'the best most average songs in British music history'
September 4, 2020 1:23 PM Subscribe
'Somewhere between the “indie rock revival” of the early-2000s and the emergence of “poptimism” in the early-2010s, the UK charts were dominated by a procession of homogenous bands making a type of music that has come to be referred to as: “Landfill Indie”.' The people at vice.com have compiled a listicle on The Top 50 Greatest Landfill Indie Songs of All Time.
I'm a pretty big music fan (in Canada) and I have never heard of this genre before today. I love the description, but I have to admit that despite it being described as mostly terrible, this hits me in my sweet spot. I've already downloaded the Spotify playlist and look forward to... looking backwards.
posted by Phreesh at 1:49 PM on September 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Phreesh at 1:49 PM on September 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
yeah i was struck by how I'd heard of about three of these bands despite being in high school/college at the time these bands were doing a thing. I did see the Kooks live once, opening for Death Cab for Cutie I think?
posted by dismas at 1:51 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by dismas at 1:51 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
Same here, Arctic monkeys are the only one I've heard of but I guess that's part of the point of the article.
posted by octothorpe at 1:52 PM on September 4, 2020
posted by octothorpe at 1:52 PM on September 4, 2020
I've seen 4 of these bands in NYC during the 00s. My fave of the bunch was The Futureheads.
The song picked for number 1 is one that my Brit friends here in NYC played at least once at every "pre-gaming" get-together back in the 00s, as well. And that we drunkenly slurred on the way back to the train home from the bars.
posted by droplet at 1:53 PM on September 4, 2020
The song picked for number 1 is one that my Brit friends here in NYC played at least once at every "pre-gaming" get-together back in the 00s, as well. And that we drunkenly slurred on the way back to the train home from the bars.
posted by droplet at 1:53 PM on September 4, 2020
the Brits do have a special relationship with cynicism. And they're good at it. Likely connected with being a failing empire.
I happened to spend a chunk of time in and around London a few years previous to all of this when so-called Britpop was all the rage. Blur vs Oasis and all that noise. Which is really what a lot of these tracks sound like to me. Britpop's other shoe dropping. The music isn't so much bad as ... just ... not ... that ... necessary. Which makes Landfill Indie a wonderfully, aptly dismissive term.
posted by philip-random at 1:57 PM on September 4, 2020
I happened to spend a chunk of time in and around London a few years previous to all of this when so-called Britpop was all the rage. Blur vs Oasis and all that noise. Which is really what a lot of these tracks sound like to me. Britpop's other shoe dropping. The music isn't so much bad as ... just ... not ... that ... necessary. Which makes Landfill Indie a wonderfully, aptly dismissive term.
posted by philip-random at 1:57 PM on September 4, 2020
This middle-aged Canadian has only even heard of 4 or 5 of these bands, one of whom is Arctic Monkeys, and isn’t sure he’s actually heard any song on this list. I feel like the North American equivalent would be all the terrible anonymous late-90s Landfill Grunge that followed in the wake of Pearl Jam.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:57 PM on September 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:57 PM on September 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
This time period is like a new music black hole for me but I was fairly into alternative/indie music both before and after it. I've only heard of a couple of these artists and didn't recognize any of the song titles, which kind of surprises me as you'd think they'd get some radio play afterwards.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:58 PM on September 4, 2020
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:58 PM on September 4, 2020
I was definitely listening to a lot of indie at the time (in the US), and managed to count 11 bands that I was pretty sure I've heard of, although the Fratellis are the only ones that I had feelings of more then "eh" for. Of course, of the 9 acts that they give as examples of things they are specifically not including, I recognize 8 and enjoy 7.
posted by ckape at 2:04 PM on September 4, 2020
posted by ckape at 2:04 PM on September 4, 2020
"...the terrible anonymous late-90s Landfill Grunge that followed in the wake of Pearl Jam."
Tell me about it. I recently bit the bullet and spent an evening ripping all the CMJ New Music Monthly CDs I have from the mid- to late-90s. Probably forty or fifty of them in total. I've been listening to them as I work from home. So much forgettable filler.
posted by plastic_animals at 2:10 PM on September 4, 2020 [8 favorites]
Tell me about it. I recently bit the bullet and spent an evening ripping all the CMJ New Music Monthly CDs I have from the mid- to late-90s. Probably forty or fifty of them in total. I've been listening to them as I work from home. So much forgettable filler.
posted by plastic_animals at 2:10 PM on September 4, 2020 [8 favorites]
The only one I'd heard of was Pete Doherty, and even then I got the reference wrong--"he was married to Ashlee Simpson, wasn't he?"--no, that was Pete Wentz.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:25 PM on September 4, 2020
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:25 PM on September 4, 2020
Ah, the genre my brother and I called “four blokes, two guitars and a regional accent”.
I was at university in Manchester and then living in London for the landfill indie era so a lot of those songs are imbedded in my brain from working in the student union and various pubs.
posted by halcyonday at 2:29 PM on September 4, 2020 [7 favorites]
I was at university in Manchester and then living in London for the landfill indie era so a lot of those songs are imbedded in my brain from working in the student union and various pubs.
posted by halcyonday at 2:29 PM on September 4, 2020 [7 favorites]
I own one of these songs (Futureheads, think it came off a magazine cover compilation when those were a thing) and I worked at a digital agency that used another for one of their show reels and I recognise about a third of the others. But forgettable is definitely the category. I always got the sense that it was record labels desperately trying to find the next Oasis/Charlatans/Blur while streaming ate their financial legs off.
posted by Happy Dave at 2:32 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Happy Dave at 2:32 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
The only one I'd heard of was Pete Doherty, and even then I got the reference wrong--"he was married to Ashlee Simpson, wasn't he?"--no, that was Pete Wentz.
For a brief moment I thought they were talking about the guy who fronted Soul Coughing. But no.
posted by Johnny Assay at 2:32 PM on September 4, 2020
For a brief moment I thought they were talking about the guy who fronted Soul Coughing. But no.
posted by Johnny Assay at 2:32 PM on September 4, 2020
The music isn't so much bad as ... just ... not ... that ... necessary.
Britpop has a specific death date - July 30, 1997, when Noel Gallagher shook hands with Tony Blair at the latter's 'Cool Britannia' party. Thenceforward emerged a wave of bands who were cleaner, safer, less threatening versions of the original ones; Stereophonics for Oasis, Franz Ferdinand for Blur, Arctic Monkeys for Pulp, and so on. A lot of these new bands were made up of nice boys from good schools who didn't have a lot to sing about and weren't provoking much in the way of social or political unrest.
Indie landfill was the natural progression of that - cleaner, safer, less threatening versions of Britpop bands that didn't last long in the spotlight and which were barely heard of stateside, e.g. Northern Uproar, Ocean Colour Scene, the Seahorses, Menswear etc.
Harmless, non-controversial, and - yes indeed - not that necessary.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 2:39 PM on September 4, 2020 [12 favorites]
Britpop has a specific death date - July 30, 1997, when Noel Gallagher shook hands with Tony Blair at the latter's 'Cool Britannia' party. Thenceforward emerged a wave of bands who were cleaner, safer, less threatening versions of the original ones; Stereophonics for Oasis, Franz Ferdinand for Blur, Arctic Monkeys for Pulp, and so on. A lot of these new bands were made up of nice boys from good schools who didn't have a lot to sing about and weren't provoking much in the way of social or political unrest.
Indie landfill was the natural progression of that - cleaner, safer, less threatening versions of Britpop bands that didn't last long in the spotlight and which were barely heard of stateside, e.g. Northern Uproar, Ocean Colour Scene, the Seahorses, Menswear etc.
Harmless, non-controversial, and - yes indeed - not that necessary.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 2:39 PM on September 4, 2020 [12 favorites]
I refuse to believe any of those bands are real.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 2:39 PM on September 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 2:39 PM on September 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
Interestingly the only one I find really bland is the Arctic Monkeys. Like they built their career or Blur and Oasis's worst songs instead of their best.
The Fratellis actually had two hits, the one listed and Flathead , which was an Apple Iphone song back when that really meant something.
cleaner, safer, less threatening versions of Britpop bands
Blur and Oasis were threatening? No. Oasis were pompous dicks, there's a difference. Maybe Pulp was kind of threatening (in a way that just discussing the underside of the status quo is threatening) but not threatening in a violence kind of way.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:44 PM on September 4, 2020
The Fratellis actually had two hits, the one listed and Flathead , which was an Apple Iphone song back when that really meant something.
cleaner, safer, less threatening versions of Britpop bands
Blur and Oasis were threatening? No. Oasis were pompous dicks, there's a difference. Maybe Pulp was kind of threatening (in a way that just discussing the underside of the status quo is threatening) but not threatening in a violence kind of way.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:44 PM on September 4, 2020
OMG, the music of my late teens/early twenties. Somewhere in a drawer, my last standalone mp3 player (before I got an actual functional smartphone) is FILLED with these bands. Every once in a while I pause and think to myself, "Huh, I wonder what happened to Maximo Park" before shrugging and getting on with my day.
Also because I didn't see them on this list I had to go and google The Cinematics to make sure they actually existed and I didn't just hallucinate an entire album into existence.
posted by btfreek at 2:44 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
Also because I didn't see them on this list I had to go and google The Cinematics to make sure they actually existed and I didn't just hallucinate an entire album into existence.
posted by btfreek at 2:44 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
Four or five of the band names at least rang a bell, none of the song names... except Valerie. Surely folks have heard the Amy Winehouse cover?
posted by eviemath at 2:45 PM on September 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 2:45 PM on September 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
The weirdest thing about pop culture writing nowadays is how many words are devoted to being gently, specifically mean about things we enjoyed 10 years ago. (That's the main beat for the Ringer, right?)
posted by grandiloquiet at 2:47 PM on September 4, 2020 [15 favorites]
posted by grandiloquiet at 2:47 PM on September 4, 2020 [15 favorites]
Where’s the Kaiser Chiefs? They actually made it to America, are they excluded from this list because they’re more like indie pop? Ditto for Hard-Fi.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:48 PM on September 4, 2020
posted by Apocryphon at 2:48 PM on September 4, 2020
I feel like these are all bands I saw play before Belle and Sebastian at Japanese music festivals. I've seen The Fratellis at least four times without ever meaning to see them.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:50 PM on September 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by betweenthebars at 2:50 PM on September 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
“Landfill Indie”
I referred to it as NME Carling Rock. (NME is obvious, and in that era, it stopped being interesting and became a conduit of bands of likely lads with guitars, attitude and good stylists; Carling is a mass-market lager brand whose branding was all over anything to do with landfill indie.)
I stopped telling people I liked “indie” music sometime in the 00s, after someone asked me whether I heard the new Kaiser Monkeys record or whatever, instead qualifying what I was into, say, C86 or Sarah Records. In most cases, they hadn't heard of it and I may as well have been talking about the Peruvian psych scene of the 70s or some Andy Votel cratedigger obscurantism.
posted by acb at 2:54 PM on September 4, 2020 [6 favorites]
I referred to it as NME Carling Rock. (NME is obvious, and in that era, it stopped being interesting and became a conduit of bands of likely lads with guitars, attitude and good stylists; Carling is a mass-market lager brand whose branding was all over anything to do with landfill indie.)
I stopped telling people I liked “indie” music sometime in the 00s, after someone asked me whether I heard the new Kaiser Monkeys record or whatever, instead qualifying what I was into, say, C86 or Sarah Records. In most cases, they hadn't heard of it and I may as well have been talking about the Peruvian psych scene of the 70s or some Andy Votel cratedigger obscurantism.
posted by acb at 2:54 PM on September 4, 2020 [6 favorites]
I've seen The Fratellis at least four times without ever meaning to see them.
You have my deepest sympathy.
At a couple of my former pub workplaces, we behind the bar knew the evening was going to go bad if Chelsea Dagger came on more than once in the night.
posted by halcyonday at 2:56 PM on September 4, 2020 [5 favorites]
You have my deepest sympathy.
At a couple of my former pub workplaces, we behind the bar knew the evening was going to go bad if Chelsea Dagger came on more than once in the night.
posted by halcyonday at 2:56 PM on September 4, 2020 [5 favorites]
Yeah, I feel like "indie" had long become a meaningless description by then. Or at least it meant 'proper lads, proper tunes, proper instruments', very orthodox two guitars bass and drums. I like your definition, acb.
I've seen three of these bands that I know of - I probably saw a bunch mid-afternoon at Glastonbury without really meaning to. I've heard of 33. Sadly, I hear Chelsea Dagger at the end of every football match (why a team in New Zealand feels they have to play it I don't know, but it's goddamn awful).
Also:
>>cleaner, safer, less threatening versions of Britpop bands
>Blur and Oasis were threatening? No.
Both of these statements are true.
posted by Pink Frost at 2:58 PM on September 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
I've seen three of these bands that I know of - I probably saw a bunch mid-afternoon at Glastonbury without really meaning to. I've heard of 33. Sadly, I hear Chelsea Dagger at the end of every football match (why a team in New Zealand feels they have to play it I don't know, but it's goddamn awful).
Also:
>>cleaner, safer, less threatening versions of Britpop bands
>Blur and Oasis were threatening? No.
Both of these statements are true.
posted by Pink Frost at 2:58 PM on September 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
Britpop has a specific death date - July 30, 1997, when Noel Gallagher shook hands with Tony Blair at the latter's 'Cool Britannia' party.
I would put the Death of Britpop a little earlier. The Time of Britpop started with Suede in May 1993 and lasted until OK Computer in May 1997.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:58 PM on September 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
I would put the Death of Britpop a little earlier. The Time of Britpop started with Suede in May 1993 and lasted until OK Computer in May 1997.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:58 PM on September 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
Every once in a while I pause and think to myself, "Huh, I wonder what happened to Maximo Park"
Stripped of their umlaut, they lost their power.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 3:00 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
Stripped of their umlaut, they lost their power.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 3:00 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
PLAYLIST: Rescued from the “Landfill” era by God Is In The TV zine
Vice’s definition of landfill lacks nuance and ignores or skates over the existence of other scenes/waves of the time (art rock, new cross, electroclash, the shoegaze revival, indie folk et al), because if you lifted up the rock of the mainstream or the NME (obsessed with as their editor put it “good hair and good shoes“) back then, there were loads of exciting things going on.A good list of bands that are on the list that shouldn't be there, and bands that are missing and should be, ensues. Also a good list of interesting music from that era that should be celebrated:
Worst still Vice have turned the nebulous landfill term into an even bigger pigeonhole that they can sling any band who even looked at a guitar in the mid 2000s into.
So I have put together a playlist of roughly alternative songs of all kinds and artists from the period of the early few years of the 2000s to 2010, that I believe deserve to be rescued from the “landfill” era whatever it actually means and whether it actually existed. Either because they were never landfill in the first place, were under appreciated at the time, or were part of a different scene or sound and well to prove that the early/mid noughties wasn’t all about Johnny Borrell or Ricky Wilson.posted by Apocryphon at 3:04 PM on September 4, 2020 [6 favorites]
I miss the old AV Club in the old Onion. They used to put out this type of fun hate, and I miss it so.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 3:17 PM on September 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 3:17 PM on September 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
Stripped of their umlaut, they lost their power.Thing is, I knew it was supposed to be there, but didn't quite care enough to summon the keyboard shortcut. Which, judging by their trajectory, is I guess how a lot of other people felt about them as well.
posted by btfreek at 3:22 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
PLAYLIST: Rescued from the “Landfill” era by God Is In The TV zine
This is a better article than the lead one. Written by someone who actually liked the genre and can judge the bands on their own merits. And less of a 'sanctioned by the committee" feel to it.
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:24 PM on September 4, 2020
This is a better article than the lead one. Written by someone who actually liked the genre and can judge the bands on their own merits. And less of a 'sanctioned by the committee" feel to it.
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:24 PM on September 4, 2020
that Kate Bush cover is a ....thing
Which one is a Kate Bush cover?
posted by eviemath at 3:38 PM on September 4, 2020
Which one is a Kate Bush cover?
posted by eviemath at 3:38 PM on September 4, 2020
> I recently bit the bullet and spent an evening ripping all the CMJ New Music Monthly CDs I have from the mid- to late-90s. Probably forty or fifty of them in total. I've been listening to them as I work from home. So much forgettable filler.
All that shite filler was why I stopped subscribing around the turn of the millennium.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:44 PM on September 4, 2020
All that shite filler was why I stopped subscribing around the turn of the millennium.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:44 PM on September 4, 2020
Droplet, I rate The Futureheads live too. Their 2008 gig at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne was great fun. And as a massive, obsessive Kate Bush fan, the cover mentioned (it's Hounds of Love, eviemath) is one of only two* that I truly enjoy. (So many are photocopied remakes, so I like that they bring a new twist and driving beat to it, alongside genuine musicality - especially the live version, where they get people howling harmonic call-and-response across the room).
These days the lead singer is a secondary school music teacher, so I also enjoy the 'I can't believe Sir's in a music video?!' comments on YouTube, heh.
*The other being Placebo's version Running Up That Hill, if there are fellow fans in the room wanting to give it a whirl.
posted by brushtailedphascogale at 4:15 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
These days the lead singer is a secondary school music teacher, so I also enjoy the 'I can't believe Sir's in a music video?!' comments on YouTube, heh.
*The other being Placebo's version Running Up That Hill, if there are fellow fans in the room wanting to give it a whirl.
posted by brushtailedphascogale at 4:15 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
This is a better article than the lead one. Written by someone who actually liked the genre
I got the impression that the author of the lead article was a fan, though a bit embarrassed about it now, explaining the tone of the article:
I got the impression that the author of the lead article was a fan, though a bit embarrassed about it now, explaining the tone of the article:
I’ll start with the caveat that I was a giant Bombay Bicycle Club fangirl – as in, I made MySpace friends through a mutual love of the band (shout out Mia, Tom, Jacob, hope you’re well) – so this entry might be a bit biased.posted by clawsoon at 4:38 PM on September 4, 2020
Vice’s definition of landfill lacks nuance and ignores or skates over the existence of other scenes/waves of the time (art rock, new cross, electroclash, the shoegaze revival, indie folk et al), because if you lifted up the rock of the mainstream or the NME (obsessed with as their editor put it “good hair and good shoes“) back then, there were loads of exciting things going on.
Worst still Vice have turned the nebulous landfill term into an even bigger pigeonhole that they can sling any band who even looked at a guitar in the mid 2000s into.
There's some validity in their critique of the Vice list (Kaiser Chiefs and Scouting for Girls should be there for sure, some of the bands probably don't belong there). And their playlist looks great, but I'm confused why it includes artists like Dizzee Rascal or Art Brut, who aren't anything to do with landfill indie. Obviously there was lots of interesting stuff around in the mid-2000s that isn't mentioned in the Vice list; but that's because the list is specifically focused on one genre.
posted by Pink Frost at 4:38 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
Worst still Vice have turned the nebulous landfill term into an even bigger pigeonhole that they can sling any band who even looked at a guitar in the mid 2000s into.
There's some validity in their critique of the Vice list (Kaiser Chiefs and Scouting for Girls should be there for sure, some of the bands probably don't belong there). And their playlist looks great, but I'm confused why it includes artists like Dizzee Rascal or Art Brut, who aren't anything to do with landfill indie. Obviously there was lots of interesting stuff around in the mid-2000s that isn't mentioned in the Vice list; but that's because the list is specifically focused on one genre.
posted by Pink Frost at 4:38 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
NME also published a rebuttal to this list: The term ‘landfill indie’ is pure snobbery from people who don’t know how to have fun
I actually read the original article with some smugness (or, pure snobbery) as most of the bands that I knew on it (probably about half?) were for me the bands I tried to get into but just couldn't make it stick; I remember someone raving about how much they liked Bombay Bicycle Club and I was like great, I'll check them out and I did and uh...? I think of the bands listed I've only seen Maximo Park live and on purpose but the show basically did them in for me because it was super boring.
posted by urbanlenny at 4:43 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
I actually read the original article with some smugness (or, pure snobbery) as most of the bands that I knew on it (probably about half?) were for me the bands I tried to get into but just couldn't make it stick; I remember someone raving about how much they liked Bombay Bicycle Club and I was like great, I'll check them out and I did and uh...? I think of the bands listed I've only seen Maximo Park live and on purpose but the show basically did them in for me because it was super boring.
posted by urbanlenny at 4:43 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
So weird how indie fell into such blandness. There were bands doing great stuff but nobody seemed to notice, say, Mclusky or the Sleaford Mods.
posted by sjswitzer at 4:44 PM on September 4, 2020
posted by sjswitzer at 4:44 PM on September 4, 2020
Never heard of any of the groups except Arctic Monkeys, but I have heard "Chelsea Fukkin Dagger". Chicago used to play it whenever they scored a goal. Other teams have used it, too. I hate that song.
posted by CCBC at 4:47 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by CCBC at 4:47 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
But you know, FWIW, those dopey indie bands all had to toil under the immense shadow cast by Radiohead. They were doomed.
posted by sjswitzer at 4:47 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by sjswitzer at 4:47 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
What does it say about me that I love The Wombats, but none of the in other bands on this list?
posted by vespabelle at 4:48 PM on September 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by vespabelle at 4:48 PM on September 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
No idea about most of these bands! I did have that Bombay Bicycle Club song on one of my regular bike commute playlists for a year, and a lot of the Wombats as well.
posted by curious nu at 4:55 PM on September 4, 2020
posted by curious nu at 4:55 PM on September 4, 2020
Which one is a Kate Bush cover?
38: “Hounds Of Love” – The Futureheads
This song answers the eternal question: “What if Kate Bush, but guitars?”
Is it kind of tragic that the Sunderland quartet’s biggest hit is a cover of a song recorded 15 years before the band was even formed? Maybe. But if you don’t feel a jolt in your chest the second you hear the first five seconds of barbershop hollering, did you really live through the 2000s? – Zing Tsjeng
posted by thelonius at 5:14 PM on September 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
38: “Hounds Of Love” – The Futureheads
This song answers the eternal question: “What if Kate Bush, but guitars?”
Is it kind of tragic that the Sunderland quartet’s biggest hit is a cover of a song recorded 15 years before the band was even formed? Maybe. But if you don’t feel a jolt in your chest the second you hear the first five seconds of barbershop hollering, did you really live through the 2000s? – Zing Tsjeng
posted by thelonius at 5:14 PM on September 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
On this side of the pond Modest Mouse was when I knew indie rock was dead to me.
posted by sjswitzer at 6:02 PM on September 4, 2020
posted by sjswitzer at 6:02 PM on September 4, 2020
Okay, I love how all the Wombats partisans are showing up at the end of this thread. Better late than never.
But yeah, this entire list was just sort of . . . a bunch of music that has been made. I liked that Maximo Park song, but so much of this was so forgettable. And, since sjswitzer just came in, YES I FUCKING HATE MODEST MOUSE AND DEATH CAB. I put an old mix CD on in the car yesterday, and it took sooooo long to fast forward past all the Modest Mouse.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 6:09 PM on September 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
But yeah, this entire list was just sort of . . . a bunch of music that has been made. I liked that Maximo Park song, but so much of this was so forgettable. And, since sjswitzer just came in, YES I FUCKING HATE MODEST MOUSE AND DEATH CAB. I put an old mix CD on in the car yesterday, and it took sooooo long to fast forward past all the Modest Mouse.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 6:09 PM on September 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
I tried to listen to the Spotify playlist and made it two and a half songs on shuffle before I wandered back to my Hefner home.
(and may God protect your home)
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:17 PM on September 4, 2020
(and may God protect your home)
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:17 PM on September 4, 2020
I’m just aghast at the idea that Landfill Grunge started after Pearl Jam.
posted by sjswitzer at 6:25 PM on September 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by sjswitzer at 6:25 PM on September 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
So many cheeky chappies with hidden depths and hearts of gold in this list. Makes me feel weary.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 6:36 PM on September 4, 2020
posted by thatwhichfalls at 6:36 PM on September 4, 2020
I have never heard of 96% of the artists here. Every song I listened to here reminded me (a) of every other song I listened to here and (b) why.
+ 5 points to Vice for putting it all on one page. One point deducted for not allowing me to open separate tabs and play all fifty tracks simultaneously.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:52 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
+ 5 points to Vice for putting it all on one page. One point deducted for not allowing me to open separate tabs and play all fifty tracks simultaneously.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:52 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
Actually quite a few of these bands will be familiar to folks who used to go clearance bin-digging back in the 00's (where you were guaranteed to come across the likes of Zutons and the View, among many others on this list that managed to be released Stateside). I take it the name "landfill indie" comes from where record stores finally dumped said product when they realized they'd never manage to "move" it.
posted by gtrwolf at 9:30 PM on September 4, 2020
posted by gtrwolf at 9:30 PM on September 4, 2020
I worked in a record store from 2002-2016. For the latter half, we has literally all of the these records in the (CD) used bin. All the time.
(I like Arctic Monkeys and most of Alex Turner’s side projects. Also The Futureheads were genuinely fun live).
posted by thivaia at 9:50 PM on September 4, 2020
(I like Arctic Monkeys and most of Alex Turner’s side projects. Also The Futureheads were genuinely fun live).
posted by thivaia at 9:50 PM on September 4, 2020
I was growing more and more certain that all these bands were made up
>I'm a pretty big music fan (in Canada) and I have never heard of this genre before today.
Initially I had the same reaction, but as I scrolled and read my way down a weird feeling of familiarity swept over me. Then I got to Maximo Park, a name I knew that I knew, and things focused at The Futureheads' Hounds of Love cover, and then I just bounced around the list and dragging the scrubber to random points of every song, and goddam if every song didn't get at least some play on Minnesota Public Radio's The Current in the early 2000s.
This is not any sort of brag, humble- or otherwise, as it did not take long for any of these songs to become overplayed, and actually I think Chelsea Dagger marked when I stopped being a very faithful listener to The Current.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:35 PM on September 4, 2020
>I'm a pretty big music fan (in Canada) and I have never heard of this genre before today.
Initially I had the same reaction, but as I scrolled and read my way down a weird feeling of familiarity swept over me. Then I got to Maximo Park, a name I knew that I knew, and things focused at The Futureheads' Hounds of Love cover, and then I just bounced around the list and dragging the scrubber to random points of every song, and goddam if every song didn't get at least some play on Minnesota Public Radio's The Current in the early 2000s.
This is not any sort of brag, humble- or otherwise, as it did not take long for any of these songs to become overplayed, and actually I think Chelsea Dagger marked when I stopped being a very faithful listener to The Current.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:35 PM on September 4, 2020
And their playlist looks great, but I'm confused why it includes artists like Dizzee Rascal or Art Brut, who aren't anything to do with landfill indie.
At first glance I thought this article was not getting the point of Vice’s version but actually I think it’s consistent - it’s saying Vice included some bands that don’t fit and then making a list of music from that era that doesn’t necessarily deserve the appellation?
Whereas Vice is doing what it says and listing some of the more fun hits and semi-hits of a mediocre genre.
posted by atoxyl at 11:09 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
At first glance I thought this article was not getting the point of Vice’s version but actually I think it’s consistent - it’s saying Vice included some bands that don’t fit and then making a list of music from that era that doesn’t necessarily deserve the appellation?
Whereas Vice is doing what it says and listing some of the more fun hits and semi-hits of a mediocre genre.
posted by atoxyl at 11:09 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
This is what happens when only the middle class can afford to be in a band.
posted by fullerine at 11:36 PM on September 4, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by fullerine at 11:36 PM on September 4, 2020 [7 favorites]
At first glance I thought this article was not getting the point of Vice’s version but actually I think it’s consistent
Fair point. It's certainly a more interesting list!
posted by Pink Frost at 1:43 AM on September 5, 2020
Fair point. It's certainly a more interesting list!
posted by Pink Frost at 1:43 AM on September 5, 2020
So many mentions of Libertines / Pete Doherty. I’m starting to think the article and Landfill Indie was invented around this.
posted by iamkimiam at 2:25 AM on September 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by iamkimiam at 2:25 AM on September 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
“Landfill indie” wasn't all independent music, or even all music made by white British people with guitars, but a specific subgenre. It was based in post-(punk/C86/Britpop) “indie” music, after it had been reduced to a formula (“angular” guitars, urgently yelped vocals, leather jackets/vintage-shop clothes), with the melodies and cadences refined to a plausible football-terrace chant and any nuance that was surplus to the formula replaced by a leery, laddish swagger (you won't find Marxism or situationism here, even if they do crib from Gang Of Four and XTC, to say nothing of the defiant anti-machismo of the Sarah Records era). It was mass-produced music, from mass-produced bands, who ended up being refined into a product by the recording industry and music press, even if the members before had had more unmarketably arty ideas of what they wanted to do when they formed a band.
While landfill indie was all over the charts, TV ads and beer-barn DJ nights, there was other indie music being made. Post-C86 indiepop was alive and well, in London, the Midlands, Scotland and Wales, playing understated shows in basements. There was a shoegaze revival (the genre never really died), with promoters like Club AC30 and Sonic Cathedral. Indie Britain's enthusiastic adoption of krautrock is another phenomenon, with bands like The Horrors, Cold Pumas and Warm Digits influenced by the genre and a night named Krautrock Karaoke taking off in London; as was psych. And yet, “indie” started to stand for the lowest common denominator sausage-factory product.
posted by acb at 5:02 AM on September 5, 2020 [7 favorites]
While landfill indie was all over the charts, TV ads and beer-barn DJ nights, there was other indie music being made. Post-C86 indiepop was alive and well, in London, the Midlands, Scotland and Wales, playing understated shows in basements. There was a shoegaze revival (the genre never really died), with promoters like Club AC30 and Sonic Cathedral. Indie Britain's enthusiastic adoption of krautrock is another phenomenon, with bands like The Horrors, Cold Pumas and Warm Digits influenced by the genre and a night named Krautrock Karaoke taking off in London; as was psych. And yet, “indie” started to stand for the lowest common denominator sausage-factory product.
posted by acb at 5:02 AM on September 5, 2020 [7 favorites]
As bad as some of these bands are -- well, blandly mediocre, which is, like, genuinely worse than bad -- this list does a lot more to remind me of what I hate about 90% of popular music criticism.
I mean, these kinds of music reviews are themselves practically a Mad Libs exercise, describing a band's sound by tossing together hyperspecific scene or genre labels and slang (and, if at all possible, inventing one's own by slapping some previous ones together), naming comparisons to venerated artists, and leavening it all with subpar undergrad poetry metaphors.
I mean, surely the last vestige of rockism is the attitude that every current act is really about its relationship to whatever the current canon of "hip" might be, and about whether or not it meets the reviewer's vaguely metaphorized criteria for "authentic" and"original." And the end result is a review that is so busy being of its time -- and of its author's or publisher's brand -- that it doesn't function as criticism.
Or maybe the popular art of remake and throwback culture gets exactly the sort of reviewers it deserves, after all. (I almost forgot that the final move int he arsenal of the painfully self-conscious pop critic is the last line that winkingly subverts what's gone before.)
posted by kewb at 5:24 AM on September 5, 2020 [2 favorites]
I mean, these kinds of music reviews are themselves practically a Mad Libs exercise, describing a band's sound by tossing together hyperspecific scene or genre labels and slang (and, if at all possible, inventing one's own by slapping some previous ones together), naming comparisons to venerated artists, and leavening it all with subpar undergrad poetry metaphors.
I mean, surely the last vestige of rockism is the attitude that every current act is really about its relationship to whatever the current canon of "hip" might be, and about whether or not it meets the reviewer's vaguely metaphorized criteria for "authentic" and"original." And the end result is a review that is so busy being of its time -- and of its author's or publisher's brand -- that it doesn't function as criticism.
Or maybe the popular art of remake and throwback culture gets exactly the sort of reviewers it deserves, after all. (I almost forgot that the final move int he arsenal of the painfully self-conscious pop critic is the last line that winkingly subverts what's gone before.)
posted by kewb at 5:24 AM on September 5, 2020 [2 favorites]
Also, if I never hear or see music described as "shimmering," "jangly," "jagged," or "crunchy" again, I will die happy.
posted by kewb at 5:27 AM on September 5, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by kewb at 5:27 AM on September 5, 2020 [2 favorites]
Landfill indie is a bit harsh but you can tell that the dude who wrote this was very into this music fifteen years ago and is now old enough to be embarassed by his horrible youthful tastes.
The thing to take away from this is that this period in the early 2000s was arguably the last time British indie rock had any kind of coherent movement or scene, before everybody's tastes splintered with the rise of spotify, youtube and bandcamp. This sound was pushed hard by the NME (also the last time the NME was relevant) and heard all over BBC 6Music, their youth music radio station. Which is where I know it from.
Personally I've always called it Indie Pop rather than 'landfill indie' was I'm convinced was invented for this article. It was all sort of classic rock band, four boys with a guitar, a bass, drums and a singer (guitar optional) but with a lighter, poppier feel and importantt, not as up themselves as Britpop was. Arctic Monkeys and Kaiser Chiefs were the Big Two to come out from that era, with Franz Ferdinand being the Pulp to their Oasis/Blur; the first albums of all three are classics. Other bands I liked were Art Brut, British Sea Power, Guillemots, Kasabian and Gomez.
Guillemots were especially done wrong by the original article. Trains to Brazil was written as a response to the 2005 Underground bombings and subsequent murder of Jean Charles de Menezes by the Metropolitian Police and will always remind me of those days.
A listicle like this is always easy; of course similar bands are going to sound similar when you put them all next to each other and carefully select the most similar songs of each.
posted by MartinWisse at 6:07 AM on September 5, 2020 [3 favorites]
The thing to take away from this is that this period in the early 2000s was arguably the last time British indie rock had any kind of coherent movement or scene, before everybody's tastes splintered with the rise of spotify, youtube and bandcamp. This sound was pushed hard by the NME (also the last time the NME was relevant) and heard all over BBC 6Music, their youth music radio station. Which is where I know it from.
Personally I've always called it Indie Pop rather than 'landfill indie' was I'm convinced was invented for this article. It was all sort of classic rock band, four boys with a guitar, a bass, drums and a singer (guitar optional) but with a lighter, poppier feel and importantt, not as up themselves as Britpop was. Arctic Monkeys and Kaiser Chiefs were the Big Two to come out from that era, with Franz Ferdinand being the Pulp to their Oasis/Blur; the first albums of all three are classics. Other bands I liked were Art Brut, British Sea Power, Guillemots, Kasabian and Gomez.
Guillemots were especially done wrong by the original article. Trains to Brazil was written as a response to the 2005 Underground bombings and subsequent murder of Jean Charles de Menezes by the Metropolitian Police and will always remind me of those days.
A listicle like this is always easy; of course similar bands are going to sound similar when you put them all next to each other and carefully select the most similar songs of each.
posted by MartinWisse at 6:07 AM on September 5, 2020 [3 favorites]
It's hard out there for a Libertine.
It's nice to see Doherty looking a bit plump and middle-aged. His usual drug choices don't tend to make that happen.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 6:24 AM on September 5, 2020
It's nice to see Doherty looking a bit plump and middle-aged. His usual drug choices don't tend to make that happen.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 6:24 AM on September 5, 2020
Personally I've always called it Indie Pop rather than 'landfill indie'
“Indie pop” is a term with specific connotations, which tend to be more in the direction of Orange Juice/Belle & Sebastian/The Field Mice.
posted by acb at 8:42 AM on September 5, 2020 [2 favorites]
“Indie pop” is a term with specific connotations, which tend to be more in the direction of Orange Juice/Belle & Sebastian/The Field Mice.
posted by acb at 8:42 AM on September 5, 2020 [2 favorites]
The Futureheads were in no way a landfill indie band. Neither were The Young Knives, who were too geeky and odd. Got the impression that after about ten bands the writer just got lazy and threw in any bands they'd heard of with a guitar.
that Kate Bush cover is a ....thing
She really liked it!
These days the lead singer is a secondary school music teacher
Running a pub and event space, and other plans at the mo. I think the bassist teaches still.
The two I know are lovely people who've invested loads back into culture and music in their home town too, really encouraging and supporting young musicians (disclaimer: taught my son guitar). Good People.
posted by reynir at 8:47 AM on September 5, 2020 [5 favorites]
that Kate Bush cover is a ....thing
She really liked it!
These days the lead singer is a secondary school music teacher
Running a pub and event space, and other plans at the mo. I think the bassist teaches still.
The two I know are lovely people who've invested loads back into culture and music in their home town too, really encouraging and supporting young musicians (disclaimer: taught my son guitar). Good People.
posted by reynir at 8:47 AM on September 5, 2020 [5 favorites]
Bands inspired by the Libertines, but without the depth of musical influences that the Libertines had.
Bands that are a carbon copy of a carbon copy of a carbon copy, that have the look, the pose, but not the depth.
In the US equivalent, this would be a bunch of the lesser-known Fueled by Ramen bands.
posted by subdee at 10:06 AM on September 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
Bands that are a carbon copy of a carbon copy of a carbon copy, that have the look, the pose, but not the depth.
In the US equivalent, this would be a bunch of the lesser-known Fueled by Ramen bands.
posted by subdee at 10:06 AM on September 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
Personally I've always called it Indie Pop rather than 'landfill indie' was I'm convinced was invented for this article.
@martinwisse "Landfill Indie" was what it was called in British music press journalism just a few years after the phenomenon coalesced. It's not a new term or anything.
posted by subdee at 10:08 AM on September 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
@martinwisse "Landfill Indie" was what it was called in British music press journalism just a few years after the phenomenon coalesced. It's not a new term or anything.
posted by subdee at 10:08 AM on September 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
So many mentions of Libertines / Pete Doherty. I’m starting to think the article and Landfill Indie was invented around this.
Yes.
posted by subdee at 10:10 AM on September 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
Yes.
posted by subdee at 10:10 AM on September 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
It's been eight years since I've been really active in music fandom, but I'll try my best. I think Americans (who aren't in music fandom) don't really understand how the British music zines work and exactly how much ink has already been spilled on this topic.
Picture the scene: It's 2004. The Strokes are huge. Leather jackets are in. Young people are making their way to St Mark's Place in NYC, only to discover that the 1970s punk scene has been dead for at least twenty years. The Strokes are popular but it's an image, not a scene; or maybe it's an image that creates a new scene, from nothing, whole cloth. Other leather-wearing punk bands, like The Fray and Franz Ferdinand, will become popular in the wake of the Strokes' popularity because the music industry loves to chase a trend.
In the UK, the lineage is different but in some ways much more romanticized, because the British Music Press is always on the lookout for the next big British Guitar Band. The prior narrative is about creeping Americanization and how grunge killed British Guitar Music and punk is dead. Britpop is a revival of a native music tradition but by the time the mainstream press gets ahold of the narrative and turns it into Blur vs Oasis, erasing all the interesting local acts (and esp the female-fronted ones - as described in DC Pierson's Rue Britania) from the narrative, this is once again, a dead scene. But it's a dead scene that people continue to show up for.
This is at the dawn of the internet and message boards, you might hear rumors about a scene online but to participate you need to be present in person.
If you made your way to London, and specifically to Camden or the East End, in the late 90s pre-gentrification, like the Libertines did, what would would have found would have been more squalid than romantic but romance can be anywhere you want it to be. So if there's no scene there, just create your own scene.
Anyway, there's more to it than that and I'm probably getting things wrong but basically there was a moment in the mid-00s where it was really cool to wear leather jackets and be in a punk band. It was fashionable and lot of bands followed the fashion and made music that was by the critical consensus of the time, not very interesting.
Now that sufficient time has passed, Vice can write a story to try to unearth the musical value because the narrative that these bands are all copy-cats and unauthentic no longer holds so much power.
posted by subdee at 10:53 AM on September 5, 2020 [6 favorites]
Picture the scene: It's 2004. The Strokes are huge. Leather jackets are in. Young people are making their way to St Mark's Place in NYC, only to discover that the 1970s punk scene has been dead for at least twenty years. The Strokes are popular but it's an image, not a scene; or maybe it's an image that creates a new scene, from nothing, whole cloth. Other leather-wearing punk bands, like The Fray and Franz Ferdinand, will become popular in the wake of the Strokes' popularity because the music industry loves to chase a trend.
In the UK, the lineage is different but in some ways much more romanticized, because the British Music Press is always on the lookout for the next big British Guitar Band. The prior narrative is about creeping Americanization and how grunge killed British Guitar Music and punk is dead. Britpop is a revival of a native music tradition but by the time the mainstream press gets ahold of the narrative and turns it into Blur vs Oasis, erasing all the interesting local acts (and esp the female-fronted ones - as described in DC Pierson's Rue Britania) from the narrative, this is once again, a dead scene. But it's a dead scene that people continue to show up for.
This is at the dawn of the internet and message boards, you might hear rumors about a scene online but to participate you need to be present in person.
If you made your way to London, and specifically to Camden or the East End, in the late 90s pre-gentrification, like the Libertines did, what would would have found would have been more squalid than romantic but romance can be anywhere you want it to be. So if there's no scene there, just create your own scene.
Anyway, there's more to it than that and I'm probably getting things wrong but basically there was a moment in the mid-00s where it was really cool to wear leather jackets and be in a punk band. It was fashionable and lot of bands followed the fashion and made music that was by the critical consensus of the time, not very interesting.
Now that sufficient time has passed, Vice can write a story to try to unearth the musical value because the narrative that these bands are all copy-cats and unauthentic no longer holds so much power.
posted by subdee at 10:53 AM on September 5, 2020 [6 favorites]
https://oneweekoneband.tumblr.com/post/36681111301/the-libertines-plan-a-this-is-the-daylight-part
If you wanna see how tormented the Libertines were by the idea that they were chasing a trend to get popular, and not being their authentic (musical) selves. Of course, the torment is part of the appeal - the mythos - because if you are going to be a poet, you should be a tortured poet, according to a certain teen-aged point of view.
posted by subdee at 11:01 AM on September 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
If you wanna see how tormented the Libertines were by the idea that they were chasing a trend to get popular, and not being their authentic (musical) selves. Of course, the torment is part of the appeal - the mythos - because if you are going to be a poet, you should be a tortured poet, according to a certain teen-aged point of view.
posted by subdee at 11:01 AM on September 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
Club AC30
I don’t know the bands but I know the amp and that’s a clever, self-aware label name.
posted by atoxyl at 2:50 PM on September 5, 2020
I don’t know the bands but I know the amp and that’s a clever, self-aware label name.
posted by atoxyl at 2:50 PM on September 5, 2020
i completely forgot about Editors — i had a burnt copy of Back Room that i’d listen to on my CD player when i was 13! going to listen now, for the nostalgia
posted by LeviQayin at 12:14 AM on September 6, 2020
posted by LeviQayin at 12:14 AM on September 6, 2020
30. Bromheads Jacket
Yet another entry in my personal list of Bands I Really Wanted To Like Because Of Their Excellent Names, But In Whose Music I Was Deeply Disappointed.
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 7:20 AM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
Yet another entry in my personal list of Bands I Really Wanted To Like Because Of Their Excellent Names, But In Whose Music I Was Deeply Disappointed.
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 7:20 AM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
Huh, kinda surprised to see The Cribs on this list—twice! They always seemed a lot more punk and rough around the edges than the other 2000s UK indie bands. Then they added Johnny Marr for one record, which was a much better album technically than their past ones, if it did lose a little of their edge. Saw them twice at the 930 Club in DC: once was a packed house, then two years later (when Marr was in the band), not even remotely crowded. Still still absolutely killed live, though.
Wombats had some bangers. I was introduced to them because there was (maybe still "is") a dance party night at a local club that was all indie rock all the time, and we'd go because the cover was $5 and it was open bar for the first hour: an extremely good deal when you're in your 20s in a crap job. "Lets Dance to Joy Division" never failed to ironically fill up the dance floor. That said, I'm kind of surprised they're still around.
posted by General Malaise at 12:13 PM on September 6, 2020
Wombats had some bangers. I was introduced to them because there was (maybe still "is") a dance party night at a local club that was all indie rock all the time, and we'd go because the cover was $5 and it was open bar for the first hour: an extremely good deal when you're in your 20s in a crap job. "Lets Dance to Joy Division" never failed to ironically fill up the dance floor. That said, I'm kind of surprised they're still around.
posted by General Malaise at 12:13 PM on September 6, 2020
Of course, the torment is part of the appeal - the mythos - because if you are going to be a poet, you should be a tortured poet, according to a certain teen-aged point of view.
Apparently, before he became Landfill Sid Vicious, Pete Doherty was a decently workmanlike musician (think someone who could have held his own in session work or cover bands). Then the mythos took over.
Which suggests to me that Sid Vicious is the greater artist of the two, in the Duchampian sense, in that he was not, and made no pretense of being, a competent musician, but was the embodiment of a provocation. Doherty, meanwhile, was/is an entertainment professional whose brief is Vicious' shtick updated for the 00s.
posted by acb at 3:53 PM on September 6, 2020
Apparently, before he became Landfill Sid Vicious, Pete Doherty was a decently workmanlike musician (think someone who could have held his own in session work or cover bands). Then the mythos took over.
Which suggests to me that Sid Vicious is the greater artist of the two, in the Duchampian sense, in that he was not, and made no pretense of being, a competent musician, but was the embodiment of a provocation. Doherty, meanwhile, was/is an entertainment professional whose brief is Vicious' shtick updated for the 00s.
posted by acb at 3:53 PM on September 6, 2020
The Libertines had a real spark, something that was true. I'm glad Pete Doherty's still alive, because at the time it really didn't seem he'd make it to the end of the decade. And I wonder what ever happened to Andrew Kendall...
posted by jokeefe at 4:48 PM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by jokeefe at 4:48 PM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm glad Pete Doherty's still alive, because at the time it really didn't seem he'd make it to the end of the decade.
Yeah... I mean, people wrote songs about it.
posted by subdee at 5:43 PM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
Yeah... I mean, people wrote songs about it.
posted by subdee at 5:43 PM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
According to his website Andrew Kendall started an online business for professional photographers:
Digital Photo Gallery
posted by subdee at 6:02 PM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
Digital Photo Gallery
posted by subdee at 6:02 PM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
Thanks to a Pandora station unwisely seeded with lots of Matchbox20, I know a fair number of these bands for someone not from the UK. Although to be fair I know Razorlight from "America" and never got into Bombay Bicycle Club, and I'm not entirely sure how Two Doors Cinema Club song ended up being something I recognize. Who doesn't know "Chelsea Dagger" and "Naive" though - those songs were everywhere if you're of a certain age.
posted by librarylis at 9:21 PM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by librarylis at 9:21 PM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
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