Greeting from Knoxville, TN where I am attending the 2026 Big Ears Music Festival. Follow along with my exploits here. This is a really big week for new releases in Indie Basement and I review nine, including The New Pornographers, Fcukers, and Holy Fuck, plus a few less-controversially named acts like MEMORIALS, ADULT., Drop Nineteens‘ Paula Kelley, New German Cinema (Fear of Men’s Jess Weiss), José González, and the trio of Butler, Blake & Grant.

Over in Notable Releases there are reviews of new albums from Robyn, Courtney Barnett, Tigers Jaw, Irreversible Entanglements, Snail Mail, and more.

On this week’s BV Interviews podcast, I talk with the legendary dub/post-punk producer and Tackhead/On-U Sound founder Adrian Sherwood about all the cool stuff he’s done over the last 40+ years. It’s a good one if I do say so myself. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.

This weeks’ reviews are below…

ALBUM OF THE WEEK #1: MEMORIALS – All Clouds Bring Not Rain (Fire Records)
Phenomenal second album of groovy, impeccably produced psych by the duo of Verity Susman (Electrelane) and Matthew Simms (Wire, It Hugs Back)

“We have a wide palette between us, our ‘sound world,’” Matthew Simms says of what he and Verity Susman had in mind for MEMORIALS’ second album. “We knew we wanted harpsichord and vibraphone.” Instead of opting for computer plug-ins to mimic those instruments, they sought out studios that actually had them on hand, which led them to rural southwestern France and London, in addition to their own studio in Kent, England. Can you hear the difference? On All Clouds Bring Not Rain, you can feel it.

While still very much within that well-defined “sound world” — a mix of ’60s psych by way of ’70s Düsseldorf and Cologne, verdant folk, dub, and their own previous groups (Susman led Electrelane; Simms was in Wire and It Hugs Back) — MEMORIALS have expanded their reach. Not just harpsichord and vibraphone, but also rich vocal harmonies, tape-loop delay, and a wide array of vintage instruments that don’t get dusted off much anymore.

They’ve also broadened the types of songs here, from motorik burners like the irresistible “Dropped Down the Well” and “Cut Glass Hammer,” to Jaki Liebezeit-worthy, drum-forward freakouts (“In the Weeds,” “Mediocre Demon”) and moments of delicate pastoral beauty (“Reimagined River” and “Wildly Remote”). There are also a few proper pop numbers, like the wonderful “Watching the Moon,” where everything seems to shimmer through a swirling Leslie speaker.

All Clouds Bring Not Rain is an amazing headphone album, but it sounds even better on a proper stereo, with some distance between your speakers and, ideally, a room lit only by lava lamps. But even on earbuds, the grooves, vintage textures, melodies, drones, and voices on this wonderful album will transport you there.

MORE: Listen to my conversation with MEMORIALS on the March 16 episode of BV Interviews.

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ALBUM OF THE WEEK #2: The New Pornographers – The Former Site Of (Merge)
Synths and new lyrical focus from Carl Newman help make The New Pornographers’ 10th album their best since Brill Bruisers

Carl Newman has always been the kind of lyricist who seemed to go more by feel than meaning — like clever refrigerator-magnet poetry or, in his own words, “non-representational art.” On The New Pornographers’ 10th album, however, Newman has put a lot more care into his words, which are still clever and cool. “Now I’m trying to paint landscapes,” he tells us. “I’m trying to be like the Flemish Masters.”

When Newman sings “First comes love, then comes pity / Then it’s terminal velocity” on “Ballad of the Last Payphone,” you know just what he means. When he’s singing about a satellite circling Saturn on “Spooky Action,” you know what he means. When he’s having “Bonus Mai Tais” with a friend who’s dying of cancer, you know what he means. “This time I wanted every lyric to count,” he says.

The lyrical step up is not the only thing that makes The Former Site Of such a treat, but it’s a big part of it. Sonically, it’s unlike any record the Canadian group have made before, letting synthesizers drive the songs instead of just adding accents and hooks. “Pure Sticker Shock” is almost pure synthpop, as are “Wine Remembers the Water” and “Bonus Mai Tais.” When more traditional instruments do appear, they’re often used in unusual ways — like the mandolin all over “Votive,” played closer to post-punk, almost New Order, than its folk origins.

This could be The New Pornographers’ mellowest album, but it’s not listless or dull. There are delightful touches throughout the arrangements, like Neko Case and Kathryn Calder’s airy, 10cc-esque harmonies, treated almost like a Mellotron, or the crashing toms on “Pure Princess Story.” Whatever it is — a new wave of creativity or something to prove — Newman has his mojo back, and The Former Site Of is the best New Pornographers album since Brill Bruisers.

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Fcukers – ‘Ö’ (Ninja Tune)
The much-anticipated and fun debut album from this NYC dance duo owes more to the late-’90s Big Beat scene, than the “indie sleaze” era they’re often compared to

Trigger warning: “Indie Sleaze.” While the duo of Shanny Wise and Jackson Walker Lewis have embraced their party-forward image since emerging from the post-pandemic NYC Dimes Square scene, the touchstones in their music lie on the other side of the millennium, before skinny jeans and coke dens like The Darkroom opened their doors. Fcukers have more in common with Fatboy Slim and Basement Jaxx than LCD Soundsystem or Hot Chip, building songs around a single hook that burrows into your ear canal like a Ceti eel and takes over your nervous system. “Play Me,” with its nagging “I just wanna rock right now,” is their “Rockafeller Skank.”

Despite this, ‘Ö’, their debut album, is not a full-on return of Big Beat. It’s too minimal, with too much space to approach that late-’90s maximalist party style, but the bones are the same — and there’s not much more than bones. There isn’t a lot of meat here, but like Fatboy Slim, Fcukers are all about carefree fun.

Fcukers — and ‘Ö’ — are at their best when built around Wise’s breathy vocal style: the skipping “Butterflies,” the one-two punch of “I Like It Like That” and “TTYGF,” which share wub-a-dub production and prominent airhorns, and “Can You Feel It Now,” which dabbles equally in trip hop, jungle, and loungey acid jazz. They all feel like a dancefloor cloud that lets Shanny float on top.

The album features a lot of producers — Kenny Beats, 100 gecs’ Dylan Brady, and Ice Spice collaborator Lily Kaplan — but apart from the lush, downtempo closer “Feel the Real,” you don’t really feel much outside influence. Which is better than a record that feels like it was made by disparate producers with their own idea of what the album should be. ‘Ö’ is slight but never less than fun, occasionally awesome, but never sleazy. And at just 28 minutes, it flies by so fast you may end up letting it loop a few times.

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ADULT. – Kissing Luck Goodbye (Dais)
No one is coming to your rescue — so turn it up

Detroit’s ADULT. feel like they’ve been waiting for the apocalypse all their lives. Whether it’s here or not — it sure feels like it sometimes — Nicola Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller have spent decades auditioning for the end-of-the-world DJ gig, and as finalists they always seem to request the 10-to-midnight slot, firing out relentless jackhammer beats while dropping unsubtle hints that it’s not just the ball that’s about to drop.

Kissing Luck Goodbye issues one last plea to put on those They Live! sunglasses, snap out of it, and see what’s really going on around you. “You have two choices in this hellscape we’re living in right now, which is either fight or be depressed,” says Miller. “Either one is OK. But the choice was simple.”

The choice is also obvious. “Shake yourself awake!” bellows Kuperus on “R U 4 $ALE,” while squelchy new-beat synths blare and crackle. Then there’s album standout “NO ONE IS COMING,” which feels like the best Public Image Ltd song that never existed, with Kuperus chanting “NO ONE IS COMING…TO YOUR RESCUE!” The songs are blunt force, but sometimes that’s exactly what you need.

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Holy Fuck – Event Beat (Satellite Services)
Two decades into their career, these dance rock Torontonians have still got it

Toronto band Holy Fuck have been mashing rock and dance together for over 20 years, and they’re still doing it better than just about anyone. Their first album in six years has been gestating for a while, as the far-flung members of the group reconvened in 2022 “inside a rural Nova Scotia village hall,” where they lived and recorded together in relative isolation. As usual, they played as much of the album live as possible, and unlike previous releases, Event Beat features no guest vocalists. Brian Borcherdt says the vibe is running “towards something that is beyond personal control, either at the mercy of some bigger system or some unspoken will.”

You can feel that ominous existential undercurrent on Event Beat, but what you really feel are those Holy Fuck grooves — full of Can-like dynamism and oomph, powered by their ever-amazing all-Matt rhythm section (Schulz and McQuaid) and the clear vision of multi-instrumentalists Borcherdt and Graham Walsh. The band describe the sound as an “infinity loop,” and you get what they mean, but they keep things engaging with atmospheric guitar, distant vocals, and a sci-fi epic’s worth of synthesizers.

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Paula Kelley – Blinking As The Starlight Burns Out (Wharf Cat)
It’s more ’70s than ’90s but the Drop Nineteens singer-guitarist’s new solo album is a dreamy pleasure

Drop Nineteens’ follow-up to their excellent 2023 comeback, Hard Light, is due sometime this year, but for those who don’t want to wait, singer/guitarist Paula Kelley has just released her first solo album in 20 years. Paula the solo artist and Drop Nineteens orbit the same planet but are very different moons, with more of an emphasis here on classic songwriting and a palette that pulls as much from the ’70s as it does from the pages of late-’80s NME.

The album opens with “Party Line,” a magical Cocteau Twins-inspired dreampop number that holds you in suspended animation, staring into space with its washes of guitar and spun-sugar vocals, but then Kelley shifts gears. Most of Blinking As The Starlight Burns Out is piano-based and could’ve been made by The Carpenters, Todd Rundgren, or ABBA — albeit with hazy, slightly tripped-out sonics.

It’s an impressive, enjoyable album that might not be what some are expecting, but it’s worth sticking with through to the end. Those wanting more “dream” than “pop,” and more songs like “Party Line,” will have to wait until her other band finish up in the studio.

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New German Cinema – Pain Will Polish Me (Felte)
The Fear of Men singer dips into gothy synthpop on her solo debut

Fear of Men have only released one song in the last 10 years, so it’s nice to have Jess Weiss back with a new album under her New German Cinema moniker. We’re not so far away from the dark textures of Fear of Men’s last album, 2014’s Loom, but on Pain Will Polish Me, Jess is in more pure synthpop territory. The gothy type, of course, and if you like mid-’80s Depeche Mode or more modern acts like Trentemøller, the black mascara runs deep here and with song titles like “Swirling Pain” and “Being Dead” you can almost hear it without listening to it.

That’s not a bad thing. The production is enveloping and if you are a “I wear black on the outside because black is how I feel on the inside” kind of person, Pain Will Polish Me pushes all the right buttons, and some of the sonic touches also feel akin to groups like Front 242 or The Neon Judgment. Best song here is “My Mistake,” a duet with Merchandise’s Carson Cox, that is almost like The Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” by way of Stevie Nicks & Tom Petty’s “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.” With Merchandise mostly quiet for a decade, might I ask for more where this came from?

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José González – Against the Dying of the Light (Mute)
Another lovely record from this Swedish singer-songwriter who has carved out his own distinctive space in the folk world

Swedish singer-songwriter José González first got noticed in the mid-’00s for his covers of songs like The Knife’s “Heartbeats,” Massive Attack’s “Teardrop,” and Kylie Minogue’s “Hand on Your Heart” — all rendered in his delicate but lightly distorted, fingerpicked nylon-string guitar style — but his own songs are just as impactful. He says the compositions on his fifth solo album are a reflection on humanity: “Who we are — tribes of sentient apes with stories that are sometimes incompatible with each other and tools that could eventually lead to dystopia or extinction,” he says. “It’s also a reflection of how we create hurdles to human flourishing by stubbornly clinging to dogmatic ideologies, where people follow dudes who pretend to know shit they don’t.”

It’s heavy stuff — the kind that practically comes with a bibliography — but González is also hopeful that we can see past current world leaders, tech bros, and the encroachment of AI and figure a way out of the mess. The melodies are bright, and his guitar playing remains as expressive and inviting as ever.

“Fear turns to glass inside the stream / The brighter fire was always within the dream,” he sings on “Joy (Can’t Help But Sing),” following with, “The dawn hasn’t changed / A thousand lights dissolve the gray.” Even when staring into the abyss, González is still looking for the light.

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Butler, Blake & Grant – Murmurs (355 Recordings)
Suede, Teenage Fanclub and Love and Money walk into a bar…a new album of old songs comes out

Former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake, and James Grant (Love and Money) first got together post-pandemic when they were all invited to play a show in Scotland. They got on so well they formed Butler, Blake & Grant, released their self-titled debut in 2025, and are already back with a follow-up. Murmurs was recorded in Blake’s studio, but unlike their eponymous debut — which featured mostly new material — this one pulls from the trio’s respective catalogs, plus a cover of “Good Times,” written by Ben Gibbard for The Monkees’ 2016 comeback album. As an album, Murmurs probably makes more sense as a live experience, where you’d get to watch three masters of song trading favorites on stage, but hearing them harmonize is still pretty sweet.

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INDIE BASEMENT CLASSIC – Suede – Coming Up (Nude/Sony, 1996)
Suede not only survived the exit of guitarist Bernard Butler, they made the biggest album — and arguably best — album of their career.

Before they had even released a single, UK weekly music mag Melody Maker declared Suede “The Best New Band in Britain” in 1992, and singer Brett Anderson and guitarist Bernard Butler were being hailed as the successors to Morrissey and Marr. The band largely lived up to the hype, with their fantastic 1993 self-titled debut going to #1 on the UK album charts, while still saving some of their best material for b-sides. Sadly, the Anderson/Butler partnership fractured during the making of their somewhat bloated second album, Dog Man Star, and Butler left before it was finished.

That would’ve been the end for most bands — especially one built around such a hyped songwriting duo — but Suede soldiered on. Anderson, bassist Mat Osman, and drummer Simon Gilbert added two new members: Richard Oakes, who went from teenage superfan to guitarist, and keyboardist Neil Codling. Both brought considerable songwriting ability with them. After sitting out the 1995 Britpop gold rush, Suede made up for lost time with the most immediate, hook-filled album of their career. If Coming Up was dumbed down just a little, it more than made up for it with banger after banger.

Debuting at #1 in the UK, Coming Up is pure glammy pleasure, with production once again by Ed Buller (who helmed their first two albums) that felt modern without slapping a giant sell-by date on it. Oakes was a riff factory, and the hooks here are undeniable. Five of the album’s 10 songs were singles, all hitting the UK Top 10: irresistible rockers “Trash,” “Beautiful Ones” (the album’s best song), “Lazy,” and the hard-charging “Filmstar,” plus the gorgeous, melancholic ballad “Saturday Night.” The rest of Coming Up is nearly as strong, especially “The Chemistry Between Us,” which could’ve easily been a single.

Suede never topped this during their original run — things had gone south by 1999’s Head Music, and the less said about 2002’s A New Morning the better — but they’ve had a very strong second act, including 2025’s excellent Antidepressants. As much as I love their self-titled debut, song for song, hook for hook, riff for riff, it’s hard to argue against Coming Up.

MORE: Myself and fellow BV editors Andrew and Dave are talking about other 1996 classics on the BV Weekly podcast.

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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.