1988 was the year of victory and the year of retreat. Victory, in the sense that the number of bands that had started to gate-crash the mainstream charts (albeit at the lower end) steadily increased; retreat, in as much as a great welter of others involved preferred to effectively drop out of the system and instead deliver up a stream of lo-fi, self-financed singles and EPs that paid more attention to the notion of a perfect pop ideal than to the so-called demands of commerce C88 sleevenotes

The Springfields – Sunflower nme

Another Sunny Day – Anorak City melodymaker

The Sea Urchins – Please Rain Fall nme

Galaxie 500 – Tugboat “I don’t wanna stay at your party/ I don’t wanna talk with your friends/ I don’t wanna vote for your president…” So begins “Tugboat,” the A-side of Galaxie 500’s debut single, released in 1988 on the tiny local label Aurora. Though the lyrics read like the petulant nihilism of a crust punk band, the accompanying music couldn’t have possibly sounded less agro. Instead, “Tugboat” establishes the blueprint that Galaxie 500 would follow for three albums of moody, introverted pop, and remains the most convincing showcase for their unusual magic. About ten seconds into the song, first position chords are augmented by a simple descending lead guitar line, chiming bass octaves, and a wash of cymbals that sound like they’re anticipating the arrival of Coltrane: even at this nascent stage, it is already the unmistakable sound of Galaxie 500. The vocals — adenoidal, maudlin — echo with gratuitous delay, the end of each line blurring and overlapping into dissonant overtones. Two and a half minutes in, the instruments become a whirlpool; it’s hard to tell where the guitar solo ends and Krukowski’s blur of cymbals begin. stereogum

Kitchens of Distinction – Prize it’s their zeal, humanity and surging tunes which really shine through… That, and the fact … Interpol often sound like a KOD tribute band uncut

R.E.M. – Orange Crush On 1988’s Green, their first album on major label Warners Brothers, Orange Crush was theiruncompromising battle charge. Its fizzy pop title belied a political message – about the chemical Agent Orange, sprayed on Vietnam to deforest the land, and the effects it had later on American veterans. theguardian

The Sugarcubes – Birthday The world is seen through the daydreams of a child, whispering a head full of little spells and incantations to a grown up’s celebration. That voice saws like a violin, flexing from tiger to kitten and back as the music – shuffling drums, ragged guitar – cement the impression that a gaggle of toddlers have been let loose on a room full of their parent’s discarded instruments.  Like a fairytale, it was a blurry introduction to a new pop star whose vast imaginarium would prove as strange as it was enchanting. arcticreviews

Talking Heads – (Nothing But) Flowers featuring Johnny Marr on trademark chiming guitar and Kirsty MacColl on backing vocals, it’s a shimmering, upbeat Afropop dance song bearing one of Byrne’s most laugh-out-loud, funny-acerbic lyrics. As if a direct inversion of Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi, Byrne sings from the standpoint of a man embittered by society’s regression from first world technological luxuries, commercialism, consumerism and globalisation into a landscape reclaimed by greenery, as he pines for the Pizza Huts, 7-Elevens and electric labour-savers of the past (“If this is paradise / I wish I had a lawnmower”). Imagined in the context of 1988, it reads like he could be throwing sarcastic shade on some of the more sanctimonious save-the-world rock stars of the era. theguardian

Sonic Youth – Teen Age Riot One of indie rock’s truly sacred texts, Daydream Nation is both a gripping synthesis of the punk, college rock and modern composition that surrounded the young New York band, and a living mood board for so much of what would arrive in the decades to come. During 70 breathless minutes, Sonic Youth drift through refracted spoken-word and musique concrète collage, churn through Swans-like rumblings and atonal barrages, and shimmer through a series of pop-rock gems lined with shards of dissonance and sheets of feedback. theguardian

Dinosaur Jr – Freak Scene the sort of joyous mess that American bands were supposedly too cool to write, a slacker fuzz mountain complete with guitar soloing, rockist indulgences. A carefree blending of cucumber sandwich melodies with Yankee brute force, the special relationship had never sounded better arcticreviews

The La’s – There She Goes an indie singalong love song anthem that never fails to bring a smile as it is warm and inviting, the tone is optimistic and whimsical, the subject a love that just can’t escape your mind. The short and sweet pop masterpiece invites you back home with open arms at the steps of Lime Street.  clashmusic

The Stone Roses – The Hardest Thing In The World practically sounds like a Smiths outtake thanks to John Squire’s melodic guitar playing and Ian Brown’s soaring verses spectrumculture

The Man From Delmonte – (Will Nobody Save) Louise a locquacious, keening lament complete with brass interlude C88 sleevenotes

The Charlottes – Are You Happy Now a fuzz-laden slice of perfect indie pop that clocked in at a very respectable sub-two minutes C88 sleevenotes

The Orchids – I’ve Got A Habit The story of the Orchids is entwined with the story of Sarah Records. Their debut single “I’ve Got A Habit” was Sarah 2, issued simultaneously with Sarah 1 –“Pristine Christine” by The Sea Urchins – early in 1988… So they were there at the beginning and at the end too, playing a set during the August Bank Holiday Sarah Records Farewell Party, alongside other Sarah acts like Heavenly, Blueboy, Secret Shine and Harvey Williams.

Now those names seem legendary, the reputation of Sarah Records and their acts have never been higher – Michael White’s book “Popkiss” and Lucy Dawkins’ film “My Secret World” have raised the profile of the little label from Bristol two decades after it stopped operating. Hell, the NME recently  called Sarah Records one of the coolest indie labels of all time, which is some turnaround. everythingindieover40

The Groovy Little Numbers – Happy Like Yesterday Emerging from that mid-80s indie pop hotbed Belshill, featured Joe McAlinden (BMX Bandits) and Gerard Love (Teenage Fanclub) C88 sleevenotes

The Wedding Present – Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm the poppiest, catchiest song the band had created to this point gedgesongs

The Primitivies – Crash two-and-a-half minutes of pure pop bliss, and a song that I’ve heard countless countless times, each and every one an absolute pleasure medialoper

A.R. Kane – Crazy Blue They would coin a new term to loosely describe their music: dream pop. “DREAMPOP,” as they explained in an article around the release of 69, “is a whole new concept which we think of as pure hooks, pure pop tunes with a little harsh melodic accompaniment.” Dreaming, the duo agreed, was “crucial” to their work, and they aimed to emulate an ethereality that could just as easily become nightmarish. The band used tape echo to make every song on the self-produced 69 feel just out of reach, like your memory struggling to grasp the last wisp of a dream before it slips away. pitchfork

Smith & Mighty – Anyone The music world is full of so-called ‘unsung pioneers’ – artists who helped shape musical directions and never received the dues their work deserved. Whether or not Smith & Mighty fit this bill is a matter of opinion. But for those in the know, the duo laid the foundations for the Bristol sound that would make superstars of Massive Attack and bring bass into UK dance music like never before. thevinylfactory

Brian Wilson – Love and Mercy a fine album. It is a record that I really love it for the most part. Yes, love.

Even with the dated production values, only one or possibly two songs on it ever gave me — and still give me — the cringes and I can weather them due to many other over-riding and magnificent joys within: “Love and Mercy,” “Melt Away,” “Let it Shine” and many others. audiophilereview

The Go-Betweens – Streets Of Your Town Have you ever seen Twin Peaks?…16 Lovers Lane is a pop record with a similar vision. On the surface, it’s bright and shiny and deceptively sweet, while swirling down below are insistent themes of pain, destruction, obsession, and abuse. And there’s a strange tension to the music itself — the crisp guitar lines skitter this way and that, colliding at odd angles. But it’s catchy as hell and so romantic. tinymixtapes

The Church – Under The Milky Way a song that feels as though it has always existed. Only the mullet hairdos in its brooding video clip betray its true age.

The single dropped in 1988, eight years into the life of Sydney new-wave band the Church. INXS and George Michael were going galactic as Under the Milky Way slid on to the airwaves with a meteor shower of jangly guitars, moody A-minor chords, ebow instrumental interludes and otherworldly lyrics about “something shimmering and white” that “leads you here, despite your destination”.

With its anthemic chorus, “Wish I knew what you were looking for, might have known what you would find,” Under the Milky Way catapulted the Church on to the world stage (the song peaked at No 22 on the US charts) and earned the band single of the year at the 1989 Aria awards. theguardian

The Train Set – She’s Gone made Single of the Week in NME C88 sleevenotes

Pacific – Barnoon Hill Fronted by Dennis Wheatley who sang, played guitar and created noises via an Atari computer, Pacific melded traditional indie with the intelligent off-kilter pop explored by The Colour Field or, later, The Lightning Seeds. On their debut EP, 1988’s Sea of Sand, they used cello and trumpet and a deft Japanese spoken word intro on Barnoon Hill. C88 sleevenotes

The Nivens – Yesterday “An indie pop sensation” from Northumberland (not to be confused with the Norwich band of the same name) C88 sleevenotes

The House of Love – Destroy The Heart something fleeting but special, the lightning-in-a-bottle sense of so much promise, not exactly promise squandered but all the same perhaps promise never fully unleashed pitchfork

The Jesus and Mary Chain – Sidewalking the Reids exhibited an unforeseen influence – hip-hop – on Sidewalking. The standalone single, which reached No 30, sampled the drumbeat from Roxanne Shanté’s Roxanne’s Revenge (part of the infamous Roxanne Wars with the Real Roxanne). At first, the band were unsure whether to put it out under a pseudonym, or even release it at all, given the break from their customary sound, but on the advice of Geoff Travis, they eventually released Sidewalking under their own name. It was the right call, because while the rhythm track was out of left field, it is every inch a Mary Chain classic. theguardian

Rote Kapelle – Fire Escape Named after a Gestapo term to describe the wartime Berlin resistance movement (the REd Orchestra)… A blend of noisy post-punk and anorak pop, Rote Kapelle were, alas, short-lived C88 sleevenotes

Annie & The Aeroplanes – A Million Zillion Miles the bands only single C88 sleevenotes

Fat Tulips – You Opened My Eyes everyone involved sounds as if they are on the very edge of their abilities, concentrating hard to make sure nothing falls apart before the final notes are struck or sung thenewvinylvillain

The Vaselines – Teenage Superstars The band also had a pretty warped sense of humour there’s the youngster-hipster pastiche of ‘Teenage Superstars’ (“When mum complains about my clothes, I say hey mum – leave me alone!“) thelineofbestfit

Nirvana – Love Buzz beauty incarnate. A relentless two-chord garage beat which lays down some serious foundations for a sheer monster of a guitar to howl over melodymaker

The Flatmates – Shimmer If The Pains of Being Pure at Heart have some Field Mice LPs in their collection, then something – specifically Shimmer – tells me they might just have been listening to the odd Flatmates album as well. recordrewindplay

Holidaymakers – Cincinnatti two minutes or so of chiming guitars and assured, smouldering vocals that equalled Paul Simpson in The Wild Swans at his best C88 sleevenotes

Would-Be-Goods – The Camera Loves Me Singer Jessica Griffin borrowed the name Would-Be-Goods from the title of an Edwardian novel… Griffith’s received pronunciation gave the band a posh image, heightened by the choice of such song titles as ‘Cecil Beatson’s Scrapbook’ and ‘Pinstripe Rebel’. C88 sleevenotes

The Caretaker Race – Anywhere But Home take precise aim at The Go-Between’s laconic ‘indie cool’ whilst effectively avoiding parody by virtue Andy Strickland’s vocals that hints more at early 1990’s angst and anxiety as opposed to the Australian’s late 80’s lassez faire. janglepophub

Felt – Bitter End has a slight Faces feel, Duffy’s work on this recall the wonderful Ian McLagan in his prime. The lyric features another typical heartbreaker in “the world never could be mine”, the bitter tinge is never far away, but that is often negated by Lawrence’s nonchalant cool. louderthanwar

Leonard Cohen – Everybody Knows Pump up the Volume. He was just a quiet Phoenix high school loner who secretly broadcasts a pirate radio station from his parents’ basement; then Christian Slater’s suburban transplant adopted the mouthy, anti-authoritarian alter ego “Hard Harry” and quickly turned his community upside down. Cohen’s suavely apocalyptic diatribe is the disruptive D.J.’s theme music that recurs throughout the movie, a dark signal the man on the mic sends out to jolt his complacent listeners out of their comfort zone. Rolling Stone

my bloody valentine – you made me realize confirms McGee’s proclamation that they could be the “Irish Husker Du” were the words of a man with more insight than he’s often given credit for – the scratchy top end guitar tones and constant snare drum trills owe a lot to the more aggressive moments of a record like Zen Arcade. However, it’s a song whose reputation has been built almost solely on its live renditions; there’s no “holocaust section” to the 3’47 of its recorded duration thelineofbestfit

my bloody valentine – sueisfine whose titular chorus gets mutated throughout the song until Shields is essentially yelling “suicide, suicide” ‘til close thelineofbestfit

The Men They Couldn’t Hang – The Colours Like many I was stunned and saddened by the terrible news of the death of Stefan Cush, irrepressible stalwart of The Men They Couldn’t Hang. A larger than life presence, his passing will leave a huge hole in the lives of his bandmates, the audience and the wider music community.

I could attempt to write an obituary that presents his recorded achievements and bemoans the fact that the The Men They Couldn’t Hang never received the acclaim they deserved. However, the many who loved him know all that and it would omit the one thing that is crucial above all else when discussing Cush and The Men They Couldn’t Hang, and that is the power of emotion. Few bands could grab you by the throat and drag you into a song, a story or an experience like them. I don’t believe there is another band who can have you punching the air with a righteous defiance one minute and wiping tears from your eyes the next. Yes, emotion is all with this band and, as I sit here a few hours after hearing the terrible news, I can only try to share what I see as I look back. Feb6th2021 louderthanwar

Bluetrain – Land of Gold only made one 12″ single… Bartlett and Hagen later enjoyed success as It’s Jo and Danny, as well as organizing the Green Man festival among other events C88 sleevenotes

Remember Fun – Apple Of My Eye the archetypal mid-80s indie combo, blending pure pop with combustible and wittily-observed lyrics that drew comparisons with The Close Lobsters, The June Brides, The Smiths, and even Billy Bragg

The Woodentops – You Make Me Feel perhaps too subtle for your typical student tastes in the ’80s but hardly the Mumfords-style or fiddle-de-dee folky bollocks you’d find in some digs these days flipsidedlipsidereviews

The Icicle Works – Little Girl Lost Blind does contain some of the Icicle Works’ best individual tracks, including the singles “High Time” and “Little Girl Lost,” and is, if nothing else, seldom dull allmusic

The Pixies – Where Is My Mind? an odd cove of a Pixies tune. A beatific ballad at the heart of an otherwise frenzied album, Surfer Rosa (1988), it stood out not only because it didn’t sound like Black Francis was tearing apart a deer carcass with his teeth throughout, but for Kim’s spectral “Ooo-ooooh”s and its lyrics of bizarre bodily physics. Would spinning on your head really make your skull implode if you had no brain, and if so, why aren’t more breakdancing contests absolute bloodbaths? This mingling of comic and cosmic has made the song an alt-rock mainstay, the most lickable Pixies track. theguardian

U2 – Desire Rattle and Hum marked the point at which U2 allowed their passion and self-belief – and indeed their reaction to superstardom – to slip into bombast, but sometimes its experiments with US roots music work. Fizzing with their enthusiasm for music forbidden under post-punk’s rules, Desire’s irresistible Bo Diddley beat is evidence. theguardian

Baby Lemonade – The Jiffy Neckwear Creation melodymaker

The Haywains – Bythesea Road named after the famous Constable painting… blended pop melodies with a punk attitude C88 sleevenotes

Razorcuts – Try the album finds the band in thrall with their own sound — wistful, tender, breezy – a bit of a beacon of light in 1988. The band had worked out their kinks by this point and, while the early singles have an immediacy on display, the lineup for Storyteller finds a thread through Webster and Vass’ influences, tying up sunshine pop, ‘60s jangle from The Byrds to the Beau Brummels, and a big indie heart that places them easily in the Creation roster while never skewing twee. ravensingstheblues

Shack – Emergency took the West Coast harmonies… of his previous band, the Pale Fountains… and relocated them to the English council flat theguardian

Bradford – Skin Storm the first ind(i)ependently released CD single. aturntablefriendrecords

Bad Dream Fancy Dress- The Supremes throughout the mid and late 80s El records released a dazzling array of fantastic pop records that were a wonderful stew of wit, flair, dazzling pop and gorgeous girls.

Mike Alway took a couple of young likely lasses from Southend, pitched them up with The King of Luxembourg and let them fly. The result, Choirboys Gas, is one of the few truly unique albums in pop history. The whole concept can be condensed down to the opener, The Supremes, where over a Motown-esque beat the girls share their dreams of fame and fortune before descending into a barrage of caterwauling and screaming. On this form they wouldn’t even have even got to sing a second line in an X-factor audition. popjunkielondon

The Driscolls – Julie Christie blending garage, indiepop and a healthy dose of mod C88 sleevenotes

Beat Happening – The This Many Boyfriends Club There are some amazing stories of when Beat Happening toured the west coast with Fugazi. Punks there to see Fugazi at the Los Angeles show just didn’t get Beat Happening. One story is of Calvin getting hit in the nose by someone throwing an ashtray at him. He didn’t miss a beat and quoted Darby Crash of the Germs back to the audience, “Somebody broke my nose. Dump the whole balcony.” I don’t know what song they played after that, but I like to think it was this one. All guitar squall and feedback with Calvin doing spoken word that sounds improvised. This Many Boyfriends Club demands your attention and keeps it until mic hits the floor with a thud and a girl screams at the top of her lungs. This is punk! finestkiss

Fugazi – Waiting Room as auspicious as punk debuts come. For guitar-playing outcasts on campus looking to find solace among their own kind, the “Waiting Room” bassline would soon replace the “Blister In The Sun” riff as the misfit mating-call of choice, and it remains one of the most identifiable openings of any punk song this side of “Lust For Life.”  stereogum

The Jeremy Days – Brand New Toy The German Lloyd Cole & The Commotions. Presumably there was a need for one of those nme

The Adventures – Broken Land They coulda been contenders. Or, at least, they coulda been The Feeling. Belfast’s Adventures specialised in grand, sweeping pop, their 1988 single ‘Broken Land’ becoming a hit all over the world without ever quite breaking them. Trouble was, they sounded more like the end of an era than a new beginning nme

The Darling Buds – It’s All Up To You Largely ignored by the US market, except when they had a monumental bust-up with the queen of pop herself, Madonna teenageshoegazer

Half Japanese – Charmed Life in the late 1980s, Half Japanese were a song machine. Their three LPs released in the last three years of that decade—Music to Strip By, Charmed Life, and *The Band That Would Be King—*boasted 70 songs, with nearly 40 more appended to CD and cassette versions… They set a blueprint for subsequent indie rock, the kind that valued DIY yet didn’t shy away from melody, and addressed matters of the heart without arch distance. Yet this period of Half Japanese could never be imitated because it was so dependent on Jad’s peculiar, wholly-original character. The strongest echo of his personality came in the rawly honest work of Daniel Johnston—listen to his duo record with Jad, released right after The Band That Would Be King, and see if you can tell who’s who. But where Johnston leaned more toward a loner vibe, Jad had the singular ability to make his personal obsessions relatable, inclusive, and ultimately universal.