Ahaha, we are aligned. I'll swap out Give It all.

Diluted Dante wrote:

This is a suitable topic for me, as Rise Against came up last night. Apparently they are touring, not listened to an album since The Black Market (though there have only been 2 since then) and not heavily since Endgame. No real reason, still like them. Anyway, here are some songs showing their two sides

Ironic song title, for the topic in hand...

My ain't heard is different to this one where I listen to Blink, Janes and Teenage F on the regular . Gonna have to dig deep

Brainiac were mid-90's great white hopes, or at least occasionally got good write up's in Melody Maker now and again. They'd turn up on Peel or other radio shows I listened to on school nights and were usually quite good, or at least entertainingly mental/odd - a much needed break from 1996-era Britpop drudgery, when the big hitters were all on breaks between albums & it just degenerated into a boring mush. The second string bands suddenly placing undeservedly high in the charts based purely on the previous fanfare for Oasis, Blur, Pulp et al and the industry's determination to milk the moment for all it was worth. Ordinary lads in Ben Sherman's cranking out some pretty dull and worthy revivalism (OCS, Cast, the Bluetones etc). The brief Kula Shaker moment etc ... you remember it. Pretty dreary. Even as a clueless teen I felt like I should be listening to things that sounded at least somewhat lively, or different, rather than museum pieces or music that sounded like recently unearthed Eric Clapton offcuts.

It was pre-internet (for me) and so as far as I was concerned they just vanished without trace. Another band briefly hyped up who subsequently crashed and burned, as happened fairly regularly with 90's music journalism (Terris, 'Romo', The New Wave of New Wave, a million other long forgotten would be heroes). It was only later, harnessing the power of the web, I realised their lead-singer had died in an accident - something which understandably curved their upwards trajectory. They'd have fitted in well with the early-00's rediscovery of post-punk and angular guitar pop that kicked off a few years later.

"Left", by Hope of The States.  I'm not linking you to the radio edit video - it has to be the full-length album version or nothing.

What a song.  What a sky-scraping epic.  I'm really enjoying this week's topic.

MyNameIsKrisG wrote:

@LarryDavid, fully agree on the Britpop thing.  I loved being a teenager when all of that exploded. There were a few amazing bands, and the rest were signed up by shit labels desperate to be part of the goldrush.  I can't tell you how much I detest OCS.  Fucking awful dad-bollocks. Several years ago on Facebook I remember posting an image of Leftism, saying how everyone remembers 1995 as the year of Britpop, but that my main memories were driving around listening to Leftfield, Portishead, The Prodigy, and Underworld.  They are the bands I really, truly loved from that period in time.

Yeah, it was OCS specifically that made me question around then whether Britpop was really a good thing. Someone at school gave me a tape of their album of the time, and it was one tedious blues-rock borefest after another, broken up by the odd midtempo mewling ballad, all desecrated with the type of lyrics that barely achieve basic meaning. I began thinking I should probably expand my musical horizons. Or at least never listen to another Ocean Colour Scene record again. 

(Possibly unfair to write off an entire era/genre as there's some Britpop records I'm still quite fond of, albeit I rarely listen to all that often)

I rocked an asleep in the back T shirt Garvey gave me that night for 2 years before I had a significant weight loss lol

Plugged the old external hard drive into a near-dead laptop to jog my memory by looking at some old WAV file playlists.  

A few things I haven't heard for at least 10 years:









*Cheating a bit on the Port 'O Brien track because I found it again/heard it about a month ago after a long winded whatsapp exchange with group of friends trying to remember it based on my frankly terrible description (maybe they were called Ohio something?  Or were they from Portland?  I think it had a banjo in and there might've been a night sky on the cover).  Thankfully one of them had a much better memory than me.

Mmmm

Gateway to the Elevators innit.

Minnesänger wrote:

nick_md wrote:

Used to love that Love album, still do ofc but also haven't listened to it in an age.

I put it on fairly regularly. It's still a cracker.

The exact reason I couldn't include it this week, as I play it at least a few times a year, per year, since I discovered them in about 2001.

When I did my top ten the other day I really should have included You Set The Scene in there.