Smashing Indie Smashes

These days, indie is a dirty, dirty word. Indie schmindie weedy twee indie landfill, stodgy dadrock boring tired genre. Post Britpop and the revisionist contempt it engenders, British guitar music has had nowhere to go and gone nowhere. Bands have come and gone, got a song on the radio and then disappeared.

Some guitar bands have become successful, oh yes, but few of them were "indie", indie like the Bluetones or Gene. Coldplay, Kasabian, Arctic Monkeys, Muse etc they're as far from indie as Beyonce (well, maybe not Arctic Monkeys ...)

Anyway, I'm babbling. I'm not here to write a thinkpiece. I'm here to sift through the dregs of post-Britpop indie-pop and stand up for a few songs that got lost in the whitewash, songs that are actually really rather good if you ask me thanks very much.

I'm not talking about great songs by great bands who got acclaim. I'm talking about songs by fly-by-nights which they hoped might make them stars but got tossed out with the rest of despised indie trash, or actually decent songs by bands that got reasonably big but people kind of hate. Sappy cack. Drippy shit. Hollyoaks manrock. Etc.

These are good songs. I swear.

1. Trains to Brazil - The Guillemots
2. She's Got you High - Mumm-ra
3. Suzie - Boy Kill Boy
4. Monday Morning 5.19 - Rialto
5. What a Lovely Dance - Hal
6. Blossoms Falling - Ooberman
7. This Feeling - Puressence
8. Four to the Floor - Starsailor (you had me til Starsailor, you're thinking)
9. Never Lose Your Sense of Wonder - John Hassall
10. What You Want - Spector
11. Might Be Stars - Wannadies
12. She Fell Into My Arms - Ed Harcourt
13. Emily - Steven Fretwell
14. If You Can't Do It When You're Young, When Can You Do It? - theaudience
15. It's Not About the Weather - Alfie
16. Julie Christie - Spearmint

1. How to be Dead - Snow Patrol (yes, I'm extending this to Snow Patrol, but no further ...)
2. Re-Instated - Shack
3. On and On - Longpigs
4. Into the Blue - Geneva
5. The Underdog - Turin Brakes
6. Let Your Shoulder Fall - Matthew Jay
7. Language of Fools - Tom McRae
8. My Brittle Heart - Lucky Soul
9. I Would Fix You - Kenickie
10. To You - I Am Kloot
11. The Hymn for the Cigarettes - Hefner
12. You'll Never Walk Again - Gene (talking of Gene)
13. If - Bluetones (talking of ...)
14. If You've Never Been I Love With Anything - Embrace (oof, pushing it now)
15. Lose Yr Frown - Electric Soft Parade
16. What I Meant to Say - Ben and Jason

If that doesn't bring a solitary tear to your eye ...