So what if it all sounds the same? It’s a cheap ticket to the world of indie discos, dodgy haircuts and evenings getting drunk in the park (sod off that’s my youth! – ed).
So what if it all sounds the same? It’s a cheap ticket to the world of indie discos, dodgy haircuts and evenings getting drunk in the park (sod off that’s my youth! – ed).
Why Aren’t You Listening? The June Brides and the Darling Buds
Two decades on from the tape-that-became-a-scene of C86 it’s about time that the indie pop scene is given a critical reappraisal. For whatever reason this uniquely British sound has been discarded as a blip; fey boys singing about their unrequited love for fey girls over jangly guitars has never been cool. Cherry Red, the ever aware custodians of all things indie-pop, think differently. The latest in their line of 1980s reissues are fine examples of a scene that deserves credit for its influence on both Britpop and the current jangle pop sound.
The Darling Buds’ claim to indie-dom fame is that they plugged in, dashed out an album of daft pop, performed at breakneck speed before scoring a minor hit and returning to their native Newport. Pop Said is unremittingly joyful, wonderfully naive and only manages two songs that peep over the three minute mark. This is punk rock attitude forced into an unholy alliance with melody and young love; rather than kicking against the system they’re against monotony and insipidness. Every track is a beautiful piece of feedback-laden angst that seems effortless when compared to other bands of the time. A product of its time, it delves in out and out of Helen Love territory, flirts with the Mary Chain but ends up as the Wedding Present for people with girlfriends.
So what if it all sounds the same? It’s a cheap ticket to the world of indie discos, dodgy haircuts and evenings getting drunk in the park (sod off that’s my youth! – ed). Andrea Lewis is bemoaning her latest boyfriend while the rest of the band is playing the only chords they know as fast as possible. Somehow they fuse and form this beautiful end product. It’s the sort of record you’d love to find at the back of a charity shop – upfront, honest and reminiscent of times past. Later on the band attempted to get clever and write ‘proper songs’, oblivious to what they’d already achieved by accident. The Rave and Baggy scenes rendered the group surplus to requirements in the eyes of the music press and they disbanded after two underperforming albums. For the meantime, stick on your anorak and shuffle around the dance floor to some disposable pop.
The June Brides approached music with more sincerity than their Welsh successors. At the forefront of the jangle pop scene and one of the ultimate indie bands they also belied a bitter truth about the scene: it’s all very well shouting about who funds your label but they can still screw you over. Yup, as The Beatles learnt with Apple Corps, creative types get greedy when there’s money about and their bad luck is apparent on the bitter-sweet lyrics on this album. The Story Of… provides a comprehensive epitaph to the multi-label career of band leader Phil Wilson and his band, hopelessly underrated pioneers of scratchy guitar and bed sit blues.
Eschewing the angular sound in favour of country influences, introspective lyrics and a viola/trumpet combo they laid down the template for every C86 band to follow, ironically a compilation album that they declined to feature on. Looking back to sixties pop provided a broader palate than that which was in vogue at the time while the progression into country-infused rock never dented Wilson‘s defiantly British method of dealing with life’s worries. They had it all but circumstances were against them; constantly changing labels and a failure to build on mainstream coverage mean they fell to the whims of the music industry. Wilson took a job as a civil servant in order to pay the bills and never returned to recording.
Two albums, two classics and two fantastic pop acts. They didn’t hang around – they arrived, did their thing and went back to their normal lives. What we have left is a fantastic legacy based around some startlingly influential song writing. Music for pleasure? Whatever next…