Indie Basement is a weekly column on BrooklynVegan focusing on classic indie and alternative artists, “college rock,” and new and current acts who follow a similar path. There are reviews of new albums, reissues, box sets, books and sometimes movies and television shows, not to mention lists like this one.

Independence Day Weekend is upon us which means it’s Indie Basement’s mid-year list time. With six months of releases behind us, this list has 30 albums — up from 20 on the 1st Quarter list — and while that works out to five albums a month, it doesn’t quite play out like that. Some months had more great albums and some records from January, February and March that didn’t make the Q1 list ended up rising into this one.

As always, this is not a definitive, all-encompassing list of the year to date (January through June), just one Gen X dude’s opinion. For something more along authoritative lines, head to BrooklynVegan’s Mid-Year list.

Check out my picks in alphabetical order, plus a playlist with songs from every albums, below.

INDIE BASEMENT – BEST ALBUMS OF 2025 SO FAR (MID-YEAR)

Bambara – Birthmarks (Wharf Cat / Bella Union)

Since we last heard from cinematic Brooklyn post-punks Bambara (2022’s Love on My Mind mini-LP), they signed to Simon Raymonde’s Bella Union label in the UK and, most significantly, have undergone a noticeable sonic overhaul. The bones are still the same — smouldering, high-drama rock that owes a lot to Johnny Cash, Nick Cave and Ennio Morricone, with Blaze Bateh’s thunderous drumming powering things and brother Reid Bateh’s smokey swagger in the spotlight — but this time it’s delivered with sleek synthesizers and layers of atmospheric sound design. The album was produced by Graham Sutton of British post-rock greats Bark Psychosis and he feels like a fourth member of the band alongside founding bassist William Brookshire. Would they have put the ’80s-style orchestra hit samples on ripper “Letters to Sing Sing” without him? Maybe, but it feels new and exciting in this context, a fist pumping moment that is both a little humorous and exactly right. Then there’s “Face of Love,” the album’s best and most surprising song, that is part Cocteau Twins and part Massive Attack, with cascades of ethereal guitar wash, crashing slow funk drums, proggy keyboard arpeggiations, heavenly guest vocals from Madeline Johnston (Midwife) and Emma Acs (Crack Cloud), and Reid in growling sprechgesang mode that leans toward rapping. Despite those two band reference points in the last overlong sentence, “Face of Love” does not sound like “Teardrop,” but it is pure Bambara. Whoever is responsible for this sonic renovation, huzzah, because Birthmarks sounds like a million bucks in all the right ways and the band’s essential Bambara-ness never gets lost in the gloss.

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The Bug Club – Very Human Features (Sub Pop)

On Very Human Features, UK duo The Bug Club’s fourth album, Sam Willmett and Tilly Harris embrace melody, subtlety, and maturity—without losing any of their rough-hewn charm. The guitars jangle like The Vaselines or The Wedding Present, but everything’s turned up with levels deep in the red, including the vocals, which turns the otherwise sweet melodies into something more visceral and thrilling. Willmett and Harris sound fantastic trading lines and harmonizing, and Very Human Features is loaded with earworms that might fuse with your DNA by the end of the first chorus. Just try not to shout along with “Jealous Boy,” “Beep Boop Computers,” “Full Grown Man,” and “Confidante.” There’s still plenty of (welcome) yelling and clever wordplay, including nods to film and TV—like on “Muck (Very Human Features)” when they sing, “It’s a funny shade of grey, blue or green or something you’ve seen on Doctor…Who the hell am I talking about?” It’s like a roller derby involving the members of Belle & Sebastian: aggressive and twee but not, y’know, aggressively twee. It’s the kind of record that makes you wonder, “Am I listening to my new favorite band?” If you hadn’t already thought that about The Bug Club.

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Chime Oblivion – Chime Oblivion (DEATHGOD)

Who saw this one coming? David Barbarossa, whose distinctive tribal, tom-heavy drumming style was a key feature of early records by both Adam and the Ants and Bow Wow Wow, met John Dwyer at an OSEES show, they hit it off, and talked about making some music together. “I flew David out, we met at my studio and spent five days writing basin drums ideas,” says. He then recruited a few others for the project which they named Chime Oblivion: Weasel Walter (“to add all that legitimate old-school weird proto-punk no wave guitar scratch to it, which of course he did masterfully”), OSEES synth guru Tom Dolas, Bent Arcana’s Brad Caulkins for sax, and singer H.L. Nelly (“I knew her from a record I’d put out back in the day for a band called Naked Lights from Oakland. I knew that she could pull off the vocal style I had in mind”). Dwyer is the secret sauce that glues all this together, and keeps things a little weird, and Chime Oblivion sounds like it could be lost gem from the original post-punk era. The drumming is powerful and just the right amount of busy, Dwyer’s basslines are funky/dubby, and the guitars slash while saxophones skronk wildly. H.L. Nelly does indeed bring the right vocal style — nervous, excited and wailing — making for a group that sounds somewhere between X-Ray Spex, The Slits and Kleenex. The songs are great too, with nagging, bouncy “And Again,” the Pop Group-esque “Heated Horses,” and the saxxy and psychedelic “Neighborhood Dog” being highlights. My only criticism is that Chime Oblivion is currently a studio-only project with no plans to play live. These songs demand to be pogo’d to in a sweaty club.

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The Convenience – Like Cartoon Vampires (Winspear)

New Orleans based musical collaborators and production duo Nick Corson and Duncan Troast play in Video Age and have worked with artists like Rui Gabriel and Drugdealer — groups who fall on the mellower side of the indie rock spectrum — but as The Convenience they make angular guitar pop that sounds straight out of 1979. “Pop” is the key word here; while their instruments slash with wiry leads, the bones of “I Got Exactly What I Wanted,” “Dub Vultures,” and “Waiting for a Train” are built on tight songwriting and solid hooks. That allows them to take the songs in surprising directions via the sparse, post-punk inspired arrangements that owe more than a little to The Fall, Wire, Pere Ubu and Gang of Four and really makes this album replayable. The first two dB’s albums come to mind in that regard, but what Like Cartoon Vampires really reminds me of is Spoon circa A Series of Sneaks, a record that is similarly lean, mean, and strips away anything inessential, leaving diamond-tight songs that shoot straight into your nervous system.

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Deerhoof – Noble and Godlike in Ruin (Deerhoof)

Always different, always the same, Deerhoof only sound like themselves at this point, 31 years into their career as experimental indie rockers who are so skilled they can sound like a car wreck one second and fire off complicated mathy riffs another, delivering skronky noise and joyous pop in equal measure. Noble and Godlike in Ruin, their 20th album, is one of their most enjoyable and a great example of everything they do. Producing themselves, drummer Greg Saunier, guitarists John Dieterich and Ed Rodriguez, and indefatigable singer Satomi Matsuzaki, have delivered one of their higher fi efforts in a while, with strings dancing with angular fretwork, swirls of synthesizers, and percussion that can sound as tight as the JB’s or a rockslide. Songs are tight and crammed with hooks, a brightly colored candy shell surrounding themes of climate change, civil unrest, pandemics and our world’s uncertain future. Saunier says the band often asked themselves during the making of the record, “What’s the point of music when genocide is standard fare and the murderers are the most rewarded people in society?” But Deerhoof, of course, are not giving in and fight the only way they can. Example: “Immigrant Songs” could be the poppiest indie rock song ever about immigration issues, a very hot 2025 topic, and is loaded with irresistible “bah bah bahs.” The words pack punch: “You think we’re in your house / You are mistaken…This song we sing won’t be for you / Never again!” It’s Deerhoof’s best song in ages, one that also cuts its sweetness with three minutes of pure noise at the end. It’s the Deerhoof way.

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Destroyer – Dan’s Boogie (Merge / Bella Union)

After three albums where Dan Bejar flirted with dance music, he has embraced his inner lounge and cabaret singer on the fourteenth Destroyer album. The record opens with the kind of sweeping strings you might hear at the start of an awards show in the ’70s with Dan is your host for the evening, though he’s the kind that might slide up to you afterwards and ask, “Hey mister, you wanna buy some diamond rings?” Dan’s Boogie presents a world of faded glamour, like a ’40s noir film full of seedy locales and seedier locals. Dan told us he sees this one as “a mix of Poison Season and Your Blues in a lot of ways” and while you can hear that in the songs themselves, the production is like no other Destroyer album. John Collins, who has been Destroyer’s chief sonic architect since ’90s, has really outdone himself here with the sound design. There is something in the atmosphere of these arrangements that makes the room you’re listening in sound three times bigger than it is. Collins shoots the album in widescreen technicolor, allowing us to see the stains of this tableau that would be hidden in black and white — musically speaking, of course — as Dan’s signature word salad style makes your head spin. As with the best Destroyer albums, and this is one of them, don’t worry about the details and meaning. Be like Dan at a Destroyer show: sit back, have a sip of a beverage, and revel in the world of sound he’s created.

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DJ Koze – Music Can Hear Us (Pampa)

As DJ Koze, Stefan Kozalla can command a massive festival crowd but his records have gotten more relaxed and idiosyncratic over the years. He’s always made laid-back tracks, even when they sport four-on-the-floor beats, but on his first album in six years he’s made a record that feels best suited for a hammock strung up between two palm trees. Music Can Hear Us feels like a cousin to Hit Parade, the 2023 album Koze made with Róisín Murphy, with its swaying, tropical vibes and warm haze coating everything. He’s still digging deep in the crates for obscure sample gold and inviting lots of guests, but this is just-before-dawn comedown music. That, or for planetarium use, as the spacey soundbath elements are strong, from the celestial “Colours of Autumn” (ft Ada), to Damon Albarn collab “Pure Love,” the wow and flutter warped tape sounds of “The Talented Mr Tripley,” and the classical guitar infused “Der Fall” (one of two songs to feature Sophia Kennedy on vocals). My favorite songs involve collabs with fellow German artists: “Wie schön du bist” is a teutonic slow jam featuring Arnim Teutoburg-Weiss & Düsseldorf Düsterboys, and “What About Us” is with The Notwist’s Markus Archer. The pace does pick up in the final quarter of the album with a triplet of bangers — “Brushcutter,” “Buschtaxi” and “Aruna” — which would be an odd tracklist placement for anyone but him. DJ Koze, idiosyncratic to the end.

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Doves – Constellations for the Lonely (EMI North)

Constellations for the Lonely, the sixth Doves album and first in five years, is another stunner. The Manchester band are a genre unto themselves and nobody does it better than them, creating sweeping rock epics with a crate-digger’s love of rare grooves, a composer’s ability to conjure emotions though cinematic sonic tableaus, and an architect’s skill with constructing towering structures within the stereo field. Oh, and write great songs with anthemic choruses that tug at the heartstrings without a hint of treacle. Constellations is all highs, each song full of magic little moments that layer together to form something even greater, from the echoing piano riff in “Renegade,” to the interlocking guitar arpeggiations of “In the Butterfly House,” the piercing post-punk bassline that cuts through the choral haze of “A Drop in the Ocean,” and the swooning strings that drench the waltzing “Last Year’s Man.” Jimi Goodwin’s world-weary vocals add real heart, but Jez Williams takes lead on a number of songs this time, including the album’s best song, “Cold Dreaming,” which is somewhere between David Axelrod and Minnie Ripperton. Constellations for the Lonely is a life-affirming instant classic and another reminder to never count Doves out.

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Dutch Interior – Moneyball (Fat Possum)

Too many cooks spoil the kitchen, goes the old adage, and that is probably more true than not. But sometimes another cliche is more appropriate: variety is the spice of life. Five of the six members of twangy, low-key LA band Dutch Interior write and sing and their distinctive creative and actual voices keep things interesting on their pretty, contemplative third album, Moneyball, that also feels cohesive via a love of ’90s indie rock, alt-country and slowcore (along with those genres’ original ’60s/’70s influences). The most current day analog is probably MJ Lenderman, and while Dutch Interior don’t deliver his level of quotable couplets (few do, let’s face it), songs are memorable, nicely impressionistic and full of dreamy atmosphere. The most apt comparison, though, is probably Acetone, the cult ’90s group whose influence, the band say, “is all over our discography.” You really feel that influence on songs like “Canada,” “Wood Knot” and “Beekeeping” which float slow like a lazy river, but also in the harmonies and layered guitars on “Fourth Street” and “Sandcastle Molds” which both kick up some dust. Noah Kurtz might write the most immediate songs here, but contributions from Conner Reeves, Jack Nugent, Davis Stuart and Shane Barton balance things out and allow everyone to bring their A-game.

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FACS – Wish Defense (Trouble in Mind)

Morphing out of Dissapears in 2017, Chicago trio FACS have managed to just about release an album a year since they started and there is something about their creative ethos that has them noticeably different with every record. Not drastically different; dark post-punk, wiry Dischord punk and post-hardcore is in their bones, but they are always changing things up within it, moving forward. And getting better. Wish Defense is FACS’ sixth album and comes with a couple talking points. This is the first album they’ve made since original guitarist (and Disappears member) Jonathan Van Herik rejoined the band after leaving just before they released their 2018 debut. He’s now over on bass and brings a welcome injection of melody to the FACS equation that also includes atmospheric guitarist/yowler Brian Case and monster drummer Noah Leger. I have tended to talk about FACS mostly in terms of mood and vibe, and while they’ve still got that in ample supply, Wish Defense also has hooks and memorable choruses to go with that air of foreboding dread and explorations of Lynchian duality. “I’m not here, I’m not here,” Case cries on the album’s bracing title track. “Are you real?” The other factoid is that this was recorded by the late Steve Albini and they’d just finished the bulk of tracking it just hours before he died. (Sanford Parker came in to finish recording, and John Congleton was brought in for the mix.) FACS have recorded all their albums at Electrical Audio but the “Albini sound” — rhythm-section-forward, punchy, lots of headroom — is clearly perfect for what they do and his touch is felt immediately. Everything hits a little harder, with more clarity. That it happened with the band’s most impactful, best batch of songs yet feels like the stars aligned above West Belmont Ave.

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Greentea Peng – TELL DEM IT’S SUNNY (GTP / AWAL Recordings)

Greentea Peng’s fantastic debut, MAN MADE, was one of 2021’s most underrated album, mixing reggae, hip hop, acid jazz, soul, trip hop and more with her unique psilocybin-enhanced flavor. Four years and one mixtape later she’s done it again. Overseen by Danger Mouse associates St. Francis Hotel and featuring the talents of MAN MADE producer Earbuds, along with Busy Twist and Nat Powers, TELL DEM IT’S SUNNY sounds amazing, and from the opening seconds of “Bali Skit Part 1” you’re dropped into Peng’s woozy, dubby, groovy and immersive world. Where MAN MADE was a reaction to external forces — the death of her father, Covid, Brexit, George Floyd, etc — TELL DEM looks inward. It’s a dark album, how can it not be these days, but she never forgets about the inner light — the “SUNNY” of the title — which radiates out through her expressive, nuanced voice and impeccable molten flow. At times the album plays like early Massive Attack/Tricky if they’d had Amy Winehouse as a muse; it’s very 1995 but also very 2025, with Greentea Peng standing in between, sounding timeless.

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Hannah Cohen – Earthstar Mountain (Bella Union / Congrats Records)

What a gorgeous-sounding album this is. Hannah Cohen has created a sumptuous garden of earthly aural delights for her fourth album. The cascade of flutes and strings on “Dusty” that opens the album instantly sets the mood, conjuring rainbows and spring. (This record couldn’t have picked a better release date, as trees are in full bloom on the East Coast.) While that song is an homage to Dusty Springfield, it also brings to mind Minnie Riperton’s kaleidoscopic single “Le Fleurs” and more than holds up to the comparison. “Dusty” is a hard act to follow, but Hannah follows it with the sultry, sassy strut of “Draggin’” and “Mountain” which has serious Fleetwood Mac vibes and harmonies via Sufjan Stevens. The wonders keep flowing from there, from sunshine pop to spectral folk, groovy soul, and even a wonderful cover of Ennio Morricone’s “Una Spiaggia” with Cohen and Catskills neighbor Clairo nailing those otherworldly vocalizations. Hannah’s partner and producer, Sam Evian, did similar magic with records by Kate Bollinger and Katie Von Schleicher and helps Cohen catch those sounds she’s chasing, and no doubt those guest contributors are cool, but Earthstar Mountain is Hannah’s baby all the way.

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The Horrors – Night Life (Fiction)

This is more like it. Following 2009’s fantastic Primary Colours, The Horrors spread their musical wings, dabbling in prog and pop, still full of drama but looking for the light. Those albums — Skying, Luminous and V — are all very good, but frontman Farris Badwan’s baritone is clearly best suited for the dark arts. The original lineup of the band fractured after 2017’s V, with Badwan, guitarist Joshua Hayward, and bassist Rhys Webb officially welcoming new keyboardist Amelia Kidd and former Telegram drummer Jordan Cook to the fold in 2024. The new lineup of the band made Nite Life — which is their first for Fiction Records aka The Cure’s label for most of their career — in Los Angeles with Yves Rothman, who has also made some very gothy records. The Horrors and Rothman turned out to be a very good combination and, along with new sonic ideas brought by Kidd and Cook, Night Life is the band’s best since 2011’s Skying. The album it’s most like, though, is the dark and hazy Primary Colours, but this is not a retread; synths and digital production stand side-by-side with roaring guitars, moody, melodic basslines and percussion that is alternately lithe/syncopated and pummelling. On their first album in eight years, on their 20th anniversary as a band, The Horrors are returning to their gothy roots and basking in the moonlight glory.

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Horsegirl – Phonetics On and On (Matador)

One of the most promising bands of the early-’20s, Chicago trio Horsegirl released their first single, signed to Matador, and made their debut album at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio with John Agnello while still in high school. That record, 2022’s Versions of Modern Performance, is dense and hazy in mostly the right ways — it’s terrific — but their second album is markedly better. A big part of that is Penelope Lowenstein, Nora Cheng and Gigi Reece becoming better, more confident songwriters and performers due to three years of touring and life in general, but another part is for Phonetics On and On they were paired with a kindred spirit in Welsh musician/producer Cate Le Bon. The trio spent two weeks recording with Le Bon at Jeff Tweedy’s The Loft Studio during the dead of winter in what sounds like a warm bubble of open creativity. Where their first album was loud and fuzzy, Phonetics On and On feels like the ceiling was lifted 15 feet, the curtains raised, and the distortion pedals put away, clearing the fog in the process. Horsegirl are still coming at you from odd angles, quieter but not soft. It’s more Young Marble Giants and Electrelane and less Sonic Youth, making for an album that’s easy to let play on repeat all morning long, on and on.

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Little Sims – Lotus (AWAL Recordings)

One of the most fulfilling creative partnerships of the last decade — whipsmart London rapper Little Simz and visionary producer Inflo — came crashing down after SAULT’s live debut in 2023. The show was ambitious, immersive, and lavish, costing millions to stage, and according to Simz, Inflo borrowed £1.7 million that he has yet to pay back. There’s no doubt they made magic together, but Little Simz is doing just fine on her own, thankyouverymuch, as Lotus proves again and again. Working with producer Miles Clinton James (KOKOROKO), the album isn’t miles away from the lush grooves of 2021’s fantastic, Mercury Prize–winning Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, but here Simz sounds more like she’s on the streets of London than in a palace — especially on playful standout “Young,” which nods lyrically and musically to Amy Winehouse, and the irresistible “Enough” which features Yukimi of Little Dragon. Inflo is frequently in the crosshairs across Lotus, but nowhere more squarely than on opener “Thief,” where she really lays into him: “Know you thought my career right now would be failing / But my ship won’t stop sailing / You talk about God when you have a God complex / I think you’re the one that needs saving.” Lotus may not have the total focus of Introvert, but it’s lighter on its feet and more fun. It’s clear that with Little Simz, the best is still to come.

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M(h)aol – Something Soft (Merge)
There’s not much “soft” heard on this Dublin post-punk trio’s sharp-as-hell second album

If you like your post-punk spare, disaffected, darkly funny, socially conscious and sharp as hell, few are doing it better in 2025 than Dublin trio M(h)aol. Their second album is an eviscerating slice to the gut, carved with smile while looking you in the eyes. The production, courtesy the band’s Jamie Hyland, is perfectly blown-out with lots of fantastic touches, from the vintage touch-tone-phone hook on “1-800-Call-Me-Back” to the atmospheric miasma of noise enveloping the brooding “Clementine” and the machine gun staccato effects on “I Miss My Dog” that Model/Actress would be envious of. The driving rhythm section’s clockwork precision is perfectly recorded, blown-out in all the right ways, and dares you not to dance. While much of the album is cut with humor, don’t think for a second M(h)aol aren’t serious about their causes, as the dread-filled playing of some songs make apparent. “Pursuit” is a harrowing yet compelling portrait of either an abusive relationship or a fraught late night walk home alone and “DM:AM” addresses unwanted attention of social media. Then there’s “Snare” that looks at subtle misogyny in the music industry and give the album its title. “Why not play something soft like piano or violin?” a man asks at the merch table. “I know now what I didn’t know at nine / You’re talking shit and you’re wasting your own time.” Soft doesn’t suit M(h)aol. “It’s meant to sound like that!”

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Marie Davidson – City of Clowns (DEEWEE)

“I want your data!” Marie Davidson, who is one half of Montreal coldwave duo Essaie Pas, has made the underground club record of the year so far — a sleek, sexy, banger-filled electronic album that is also a defiant condemnation of our screen-addled times. She’s having her cake and eating it too, all while offering us a bite before yanking it away, throwing it on the floor and dancing all over it. Helping her achieve this are her Essaie Pas partner, Pierre Guerineau, and co-producers Stephen and David Dewaele of Soulwax (whose label, DEEWEE, also released the album). As with her previous records, Davidson and Guerineau have a clear idea of what she wants sonically, and there are elements of techno and minimal wave here, but this time the mid-’80s are a big influence, from underground scenes like industrial subgenre EBM and Belgium’s New Beat to high concept artists like Will Powers. Here’s where the Dewaeles’ input shines. City of Clowns sounds amazing, gleaming like polished steel, still minimal yet brutalist skyscraper huge, and every sonic element matters. It’s an instant dance classic, a concept record that works even without knowing that there is one, and may even make you dance while doing the dishes.

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Mei Semones – Animaru (Bayonet)
This New York musician effortlessly blends tropicalia and indie rock on her delightful debut album

Spring has fully sprung and I can’t think of a better soundtrack to the blooming flora and fauna than the debut album by Mei Semones. Animaru opens with “Dumb Feeling,” filling the air with bossa nova guitars straight out of a ’60s Jobim album, but 26 seconds in come the fuzzed-out indie rock chords and not long after strings that dance like blossoms in the breeze. It’s an unusual blend of tropicalia, indie rock and chamber pop that is familiar, friendly, satisfying and uniquely hers. Mei and her band are very skilled and songs can turn on a math rock dime from gentle to loud, sweet to aggressive, while they’re always in control of where they’re going. Animaru is the kind of album you could play for MOJO-reading music snobs (raises hand), metalheads, jazz lovers, emo fans, or your grandparents, and they’d all find something to like here. For all the dazzling technique on display, “Dangomushi,” “Norwegian Shag,” and “Toro Moyo” are effortless and tuneful and just sound wonderful. At times, like on album high point “I Can Do What I Want,” Mei is not unlike Cornelius at his Drop peak, blending traditional genres into something her own. Minus the electronics, that is, but I wouldn’t count that out in the future. Mei is just getting started.

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Panda Bear – Sinister Grift (Domino)

Coming on the tail of Reset, his wonderful collaboration with Sonic Boom, Panda Bear is back with Sinister Grift, another wonderful showcase of Noah Lennox’s ability to channel Brian Wilson while bringing something new to a very familiar style. Underneath all those layers of perfect harmony is some very trippy production — the “sinister” to this otherwise poppy album — but the weirdness stays mostly in the background, making for one of the most satisfying, breezy records of Panda Bear’s career.

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Pulp – More (Rough Trade)

“I exist to do this,” Jarvis Cocker sings on “Spike Island,” the opening song on More, Pulp’s first album in 24 years. He immediately clarifies what “this” is: “shouting & pointing.” As anyone who has ever seen Jarvis perform knows, he is very good at both. And while he didn’t stop shouting or pointing when Pulp broke up in 2002, those actions carry more purpose with the band that made him famous. The same goes for his songs. His solo work over the last two and a half decades has been good—often great—but it all hits the pleasure centers more directly as part of Pulp. Unlike 1997’s dark hangover-of-the-soul record This Is Hardcore, and 2001’s Scott Walker-produced We Love Life, which closed out the band’s original 23-year run with a pleasant whimper — the two albums that followed their 1995 masterpiece Different Class — there’s an ease, a camaraderie here that is palpable throughout. Jarvis has said that following the death of Pulp bassist and good friend Steve Mackey in 2023 he made a conscious decision to pursue happiness as best he could—which included reuniting with his bandmates. There’s also a sense of fun here that’s been missing from Pulp albums since Different Class and Jarvis and the rest of the band are not afraid to give the people what they want this time. More? Yes, please.

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Robert Forster – Strawberries (Tapete)

“The last album was very personal,” notes Go-Betweens co-founder Robert Forster of 2023’s The Candle & The Flame, made while his wife Karin was battling cancer. (She’s doing fine, happy to report.) It was a heavy experience, and he didn’t write anything for over a year. When the songs started to come again, he found they were of a lighter mood. “A situation a little bit outside of myself, and I thought that was good. That was a place I could go to.” Outside himself, indeed. Strawberries consists of eight character sketches, all with Forster’s still keen eye for detail and ear for dialogue. The album was made in Stockholm with producer Peter Morén of Peter Bjorn and John, who also plays guitar throughout as part of an all-Swedish band that includes Jonas Thorell on bass and Magnus Olsson (The Last Days of April) on drums, with Lina Langendorf on woodwinds and Anna Åhman on keys. Forster’s songwriting style, indebted to Lou Reed, David Byrne and Bob Dylan, hasn’t changed much since The Go-Betweens and he remains at his literate best here, from romantic parlour dramas like instant classic “Tell it Back to Me” to literate tales of one night stands (“Breakfast on the Train”), and the he-said-she-said playfulness Strawberries‘ title track which is a duet with Karin. Speaking of family members, Forster’s son, Louis (formerly of The Goon Sax) plays on “Such a Shame” which about a rising rock star who has already been ground through the music biz mill. Then there’s closer “Diamonds” that starts like Buffalo Springfield and ends in free jazz chaos. With his heavy days currently behind him, Forster is clearly having fun this time and it’s contagious.

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Sextile – yes, please. (Sacred Bones)

LA duo Sextile’s 2023 album Push was an awesome embrace of ’90s club culture, and their follow-up to it continues down the same path, right down to the cover art which prominently features a tongue: this time with a lollipop on it, not a square of blotter paper, but the blown-out pupil seen on yes, please. tells you they are still having visions of excess. Melissa Scaduto and Brady Keeh hit the ground dancing with “Women Respond to Bass,” which nods to Renegade Soundwave’s 1992 single of the same name (but is not a cover), is a real stormer that you could imagine Lola running and running to, and the album doesn’t let up from there until the very last track (“Soggy Newports,” great title). Speaking of 1992, the album title is probably a tip-of-the-hat toYes, Please!, Happy Mondays’ disastrous and drug-addled follow-up to Pills, Thrills and Bellyaches, but Sextile are clearly much more in control than those Mancunians. But I digress. The banger quotient here remains exhaustingly high, including but not limited to: the clanging “Freak Eyes”; “Push Ups” with it’s surging, incessant bassline; the blissed out “99 Bongos”; and the very hooky “Kiss.” The album also has a quasi group theme song “S is For,” where they list off dozens of words that begin with S including Sex, Shit, Swell, Stiff, Slag, Snap, and Shut, which are all delivered, mantra-style, over a gleaming, pulsing techno beat until grows into an angry chant. Of course, S is also for Sextile and this album makes it clear they should be at the top of the list.

Snapped Ankles – Hard Times Furious Dancing (The Leaf Label)

Since their start in the late 2010s, London’s Snapped Ankles have presented themselves as creatures of the forest who’ve come down out of the branches to warn us against banks, big real estate, big corporations and the world leaders they have in their pockets, delivering their message via banging post-punk, techno, and commische rhythms. It’s like if Dr Seuss’ The Lorax led LCD Soundsystem. Swiping the title of their fourth album from Alice Walker’s 2010 book Hard Times Require Furious Dancing, Snapped Ankles have made a record that couldn’t feel more of the moment — in the best possible way — in one of the hardest times many of us have witnessed. And the music is indeed furious, urgent beats regularly flung at BPMs well above 140, with syncopated percussion and squelching synths — many of which are homemade and built into hollowed-out logs (their live show is wild) — and shouted sloganeering a la Mark E Smith. Hard Times Furious Dancing is a real state-of-the-world record, taking a look at everything from the fractured post-Covid music industry on “Pay the Rent” to those evil conglomerates on “Personal Responsibilities” (“They don’t apply to very large companies”), and starting an impromptu dance party in an endless customs line (“Dancing in Transit”). Unlike their last couple albums, these tunes were road-tested before recording and everything feels extra dialed up for maximum endorphin release. It all comes together, including the KLF-inspired but very Snapped Ankles cover art, for what is easily the group’s best, most fun, and cathartic record yet.

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Stereolab – Instant Holograms on Metallic Film (Duophonic / Warp)

Instant Holograms On Metal Film does just about everything you want a Stereolab album to do, checking all the boxes: VU guitar chug, motorik drumming, bleepy-bloopy analog synths, vibraphone, horns, wondrously layered harmonies, lefty lyrics, “bah-dee-dah” choruses, and titles that seem like they were generated by a random phrase creator (but in this case were at least partially pulled from the October 1970 issue of Electronics Australia). It all makes for a warmly familiar record, welcoming you like family—record nerd family—at the airport. This is the Stereolab you remember—at least the one that emerged around 1994’s Mars Audiac Quintet and made classics like Emperor Tomato Ketchup and Dots and Loops. Melody is at the forefront, all in the band’s signature style, with lots of room for instrumental zones to stretch out. For a group many still consider to be outré, Instant Holograms is kosmische comfort food—and that’s ok. They’re not breaking much new ground, but nobody else sounds like them—not imitators, and not even Gane or Sadier’s various post-Lab projects.

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Tropical Fuck Storm – Fairyland Codex (Fire)

“It’s the Golden Age of Arseholes.” Has any band captured the insanity of the last decade in such vivid, poetic, hallucinatory detail better than Australia’s Tropical Fuck Storm? Formed in 2017 by Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin of The Drones, with Lauren Hammel (High Tension) and Erica Dunn (Mod Con), the band have been reporting from the edge of the apocalypse — a surreal “future now” that’s only slightly removed from our actual reality. That lyric is from “Goon Show,” one of many awesomely phantasmagoric songs on TFS’ fourth album. “I’ve seen the cellphone footage and it’s raining cats and dogma,” Liddiard continues. “You can rob a bank, but you don’t really rob the bank.” Tropical Fuck Storm avoid specifics — names are rarely mentioned — but they always nail the mood. Living in the Australian bush outside Melbourne, where the barren terrain is home to all manner of weird and deadly wildlife, perhaps gives the band their uniquely Darwinian perspective: viewing the current climate as just the latest natural disaster the Earth must weather before eventually hitting the reset button. “Don’t you worry about money, don’t you worry about being alone,” Liddiard sings — backed by Kitschin and Dunn’s harmonies — on the contemplative, brooding ballad “Stepping on a Rake.” “Don’t worry about what’s coming, some things are not worth knowing.” The interplay between Liddiard’s gruff, distinctly Aussie howl and Kitschin and Dunn’s sweet harmonies — often in call-and-response form — is also at the core of what makes Tropical Fuck Storm so unique. Liddiard calls it like he sees it: a world on the brink, its inhabitants doing what they must to survive. Kitschin and Dunn offer some flicker of faith in humanity. Dunn and Liddiard also have a near-telekinetic guitar interplay, with performances that are wildly unhinged and skronky but somehow land back in the pocket, never going overboard. Fairyland Codex mixes Grand Guignol psych-rock and funk (“Irukandji Syndrome,” “Goon Show,” “Bloodsport”) with surprisingly tender moments, like the title track — a perfect example of TFS’ balance of dystopia and hope: “A village in hell is waiting for you… if you choose.”

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Tunng – Love You All Over Again (Full Time Hobby)

Tunng didn’t invent “folktronica” — that would maybe be Momus who coined the term on his rather annoying 2001 album Folktronic, though some cite Ultramarine’s 1991 album Every Man and Woman is a Star as the ur text — but they were among the first to make music like that that you actually enjoy listening to. The UK band, led by Mike Lindsay and Sam Genders, just celebrated the 20th anniversary of their debut album and its organic blend of the acoustic and the glitchy has proven to be a resilient sound. Love You All Over Again is Tunng’s eighth album and, not that they’ve ever strayed too far from their origins, this is a purposeful return to their roots. “Over the years, Tunng’s sound has varied and twisted, but at the root there is always a flavour of what Sam and I made on that first album,” Lindsay says. “Rather than searching for a new avenue we went back to what we used to do, which, after all this time, felt like it was a new avenue.” Even down to the title, Love You All Over Again is a re-embrace of their beginnings. What makes this work so well, like those early records, is the “tronica” part of the equation is used with a very subtle touch; songs like “Everything Else,” “Sixes,” “Deep Underneath,” and “Didn’t Know Why” glow in the warmth of nylon string guitars, lush harmonies, and the occasional woodwind, and would sound great even without all the gentle bleeps and bloops and patchwork production. But it’s those electronic touches that make Tunng unique even as dozens of other artists have co-opted the style. Great songwriting and arrangements, plus a little gentle humor, will always win out.

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Ty Segall – Possession (Drag City)

If you’ve ever felt intimidated by the sheer volume of Ty Segall’s releases, Possession is not only a great album but a perfect place to start. “This one was me trying to make a pop record,” he told us. Possession is Segall’s most immediate album yet—an ambitious swing for the fences where he mostly connects. It’s got big hooks and melodies, augmented by bravura string and brass arrangements from bandmate Mikal Cronin, and some of his most thoughtful lyrics to date (co-written with filmmaker Matt Yoka). Possession is steeped in the classics of the ’60s and ’70s, from late-’60s Beatles and The Kinks, to ZZ Top’s Tex-Mex boogie and The Allman Brothers Band’s soulful groove (the title track owes a little to “Midnight Rambler”). The electric piano used throughout the record gives everything a funkier edge that works especially well with the orchestral flourishes on “Buildings” and “Fantastic Tomb.” Where he’s gone for glorious guitar overload in the past, here he wields them for accent—dropping in a sweet lick between lines in a verse, or delicate acoustic arpeggios that float just under the surface. The strings and horns also give Possession a cinematic feel that underlines the emotions of the characters he and Yoka crafted in short story tales of petty larceny, urban sprawl, car culture, and exorcism. Add to that “Another California Song” and Possession plays out like a typical sunny day in Los Angeles—where weirdos still lurk just around the corner. No worries, though: Ty’s got the top down and this is playing on the AM radio.

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U.S. Girls – Scratch It (4AD)

If you never thought U.S. Girls might make an album tracked live to 2″ tape in Nashville with a band of shit-hot session musicians, neither did Meg Remy. But when she agreed to play Arkansas’ Ecliptic Festival in 2023 and realized she couldn’t afford to bring her Toronto band with her for the one-off show, she called her friend, Nashville-based guitarist Dillon Watson, and asked if he could put a band together. He said no problem. She sent the songs to him and headed to Music City to rehearse. Meg was so enamored by the experience and the arrangements that she was convinced to try recording the Nashville way with these musicians. The result is an album unlike anything in the U.S. Girls catalog — but also one that, when you hear it, makes you wonder why she hasn’t tried this before. Her powerful, expressive voice is a natural fit for these songs of betrayal, shame, and loss, surrounded by an impressive group of ringers. Scratch It opens with two songs that use pop icons as framing devices for very personal themes: breakup anthem “James Said” has Meg taking James Brown’s advice about dancing until you feel better, which leads directly into “Dear Patti,” a song about guilt delivered as a letter to Patti Smith (“Patti, sorry I didn’t get to hear you play / I was making sure my kids didn’t fall in the lake”). A more recent musician, the late Power Trip frontman Riley Gale, serves as partial inspiration for the album’s centerpiece, the 12-minute quiet storm epic “Bookends,” which examines grief and how we process it on both a macro and micro level. It weaves together elements of John Carey’s nonfiction collection Eyewitness to History and Power Trip’s “Crossbreaker.” It’s awesome — set against a country-soul waltz backing featuring legendary harmonica player Charlie McCoy, who adds this track to a résumé that also includes George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Boxer,” and Roy Orbison’s “Blue Bayou.” There are also a couple of wonderful covers — Alex Lukashevsky’s “Firefly on the Fourth of July” and “The Clearing” by Micah Blue Smaldone (she also covered his song “Time” on 2018’s In a Poem Unlimited) — and the album ends with the searing diss track “Fruit,” where she lays into an unnamed fellow musician: “Man, if you don’t plant with the moon in mind / You will surely suffer shallow roots / When harvest time comes the picker will find… you got no fruit.” Scratch It incorporates U.S. Girls’ usual palette — soul, disco, funk, ’60s Motown and girl groups — but played with the Nashville band, everything crackles with new energy. It’s also an album that bears new fruit with repeat listens. Remy rarely repeats herself, record to record, but she had such a good experience making Scratch It, the next album is already underway with the same group of players.

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Viagra Boys – viagr aboys (Shrimptech Enterprises)

During the first line of “Made Out of Meat” — “Overweight freaks ride around on wheelchairs motorized by electric motors made by goblins in a factory overseas” — tatted up Viagra Boys frontman Sebastian Murphy lets out a belch mid-spiel as the word “factory” leaves his mouth but he just keeps on going, not slowing down for a second. Whether that was an accident they decided to keep or something that Murphy planned out (or an accident they recreated), it is a perfect Viagra Boys moment and a perfect way to open their excellent fourth album. Even without that, “Man Made Out of Meat” would be an instant classic with its big riff dance-rock beat to its themes of the state of art in 2025 and a shout-along chorus that includes the couplet “I am a man that’s made of meat / And you’re on the internet looking at feet,” but the burp is, uh, special sauce on the hamburger. From there, viagr aboys (not a typo; the title is their way of beating spam filters) doesn’t let up, and they’ve really honed their brand of party-forward sleazoid mutant punk to a greasy point, loading their songs with quotable lines, serious grooves, and the occasional emission of noxious gasses. It’s fun, very danceable, and a noticeable step forward sonically with moments of poignant subtlety (yes, really) amongst all the bodily functions. It all may make their critics more confused/incensed. Advice: don’t dissect viagr aboys — embrace the quagmire and sink willingly into the muck.

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The Waterboys – Life, Death And Dennis Hopper (Sun Records

Known for celtic rock anthems like “The Whole of the Moon” and “Fisherman’s Blues,” The Waterboys have without a doubt made the most unusual, unexpected album of their career: a rock opera about iconoclast actor, writer, director and artist Dennis Hopper, released on legendary Memphis label Sun Records. The album traces Hopper’s life from his adolescence in Kansas, to moving to Hollywood in 1955, and his friendship with James Dean, through his counterculture hit Easy Rider, the ’70s when he lost the plot, his ’80s comeback which continued through the ’90s, and his death in 2010. “It’s not a tribute record,” Scott told The New York Times. “It’s an exploration. It’s not just Dennis’s story. It’s a story of the times.” Even musically these are not your typical Waterboys songs, instead matching each song’s music to the era it covers, including country, pre-rock pop, doo-wop, ultra-psychedelic rock, cabaret and a few anthems, with help along the way from Bruce Springsteen, Fiona Apple, and Steve Earle. Life, Death And Dennis Hopper is an hour-long but with most of the 25 songs under three minutes, the album really moves and if you know anything about Hopper, it’s a fun, compelling and tuneful work that’s as wild, wooly and clever as its subject.

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Here’s a playlist with two songs from every album on the list (except for Deerhoof and for that head to the TIDAL version):

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The 20 Best Britpop Albums of 1995

20. Echobelly – On

Where Echobelly’s debut album (1994’s Everybody’s Got One) was as shiny as Britpop got, the band scuffed things up just a little for its follow-up, and made On with American production team Sean Slade and Paul Q Kolderie (Buffalo Tom, Hole, Radiohead’s The Bends). The guitars rip and roar a touch more, but songs like “Great Things,” “King of the Kerb,” and “Pantyhose and Roses” remain chipper, sugar-sweet and ridiculously catchy. Like on their debut, On‘s most distinctive feature remains singer Sonya Aurora Madan whose crystal clear voice really makes things soar.

19. Salad – Drink Me

London group Salad was led by Dutch musician and model Marijne van der Vlugt who was also a VJ for MTV Europe at the same time she was in the band. She was a striking presence in the band with a clear, powerful voice that cut through the often jagged guitars — all of which set them apart from the rest of the Britpop pack. Certainly no other group was releasing anything quite as wonderfully odd as “Motorbike to Heaven” or “Drink the Elixir” at the time. Despite being on a major label (Island Records subsidiary Red), Salad were just a little too odd for mainstream popularity — though Drink Me did briefly enter the UK Top 20 — but it does, however, make the album ripe for rediscovery (they’re also back in action).

18. Menswe@r – Nuisance

Every genre seems to have its blatantly commercial group that pays close attention to the competition, trying to beat them at their own game while proclaiming what they really want to be is famous. Menswe@r were that band for Britpop, a group that felt like they were conceived in the pages of the hype-heavy British music press or at a scene-y Camden pub like The Good Mixer. In fact, the band’s Johnny Dean and Chris Gentry managed to get a quote about Menswe@r in an issue of Select when the band was just an idea in their head, and Melody Maker put them on the cover before they’d released a single. (MM did the same for Suede.) Musically, the group swiped ideas from all the other popular bands: Like Elastica, they ripped off Wire (“Daydreamer”) and brought in a string section a la Oasis or Blur for swoony ballad “Being Brave.” Pulp and Suede are also clearly points of reference from the hairstyles down. But as far as style-forward disposable pop goes, Nuisance is enjoyable fluff and, unlike some groups, Menswe@r don’t attempt to hide what they’re doing.

17. Various Artists – The Help Album

Some of the biggest artists in the UK and Ireland, including most of the Britpop Elite, contributed new songs to this high concept benefit album aiding the War Child charity. The concept was inspired by John Lennon’s “Instant Karma” — the idea that all art should be released to the world as soon as it’s made. So 20 artists went into the studio on September 4, 1995 and the album was in the shops five days later. Some of the Britpop highlights: Radiohead’s “Lucky,” which would appear two years later on OK Computer; a new, terrific acoustic version of Oasis b-side “Fade Away” featuring Johnny Depp and Kate Moss; Suede covering Elvis Costello’s “Shipbuilding” (also famously covered by Robert Wyatt); Blur in playful instrumental mode on “Eine kleine Lift Musik”; The KLF’s Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty as The One World Orchestra with a cover of The Magnificent Seven theme (their first music in four years); Salad and Specials frontman Terry Hall covering “Dream a Little Dream of Me”; and The Charlatans covering Sly & The Family Stone’s “Time for Livin’.” The biggest deal was a cover of The Beatles’ “Come Together” by The Smokin’ Mojo Filters (aka Paul McCartney, Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller), but the secret best song is Sinead O’Connor’s cover of Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billy Joe.”

16. Shack – Waterpistol

Shack were one of those bands who seemed poised for stardom but just couldn’t catch a break or get out of their own way. Led by brothers Michael and John Head, who spent most of the ’80s in orchestral indie band The Pale Fountains, Shack updated the ’60s merseybeat sounds of their Liverpool hometown, which landed them sonically somewhere between The La’s and The Stone Roses. Recording of their second album took place in 1991, but went over schedule as Michael Head struggled to finish songs; when the album was finished, the studio burned down along with the album’s masters. The only finished copy of the record was in the possession of producer Chris Allison…who accidentally left the tape in a rental car. The DAT tape was eventually tracked down but by the time it was back in the hands of the group, their label had folded. Waterpistol finally saw release in 1995, by which time Shack had been broken up for a couple years already, with Michael Head falling into heroin addiction. Drama and back luck aside, Waterpistol is a fantastic record that felt very of the moment in 1995, full of shoulda-been-hits like “Dragonfly,” “Mood of the Morning” and “Walter’s Song.” A lost classic that is well worth seeking out.

15. The Verve – A Northern Soul

The Verve started off as a deeply psychedelic band, known more for Nick McCabe’s awesome, tripped out guitar pyrotechnics and frontman Richard Ashcroft’s million-mile stare than catchy melodies. That all changed with The Verve’s second album, which they made with Oasis producer Owen Morris. McCabe’s playing was still very cosmic but was now in service of hooky rock songs that also made better use of Ashcroft’s powerful pipes. (Drummer Pete Salisbury and bassist Simon Jones, meanwhile, were one of the best rhythm sections of the ’90s.) Tracks like “This is Music” and “A New Decade” were still pretty far out, but it was singles “On Your Own” and “History” that proved The Verve could give the Gallaghers a run for their money in the sweeping ballad department.

14. Blur – The Great Escape

After the one-two punch of 1993’s Modern Life is Rubbish and 1994’s Parklife, there was a lot of pressure on Blur to one up themselves again. Of course, anything short of amazing was gonna be a letdown, and at the time this third serving of quirky British life felt like one Full English Breakfast too many. (Blur were full, too; the band looked to Magic America for 1997’s self titled album which, woohoo, gave them their first U.S. hit.) But with the distance of 25 years, The Great Escape is actually a really good album, from singalong hits “Stereotypes” and “Charmless Man” (one of the great Blur singles), to the swaying “Best Days” and bouncing “Top Man.” Blur and The Great Escape really excel at sweeping mood pieces and three of their best are here: “The Universal,” “He Thought of Cars” and “Yuko and Hiro.” Even the none-more-Blur “Country House” sounds pretty good now.

13. Paul Weller – Stanley Road

Never one to get too comfortable with his surroundings, Paul Weller has had a pathological need to reinvent himself over the years. He broke up The Jam at the height of their stardom to form the politically active, suave pop group The Style Council, which he then disbanded in 1989 just after turning 30. He changed things up again for his ’90s solo career, making the kind of earthy, soulful rock you might expect from Traffic or Joe Cocker. At the same time a new crop of British groups (Supergrass, Blur, Pulp) looked to The Jam and The Style Council for inspiration. It all made it a perfect time for a Weller comeback. Having primed things with 1993’s Wild Wood, Paul really delivered with the million-selling Stanley Road that featured a host of collaborators, including Steve Winwood, his old Style Council cohort Mick Talbot and big fan Noel Gallagher. Stanley Road‘s sound fit right in between Oasis and The Charlatans and on the album’s lead single, “Changing Man,” he even addressed his need to blow things up and start again — “Numbed by the effect, aware of the muse, too in touch with myself, I light the fuse” — all while cementing his Modfather status.

12. Sleeper – Smart

Louise Wener and Jon Stewart, who had been in a number of college bands together before moving to London, took out an ad in Melody Maker: “Bass player and drummer wanted. Influences The Pixies and The Partridge Family.” Sleeper were born. Wener was a charismatic frontwoman and an even better lyricist, riviling Jarvis Cocker with witty, relatable tales of romantic angst, mid-20s ennui and sex in the suburbs. All that can be found on Sleeper’s debut album, Smart, which kicks off with three fantastic singles: love-the-one-you’re-with Top 20 UK hit “Inbetweener,” the Pixies-ish “Swallow,” and decidedly randy “Delicious.” The nine songs that follow are nearly as good. The IT Girl, released in 1996, is even better but Sleeper  wouldn’t last much longer, breaking up in 1998 after their third album; Wener then put her observational talents to good use as a novelist (her debut, 2002’s Goodnight Steve McQueen, is terrific). Sleeper reformed in 2017 and released the very good The Modern Age in 2019.

11. Gene – Olympian

London group Gene were dogged by comparisons to The Smiths, due mostly to frontman Martin Rossitter’s at times uncanny vocal resemblance to Morrissey, but also their purple-prosed lyrics and a propensity for sticking some of their best songs on b-sides. Those comparisons were fairly superficial, though, with guitarist Steve Mason drawing more from Small Faces’ Steve Marriott or Paul Weller than Johnny Marr, and Rossitter offering a more positive, romantic, us-vs-the-world outlook than Moz. Gene also tended to swing for the fences with big riffs and bigger anthemic choruses, and their debut album, Olympian, finds them connecting with real power, whether it was swaggering rock like “Haunted by You,” “Car That Sped” and “To the City,” or more windswept numbers like “London, Can You Wait” and the title track. To See the Sights, released the next year, collects non-LP singles and b-sides from this era and is, to further that Smiths comparison, their Hatful of Hollow and a great companion to Olympian.

10. The Charlatans – The Charlatans

The Charlatans are survivors, having started as part of the Manchester music scene in the wake of The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. But they have managed to change with the changing times, surviving a few major setbacks and tragedies, while maintaining their own identity and Hammond organ-led sound. As Madchester’s high faded, guitars began figuring in a little more prominently into their sound. While 1994’s Up to Our Hips stumbled, The Charlatans sorted themselves out by the time of their self-titled fourth album, which found them sounding more confident than ever, adopting a Stones-y Exile on Main Street vibe that put them right in heart of Britpop. The Charlatans was a #1 album for them, with terrific hit singles “Crashin’ In,” “Just When You’re Thinkin Things Over” and “Just Lookin’.” Another impressive pivot for one of the UK’s most resilient bands of the last 30 years.

9. Teenage Fanclub – Grand Prix

Glasgow’s Teenage Fanclub haven’t altered their musical course much since forming in the late ’80s, making a brand of jangly guitar pop that owes much to Big Star, Beach Boys and The Byrds. With a high level of quality that continues to this day, Teenage Fanclub have done it without ever really playing music industry games, just happy to crank out good record after good record. But in the mid-’90s, the Fannies’ classic sound fit right in with the Britpop revival. It also coincided with the release of what is arguably their best album, Grand Prix, which to play off the album’s Formula One cover art, has them firing on all cylinders. It helps to have three very good songwriters, and Grand Prix was their first record where guitarist Raymond McGinley’s work rose to the level of his bandmates Norman Blake and Gerrard Love. Some of Teenage Fanclub’s all-time best songs are here: Love’s “Sparky’s Dream” and “Don’t Look Back,” Blake’s “Mellow Doubt” and “Neil Jung” and McGinley’s “About You” and “Verisimilitude.”

8. Boo Radleys – Wake Up!

The Boo Radleys began life as died-in-the-wool, noise-loving shoegazers but main songwriter Martin Carr always had a fondness for classic pop songwriting that fought its way through the noise of their early records. The band dabbled in straight-up guitar pop on 1993’s Giant Steps, which is also around the time their label, Creation, signed a band named Oasis whose runaway success really changed everything for the label and the existing roster. Where bands like Ride and The Boo Radleys were once content to make “cool” indie records, there was now pressure to compete with the Gallaghers in the charts. Carr came from the same school of pop as The Kinks, The Beatles and The Zombies and proved to be a natural, with The Boo Radleys making the transition effortlessly on their fourth album, Wake Up! The ebullient, horn-filled first single “Wake Up Boo!” is a song, like Katrina & The Waves’ “Walking on Sunshine,” that was made to be played the minute the weather gets nice, and was a Top 10 hit for the band that stayed in the UK singles charts for most of the spring and summer. While that was the only hit on the album (which also went to #1) but “It’s Lulu” and “Find the Answer Within” shoulda been smashes, too.

7. Black Grape – It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah

Happy Mondays crashed and burned during the making of their 1992 album Yes Please!, with frontman Shaun Ryder and other members of the band dealing with serious drug problems. Instead of disappearing off the face of the earth, Ryder and Mondays dancer/vibes man Bez rebounded surprisingly quickly, forming Black Grape in 1993, enlisting Ruthless Rap Assassins members Paul “Kermit” Leveridge and Ged Lynch as well as producer and songwriting partner Danny Saber. Past excesses thankfully hadn’t dimmed Ryder’s lyrical wit one bit, and the fresh start and new collaborators brought out the best in him. It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah, a title that referenced Ryder’s new cleaned-up lifestyle, rivals Happy Mondays’ Pills N’ Thrills N’ Bellyaches for sheer pleasure. The cover art, featuring a Pop Art illustration of Carlos the Jacklyn, referenced other things. Musically, Black Grape resembles Ryder’s old band, but adapted to the mid-’90s with Kermit as a great vocal foil, and some of Britpop’s anthemicism baked into singles “The Reverend Black Grape,” “In the Name of the Father” (which takes swipes at the Catholic Church) and “Kelly’s Heroes” (which sounds lot like Madonna’s “Express Yourself”). Few artists manage a second act like this, let alone one so good.

6. Cast – All Change

The La’s 1990 self-titled debut album is one of the direct precursors to Britpop and while frontman and songwriter Lee Mavers never made another album, sideman John Power proved more than up to the task of leading his own band, Cast. Enlisting Peter Wilkinson from Shack (another Liverpool band who had trouble with labels and frontmen), they formed a group who favored songs over bravado and drama. It was a formula that worked. Songs like “Alright,” “Sandstorm,” and “Finetime” sounded like classics from the get-go, with earworm choruses that stick in your head on first listen. John Leckie’s production — with layer upon layer of guitars and harmonies — makes everything pop. The real appeal of All Change is just how effortless it all seems. These songs don’t sound like they were written as much as they were always there just waiting to be heard.

5. Radiohead – The Bends

Nobody would call Radiohead Britpop now, and nobody really did in 1995 either, but The Bends definitely has more in common with Blur and Oasis than the proggy widescreen grandeur they would debut with OK Computer. These are pop songs played on guitars — lots of guitars — and tracks like “Fake Plastic Trees,” “High and Dry,” “Bones” and “The Bends” became the template for many new Britpop groups in the second half of the ’90s. (See: Travis, Stereophonics, Longpigs, Coldplay.) John Leckie’s production helps tracks like “Just” and “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” achieve liftoff, and The Bends is also notable as the record where they met Nigel Godrich, who engineered the record and would go on to form a beautiful friendship with the band that lasts to this day. Before The Bends, Radiohead were that band who did “Creep,” but with this it was clear they would never be stuck in the land of One Hit Wonders.

4. Elastica – Elastica

Led by Justine Frischmann — who had been an early member of Suede and for much of the ’90s was one half of Britpop’s #1 Power Couple with Blur’s Damon Albarn — Elastica were a breath of fresh air when they released “Stutter,” their 1993 debut single that mixed punk, new wave and heaps of attitude. If you weren’t paying attention then, you certainly were by the time of their third single, “Connection,” that borrowed (and later paid for) its riff from Wire’s “Three Girl Rhumba.” When the song kicks in at the 20 second mark, you’ve got one of 1994’s most undeniable hooks. The band were not shy about paying homage to bands they loved: “Line Up” also borrowed heavily from Wire, and “Waking Up” tipped its hat to The Stranglers’ “No More Heroes.” The wait for their debut album seemed like forever, and when it was finally released in March of 1995 it became the fastest selling UK album since Oasis’ Definitely Maybe the year before and held onto the title till Arctic Monkeys’ Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not in 2006. More than half of Elastica‘s songs had already seen release on singles (including some b-sides) which made it a little disappointing for fans at the time, but it now just sounds like a start-to-finish classic.

3. Oasis – (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?

In the storied Blur Vs Oasis battle of 1995, when the band’s respective singles “Country House” and “Roll With It” were released on the same day in the UK (August 14), Blur debuted at #1 with the Gallaghers coming in at #2. But Oasis won the war just a couple months later when their second album was released and made them worldwide superstars. (Blur’s 1995 album, The Great Escape, was very good but just a little too British for mainstream international appeal.) Songwriter Noel Gallagher was at the top of his confident game; he was still swiping bits from his heroes but had also figured out Oasis’ style by this point, mixing equal parts melody and swagger, with sing-a-long choruses that sound good even when the lyrics don’t make a lot of sense (often). Beyond singles like “Wonderwall,” “Don’t Look Back in Anger” and “Champagne Supernova,” Morning Glory‘s deep cuts, like “Cast No Shadow,” are just as good. While their boasts of “bigger than the Beatles” were tiresome, for a while Oasis made a very good argument.

2. Supergrass – I Should Coco

Supergrass frontman Gaz Coombes was only 19 when the band’s debut album was released in May of 1995 (his bandmates weren’t much older) and the record gets much of its charm from the trio’s unbridled youthful energy that they managed to capture on tape. Its staying power, though, comes from the songs which are smart, insanely catchy and much more sophisticated than they first seem. I Should Coco incorporates a wide range of influences, including punk (“Caught by the Fuzz,” “I’d Like to Know), glam (“Lose it,” “Time”), ’60s psych (“We’re Not Supposed To”), and Britpop forebears the Kinks and Madness (“Alright,” “Mansize Rooster”), but they jumble them together to make an infectious, distinctive sound. Supergrass were also ferociously talented musicians, with drummer Danny Goffey’s playing keeping those energy levels high as the band tear though the album’s 13 tracks in just 40 minutes, and that’s including the six-minute spaced out, proggy “Sofa of My Lethargy”. I Should Coco was a huge hit in the UK — it was label Parlophone’s biggest selling debut since The Beatles’ Please Please Me — and earns extra Britpop points for its title which incorporates Cockney Rhyming Slang.

1. Pulp – Different Class

Having led Pulp to general critical and public indifference since the early-’80s, Jarvis Cocker put the group on hold to study film at London’s Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, where he had his mind expanded by raves and met Steve Mackey who would help usher in a new, more formidable lineup of the band. (He also met a girl from Greece with a thirst for knowledge who studied sculpture, memories of which would come in handy later.) With the ’90s, Cocker’s lyrical observations became sharper, his stage presence more assured, and Pulp’s glammy disco snapped into sharp focus. 1994’s His N’ Hers was their best yet by a mile, but it did not prepare the world for the record Pulp would release the next year, a massive leap forward that had Cocker and Pulp working at the height of their powers and that perfectly aligned with Peak Britpop. His time at Saint Martin’s College was inspiration for “Common People,” a tale of upper class slumming that would quickly become Pulp’s signature anthem. The album, Different Class, followed suit with 11 more brilliant tales of Misshapes, mistakes, and misfits, including: “Disco 2000,” one of a few unrequited love songs here, this one set to a riff nicked from Laura Brannigan’s “Gloria”; “Sorted for E’s and Wizz” found Jarvis out of his head at a rave; and “Monday Morning” laid out the drudgery of mid-’20s endless post-college partying against ska backing. The hooks are plentiful and the quotable lines are endless, and while the record is exceedingly British it is somehow relatable to anyone who’s ever felt out of place. “Blur Vs Oasis” may have been the hot topic in the British press in 1995, but Different Class rendered the debate instantly moot.