It’s a whopper of a week, release-wise, and I review 10 albums, including The Besnard Lakes, The Verve’s Richard Ashcroft, Lorelle Meets the Obsolete, Beatie Wolfe & Brian Eno, Club 8 and more, plus full-album remixes from English Teacher and Goat.

With the new Richard Ashcroft album, I look back at The Verve’s breakthrough second album for this week’s Indie Basement Classic.

Over in Notable Releases, Andrew reviews new ones from The Antlers, Jay Som, Weakened Friends and more.

More: I interviewed Cate Le Bon on this week’s podcast, and it looks like Bob Mould might be reuniting Sugar.

Head below for this week’s reviews:

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes Are the Ghost Nation (Full Time Hobby)
The Montreal vets are still crafting apocalyptic beauty and blissful noise on their excellent seventh album

Besnard Lakes albums are always different but always kind of the same. The album titles are full sentences that begin with “The Besnard Lakes Are,” the covers are hazy paintings often featuring fire, horses, or other apocalyptic visions, and the songs are space-rock epics informed by The Beach Boys, shoegaze, and Hawkwind. Much like their Montreal neighbors Godspeed You! Black Emperor, even though the motifs repeat, there are fresh ideas and sounds with every new record.

“The last record was so heavy,” says Jace Lacek, who co-founded and co-leads the band with partner Olga Goreas, of The Besnard Lakes’ seventh album. “There was so much weight and heavy themes, like my dad dying. It was just death everywhere on that record. This album doesn’t really seem to be that. To me, it seems very playful.” Yet he still notes that Ghost Nation also deals with heavy themes. “It’s a very formidable title, symbolic of the times. It’s talking about the death of nations, the threat of Canada being the 51st state. There is the desire to be left alone, to let community be community — all of those things that feel like they might be under siege; that’s what the ghost nation is.”

The Besnard Lakes Are the Ghost Nation is another stellar creation. One new element this time is more emphasis on Sheena Ko’s keyboards, which along with the layers of guitars and Jace and Olga’s harmonies, give the album a more playful, euphoric feel. While The Besnard Lakes only ever sound like themselves, there are moments here — “Give Us Our Dominion,” “Chemin de la Baie” — that lean just a little in Beach House’s direction. “Chemin de la Baie,” by the way, goes directly into The Besnard Lakes’ Amazing Epics Hall of Fame with its masterful use of dynamics, slowly building to an incredible climax of guitars, drums, keyboards, and a knockout vocal from Jace working in blissful unison.

“Chemin de la Baie” is the kind of song most bands would kill to have as their closer, but The Besnard Lakes’ discography is filthy with them — every album an embarrassment of riches no one should feel guilty indulging in.

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Richard Ashcroft – Loving You (Virgin)
The Verve frontman still knows how to make it soar (vocoder and all) on his first solo album in seven years

I’ve gone round the bend with “Lover,” the lead single from former Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft’s first solo album in seven years. My initial reaction was: “This is TERRIBLE.” The vocoder, the R&B production, the all-chorus structure, the vocoder. The video made it worse—and yet I couldn’t stop listening to it. At some point this summer, after 50-some plays, I thought, “Wait a minute, is this song actually…great?”

I’ve now landed firmly on the “good” side of the Terrible/Great-O-Meter when it comes to “Lover,” and that’s also where I’d put Lovin’ You. Back to “Lover” for a moment: it’s notable for being Ashcroft’s first use of sampling since “Bittersweet Symphony” and since he was gotten publishing rights for that song back from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. “Lover” incorporates Joan Armatrading’s “Love and Affection,” and he pulls a similar trick with Lovin’ You’s title track, which brilliantly folds in Mason Williams’ “Classical Gas” alongside R&B grooves, breakbeats, and soaring strings. Richard Ashcroft plus a string section almost always equals gold.

There’s also “I’m a Rebel,” produced by Madonna collaborator Mirwais, with Ashcroft in full falsetto French Touch disco mode. It’s not quite as successful as “Lover” or “Lovin’ You”—you want full-throated Ashcroft belting it out—but it’s still refreshing to hear him trying new things (even if those things are from 1998). The rest of the album is more what you’d expect from him: swaying Britpop/country ballads, the best of which are “Oh L’Amour,” which lands on the right side of drippy, and “Fly to the Sun,” which closes the record on an anthemic, melancholy note.

Ashcroft’s had his highest-profile year in decades thanks to opening Oasis’ UK reunion tour, and Lovin’ You should only help that continue.

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Hollie Cook – Shy Girl (Mr Bongo)
Dub, harmony, and sun-soaked soul: Hollie Cook makes it sound effortless on Album #5

I loved the sound of Hollie Cook’s first two albums on Mr Bongo — produced by Prince Fatty, they’re drenched in strings with not a horn in sight — but I never totally gelled with the two that followed when she signed to Merge. Hollie is now back on Mr Bongo, and I’m happy to report that even though there are no strings on Shy Girl, it still feels like a course correction in the right direction, with her luxurious brand of Lovers Rock dead center.

“Your smile is more important than the air,” Hollie sings on “In the Pictures,” one of many alluring songs on Shy Girl. Working again with producer Ben McKone — who also helmed 2022’s Happy Hour — Hollie has settled into a tropical pop sweet spot where her layered harmonies take the place of strings, and the horn section adds light accents rather than stealing the show. Jamaican toaster and drummer MC Horseman, a key player on her first two albums, returns as well, energizing the album’s dubby standout “Night Night.”

Across Shy Girl, melodies are warm, the lyrics tender, and McKone’s all-analog production keeps one foot in the late ’70s and the other in the here and now. An intoxicating, breezy treat.

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Goat – The Human Language ‘Goat’ Tape (Rocket Recordings)
A beatmaker twists Goat’s cosmic funk on this full-album remix

Swedish jazz-funk-afrobeat enigmas Goat released their self-titled sixth album a year ago, which was arguably one of their wildest, most fun parties to date. To celebrate its anniversary, they handed the record over to Human Language — aka Texas-born, Sweden-based producer Dustin Zozaya — for a full-album remix.

The Human Language ‘Goat’ Tape is steeped in Madlib and J Dilla’s patchwork production ethos, with Zozaya ripping up the original tracks and stitching them back together with new beats, textures, and ideas. Some songs are completely transformed, like the near-ambient “Fool’s Journey,” which becomes the funky “Sage’s Return.” The whole project is a lot of fun — sometimes weird, always listenable — and, like the original, they save the best for last. The breakbeat-powered psychedelic epic “Ouroboros” morphs into “Jörmungandr,” a writhing serpent of another color: shorter, cooler, but no less transfixing.

This one belongs on the shelf next to Massive Attack vs. Mad Professor’s No Protection, The Pop Group’s Y in Dub, and The League Unlimited Orchestra’s Love and Dancing as a great, fully realized full-album remix.

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English Teacher – This Could Be a Remix Album (Universal)
The Mercury Prize-winning debut from English Teacher gets remixed by Fontaines DC, Daniel Avery, Baxter Dury and more

UK group English Teacher deservedly took home the 2024 Mercury Prize for their terrific debut album This Could Be Texas. They’ve now handed its 13 tracks to some of their “favourite contemporary artists and friends” for a song-for-song remix and covers album. Daniel Avery turns “The World’s Biggest Paving Slab” into a motorik groover, while Lewis Whiting gives “Broken Biscuits” a similarly pulsing overhaul. Sherelle takes lullaby “Mastermind Specialism” and throws it into drum-and-bass territory; and in Working Men’s Club’s hands, “Not Everybody Gets to Go to Space” becomes an acid-house banger.

The best remixes here are the biggest swings and wildest curveballs. Fontaines DC — under their FDC DJs alias — deliver an absolutely gonzo, bananas remix of “Best Tears of Your Life” that almost outdoes Fcukers at their own game. Baxter Dury, with help from Paul Epworth, lands somewhere between a remix and a cover on his rework of “This Could Be Texas,” adding his own vocals, melodies, and an unst unst beat. Similarly — if in a completely different direction — Matt Maltese transforms propulsive single “Nearly Daffodils” into a swooning orchestral ballad.

Everyone involved brings their A-game, and English Teacher fans who don’t normally go for remix albums should definitely give this one a spin.

Club 8 – Seasonal Echoes (self-released)
Swedish indiepop lifers Club 8 keep shimmering on their 12th album

Johan Angergård is an indiepop lifer. He founded legendary Swedish label Labrador, home to The Radio Department, Pelle Carlberg, The Mary Onettes, and more—not to mention the many bands he’s played in, including Acid House Kings, The Legends, and Club 8. While Angergård is no longer part of Labrador, Club 8, his duo with Karolina Komstedt, remain active. Very active: Seasonal Echoes is the group’s 12th album and their second in less than a year, and it’s terrific.

Angergård’s usual mix of influences—New Order, The Cure, The Smiths, The Field Mice, Cocteau Twins—filters through a distinctly Scandinavian lens. Does it sound a little like The Cardigans at times? Yes, and that’s a good thing. But it’s ultimately pure Club 8: sunny melodies and harmonies laced with minor chords, Peter Hook-style basslines, the occasional roaring guitar, breathy vocals, and plenty of reverb. If any or all of the above appeal to you, songs like “Born the Wrong Time,” “ooo,” and the weirdly jaunty “None of This Will Matter When You’re Dead” are pure sonic catnip.

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Long Fling – Long Fling (self-released)
Pip Blom and Willem Smit’s chemistry shines on their collaborative debut

Pip Blom’s Pip Blom and Personal Trainer’s Willem Smit have been a couple for a decade, but have only just started making literal sweet music together as Long Fling. “Over the years, we’ve grown more comfortable making music together,” says Willem. “Assembling a record we’d been accidentally making without the goal of making a record was fun, but also weird. It felt a bit like archaeology sometimes. We tried to change things… but found out quite quickly that it made most sense to stay true to the initial ideas we had.” Pip adds, “When we each asked our dads whether the album sounded more like a Willem album or a Pip album, they both said the other’s name. I really feel like we made this album together – it’s a true blend of the both of us.”

Long Fling is charmingly shambolic as Pip and Willem share lead vocals over scrappy, poppy indie-rock backings, often examining their own relationship in the process. “Pig” starts things off perfectly — a very catchy he-said-she-said number about the ups and downs of being a couple — and from there the album zigs and zags across styles, throwing melodic basslines, drum machines, jangly guitars, noisy guitars, and more at the listener, with Pip and Willem’s palpable chemistry holding it all together.

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Lorelle Meets the Obsolete – Corporal (Sonic Cathedral)
The Mexican shoegazers offer up an inspired electronic rebirth on their latest

After more than a decade together and a particularly tough tour, Baja California, Mexico shoegazers Lorelle Meets the Obsolete were ready to hang it up. But in dealing with the dissolution of their group, Lorena Quintanilla (Lorelle) and Alberto González (The Obsolete) began making music again — just for fun. Inspired by the remixes from their 2023 album Datura, they found themselves incorporating more synthesizers and drum machines. The results felt so fresh that they almost considered rebranding under a new name but ultimately decided it was still Lorelle Meets the Obsolete — just reborn.

The result, Corporal, marks a striking new direction for the duo — not entirely aimed at the dancefloor, but close to it. “The body is what carries the weight of stress, exhaustion, sadness. It’s the body that the system breaks first,” says Lorena. “Unintentionally, while composing the album, our bodies were seeking joy in the songs. Reconnecting with pleasure became a way to open new dimensions – a way to escape, yet remain present.”

It’s a change, but one that fits seamlessly into Lorelle Meets the Obsolete’s universe: dark, pulsing synth arpeggiations that build and dissolve into hazy, beat-driven swirls. Corporal is a welcome and rewarding sonic rebirth. And if you want a dancefloor bullseye, check out Jagz Kooner’s awesome remix of “Regresar / Recordar.”

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The Utopia Strong – Doperider (Rocket Recordings)
Heady, proggy post-rock spacerock is the menu for the day from this UK supergroup

The Utopia Strong have an origin story right out of a comic book. Steve Davis, six-time World Snooker Champion, is also a DJ and prog-rock fanatic. At a gig by Italian prog icons Magma, he met Iranian-born musician Kavus Torabi, who had played in Gong and Cardiacs. The two became friends, and at Glastonbury 2017, they met and bonded with Michael J. York of Coil. A band was born.

Doperider, The Utopia Strong’s third proper studio album, was made by Heads for Heads and serves as a companion piece to this year’s Collapse, which featured two side-long tracks. “When recording, we tend to have books, bits of art, and interesting things lying around the place,” Davis says. “(Kavus) had recently bought the Paul Kirchner compendium, Awaiting the Collapse. Paul’s character Dope Rider (the skeleton in question) drives around the desert, getting into all manner of high jinx and spouting cosmic philosophy, highlighting the absurdities of life, death, and the American mythos. When we had created that particular track — one of our most beautiful and outré — it seemed to name itself. We were looking at the comic strips while listening to it, and something about its widescreen vibes and the beautiful desert seemed to marry together.”

Fans of vintage synth-prog like Tangerine Dream and Harmonia, or contemporary analog explorers such as Caterina Barbieri and Bitchin Bajas, will find Doperider a deeply psychedelic, immersive trip — sometimes heavy, often beautiful, and best experienced on headphones. “Hopefully we’ve done justice to the comic book character Dope Rider,” Davis says, “and that he’d have loved riding along on his Harley-Davidson on another quest, with the wind blowing through his rib cage, listening to this album. If the audience chooses the psychonaut road, then we are delighted to have been of service.”

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Brian Eno & Beatie Wolfe – Liminal (Opal / Verve)
The third album this year from Eno and Wolfe finds them drifting beautifully between worlds

Having already released two collaborative albums this year — the song-based Luminal and the ambient Lateral — Brian Eno and Beatie Wolfe are making it a hat trick. Their new record, Liminal, splits the difference between those two approaches. “Liminal stands at the point of convergence between Lateral and Luminal,” they say. “If Lateral is a kind of landscape painting, a sonic place, Luminal is a dream-like awakening, a feeling space. Liminal, the newest addition, is a hybrid of the two — a strange new land with a human living and feeling its way through its mysterious spaces.”

As its title suggests, Liminal exists on the border between song and non-song — “or ‘nong,’ as we call it,” Brian and Beatie whimsically note — where “the listener is exploring an intimate and unfamiliar new sonic world, as yet unclaimed and still ambiguous.” There are moments of structure, with vocals, melodies, and hooks, but the pair aren’t afraid to let those creations slowly dissolve into the ether. Liminal is a lovely place to lose yourself in — or simply float away.

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INDIE BASEMENT CLASSIC: The Verve – A Northern Soul (Virgin, 1995)
With Richard Ashcroft’s new album out this week, we look back at The Verve’s breakthrough second album that turned 30 this year

The Verve started off as a deeply psychedelic band, known more for Nick McCabe’s cosmic, tripped-out guitar pyrotechnics and frontman Richard Ashcroft’s million-mile stare than for catchy melodies. That all changed after Oasis took them on tour in 1994, when Ashcroft saw crowds singing along to every Gallagher brothers anthem. Determined to connect in a similar way, he began bringing Britpop-sized hooks to the band and even recruited Oasis producer Owen Morris to work on their second album.

McCabe’s playing was still otherworldly, but now in service of songs built for massive choruses that better showcased Ashcroft’s commanding voice. Meanwhile, drummer Pete Salisbury and bassist Simon Jones remained one of the most locked-in rhythm sections of the ’90s. Tracks like “This Is Music” and “A New Decade” retained the band’s spaced-out energy, but singles “On Your Own” and “History” proved The Verve could give Oasis a real run for their money in the sweeping, emotional ballad department.

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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.