Belfast's finest. Some of the puns in this song are the stuff of genius; others... not so much.

Originally released on their 1979 debut Inflammable Material. Not sure when or where this performance took place.

Super Furry Animals - Inaugural Trams

I remember how excited we all were about SFA when they first appeared in the mid-1990s but I doubt any of us expected that a decade and a half later they would still be putting out records as strong as this. The whole Dark Days/Light Years album (2009) is excellent, but this track in particular is remarkable for how effortlessly it plants itself under your skin.

There's an element of the novelty song here, as there always is with SFA, but again they manage to transcend that and turn it into what is simply an irresistible piece of electro-bubblegum pop (with suitably insane lyrics). In the hands of a lesser band it would probably be just as infectious, but not in a good way.

The Mabuses - In the Long Run

The best way to describe London's Mabuses would be Syd Barrett fronting the Monochrome Set. That's a bit simplistic, obviously, but it does a good job of capturing their quirky/arty psychedelic pop sound. They released two albums in the early '90s, disappeared for yonks and then resurfaced a couple years ago. Not sure what they're up to now, if anything.

This is a relatively straightforward (by their standards) pop piece from their self-titled 1991 debut.

The Go-Betweens - That Way

This is actually the first Go-Betweens song I can remember hearing. Not sure why since it wasn't a single or anything, but some very intelligent person with good taste played it for me anyway. Thanks, whoever you were.

It's from their second album, Before Hollywood.

The Woodentops - It Will Come

I was never really bowled over by most of the Woodentops' music - especially after their first album, Giant, and even that wasn't great. But they did have a few really good early singles that straddled the line between C86 and more mainstream pop. This was the best, from 1985.

The Smiths - The Hand that Rocks the Cradle

I've mentioned before that time has dimmed my enthusiasm for the Smiths somewhat but I do still enjoy a lot of their songs, to varying degrees. This one was always at the top of my list and still is. It appeared on their debut album and I fell in absolute, aching love with it from first listen. To this day I still think it ranks as not only the Smiths' most sublime moment but one of the most gorgeous songs ever written by anyone ever. Really, it is that special.

I know a lot people think it's about paedophilia, but Morrissey always denied that and he would know, wouldn't he?

Swell Maps - Vertical Slum

Swell Maps were great when they were doing this sort of stuff - short and snappy punk pop, like early Wire but a little more insane. This one's from their debut album, 1979's A Trip to Marineville. It's the first Swell Maps song I ever heard and the words make no more sense to me today than they ever did.

My Jealous God - In Her Eyes

My Jealous God were a London band active in the early 1990s. They put out a few singles which saw them lumped in with their northern compatriots in the baggy scene, but none of them ever really went anywhere.

Their first single, "Everything About You", struck me as overhyped at the time and let's just say age hasn't improved it. This b-side was a far superior track, I think.

The Go-Betweens - Hammer the Hammer

Here's an early single by the wonderful Go-Betweens. It was released in-between their first and second albums in 1982 and has since been made available on some re-issues of Before Hollywood, as well as on the 1978-1990 collection.

It's quite dark, lyrically, which is kind of fitting for the mood I'm in today. Great track.

Opal - Fell from the Sun

Opal tend to arouse swoons of adoration from a lot of indie music fans but I have to confess I'm not one of them. Mainly, I find their earlier folky stuff a little boring and their later, more psychedelic stuff too overwrought and lyrically embarrassing at times. Plus, I've never understood the love for Kendra Smith's voice, which I find flat and often tuneless. From the shocked reaction I always get from saying that, though, I know it's just me.

I did have high hopes for them when they first emerged as Clay Allison, mainly because of this song, which is genuinely wonderful. Pity they never really lived up to this again.

The Sundays - My Finest Hour

Slick production and the almost too perfect pop of "Here's Where the Story Ends" might have lead some indie kids to dismiss the Sundays as just another radio-friendly alternative band, but the truth is their 1990 debut Reading, Writing and Arithmetic was absolutely choc-a-bloc with the sort of fey wispy jangly guitar pop that most of us swear by, so I don't see why the atypical commercial appeal of their music should have deterred anyone. Anyway, they weren't really that radio friendly. Radio doesn't really like songs about girls beating up boys and throwing up on their dresses, last I checked.

I could have posted almost any of the songs on this album, but this one highlights Harriet Wheeler's astonishing voice to particular effect, I think.

Aztec Camera - Pillar to Post

The first single from their classic debut album High Land Hard Rain, released when Roddy Frame was all of 18 years old. I've said it before but I still find it astonishing that anyone could be so talented, and write such mature, thoughtful lyrics, at 18. Of course he probably looks back and cringes at them now.

Surprised there doesn't seem to be an actual video for this.

Galaxie 500 - Listen, The Snow is Falling

More early '90s shoegaze, from Galaxie 500's third and final album This Is Our Music. This is actually a cover of a Yoko Ono song, which means either that Yoko's music isn't nearly as bad as it's usually portrayed, or that Galaxie 500 were utter geniuses. Personally I could go either way on that.

Band of Holy Joy - Manic Magic Majestic

I've posted a couple Holy Joy tracks already but not this one, even though it's probably my favourite. The title track to their superlative 1989 album, it showcases Johny Brown's flair for the snappy couplet, as well as his incomparable gift at depicting true romantic love amidst the squalor of modern urban life. And if that weren't enough it's also one of the loveliest, catchiest tunes they've ever recorded. "How can you not be swayed/By all that is displayed?" How indeed.

Young Marble Giants - Final Day

Here's another, slightly overlooked now, essential piece of indiepop history. The Young Marble Giants' music would probably be dismissed by the twee-haters today but when they emerged in the late '70s I imagine they must have been considered rather unusual, even by the standards of the time.

YMG's distinctive sound derived from the combination of electric organ, rather choppy guitar and Alison Statton's lovely haunting vocals, expertly (under-)produced by the band themselves. Colossal Youth, their only album, is a lo-fi classic from before anything called "lo-fi" even existed.

This was one of the singles from that album, released in 1980.