The past few days, I’ve been covering a list from NME magazine of what they consider the greatest Indie Anthems of all times. Not a bad list, certainly a rockin list. As I said yesterday, a list I would be glad to play at anytime. But honestly, take a look at the band on that list…are they honestly what we think of when we say indie bands? Oasis? Radiohead? The Stone Roses? The Libertines? Great alternative bands, yes. Small label indie bands? Thats a bit more sketchy.
With that in mind, I kind of wanted to list a few bands that I like to listen to that kind of fall under that indie label. Sure, Modest Mouse is kind of big time…I read they open for R.E.M. in Chicago, a show I would drive all night to go see. But for a long, long time, they chugged along under the radar. Built to Spill? Yeah, indie all the way. I doubt you could find anyone who disagrees with that statement. At the same time, I wanted some bands people also heard of…Superchunk being a good example of that. So, here is what I have on my iPod under the category indie rock. Let me know what you think. Enjoy…I have to go shovel some more of that stupid snow.
- Built To Spill - Carry The Zero
- Mercury Rev - Good Times Ahead
- Modest Mouse - Heart Cooks Brain
- Nik Freitas and The Head Gates - Come To Me
- Octant - The Move
- Preston School of Industry - Get your Crayons Out!
- Quasi - Alice the Goon
- Rogue Wave - Bird On A Wire
- Slowlands - Listeners Dilemma
- Stephen Malkmus - The Hook
- Superchunk - Skip Steps 1 and 3
- The Halo Benders - Don’t Touch My Bikini
- The Helio Sequence - Blood Bleeds
- The Ivory Coast - Traveler
- White Whale - We’re Just Temporary Ma’am
2 responses so far ↓
1 MissParker0106 // Feb 13, 2008 at 7:41 am
Built to Spill - fabulous, expressive guitars. It seems that whole early-90’s era brought out an exciting range of talent, riding the 80’s wave. I’m going to have to look more into this one. Thanks for the music.
Oh, and had our rain over the past 24 hours been snow…we’d be buried under about 4 feet of it. Yecccch. Be well.
MissParker0106’s last blog post..80’s Music Rules ~ Comsat Angels - It’s History (A fan tribute)
2 Infonistacrat // Feb 13, 2008 at 11:07 am
Built to Spill is definitely worth exploring. His (it’s really just Doug Martsch with a revolving cast for each album) newer stuff is just as vibrant as his older stuff. A great starter would be to grab the two albums “You In Reverse” from 2006 and “Keep It Like A Secret” from 1999. Carry The Zero is from Keep It Like a Secret, and is maybe the second best tune on that album. The Plan is the best song, a sweeping anthem of guitar driven indie rock. I’ll see if I can get it on tomorrows post.
The snow…oh yes….4 inches on top of the 18 inches already sitting on the ground! Yeah!
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