I won this in a competition on John Peel's programme. According to my records, it arrived on 12 October 2004, just a fortnight before he died. The competition question was along the lines of, "What do the Jesus & Mary Chain, Primal Scream and Bis all have in common?" Don't know the answer? Well I did, and I've got this 'promotional copy, not for resale' double CD to show for it. Ner-ner-ne-nurrr-ner. Actually you probably do know the answer.
It's silly, I know, but I do kind of wish I'd recorded Peel saying my name on the air.
It's silly, too, to say that I can't take indiepop seriously, because surely it's not supposed to be taken seriously. I do like the way that zines like Chickfactor and Tangents build up a mythology around the indie scene. In their world, it seems, all the girls look like they've just stepped out of an early Godard film. Unfortunately, in real life, all the boys look like Bobby Gillespie.
Is this a good and/or representative selection of the indie sound? I don't know. It has quite a lot of early stuff from Creation Records. It has those celebrated novelty/in-joke indie songs by The Pooh Sticks (I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan McGee Quite Well) and I, Ludicrous. It has songs I don't like from the early recordings bands that I love (My Bloody Valentine, The Magnetic Fields and AR Kane), and it has Vegetarian Restaurant by Aberfeldy, which stands out because I do like it.
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