Felt – Primitive Painters One of the great UK indie singles — and duets — of the mid-’80s came about through happenstance. Felt, the cult band led by the iconoclastic Lawrence, hired Robin Guthrie to produce their 1985 album Ignite the Seven Cannons, the centerpiece of which was “Primitive Painters,” with its hypnotic, cyclical riff. (You’re right, it does sound a little like Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City.”) Liz Fraser came to visit Guthrie in the studio while Felt were working on the song, and he had the idea to have her sing on it… A classic was born. brooklynvegan

The Cure – In Between Days an unmistakably glorious pop song, one broken relationship crushed into two verses and three minutes. It feels generous, abundant, the intro rapidly layering drums, bass and acoustic guitar, before the synth riff lifts the whole song up by its corners, throwing it into the blue. Young and old, happy and sad: In Between Days exists in a state of perfect unresolved yearning, oscillating in its own never-ending story. “Just walk away,” sings Smith, “Come back to me.” A love song, a hate song, a pop song, a sad song. Everything in between mojo4music

The Jesus And Mary Chain – Never Understand The music they made reflected the nihilism they felt, rare glimpses of sunshine completely smothered by the unlistenable, drawing in and driving away listeners at the same time arcticreviews

The Shop Assistants – All Day Long Morrissey described ‘All Day Long’ as his favourite track of the year

Camper Van Beethoven – Take The Skinheads Bowling They Might Be Giants were partly Camper Van Beethoven’s fault. So were The Presidents of the United States of America. So were Pavement, The Dead Milkmen, and legion other smug, floppy-fringed, time-wasting amateurs who should have been conscripted into an expeditionary force and packed off to invade somewhere. Saturn, ideally. Next to the recordings of any of the above-mentioned, the soundtrack of This Is Spinal Tap is a model of earnest integrity, and has better tunes.

And yet, and yet. Though Camper Van Beethoven’s 1980s recordings were certainly culpable for the encouragement of scoundrels, they had then, and have now, a charm as undeniable as it is irresistible…

Their most serious claim on immortality is still, of course, the perfect, ridiculous, brilliant, thunderously daft singalong and universal rehearsal-room favourite ’Take The Skinheads Bowling’ (it has been covered by Teenage Fanclub, Manic Street Preachers, among approximately a billon others). It’s easy to understand how so many thought that this was something they could emulate: it’s a boneheadedly simple three-chord thrash with lyrics that sound like they took less time to write than sing. It is also, however – which its successors assuredly were not – a gleeful and highly rocking Dadaist rewrite of the Modern Lovers template, riddled with careful detail: the daffy lead riff percolating through the later verses, the vocal harmony on the second “bowling” in the chorus. A joy forever, if not necessarily a thing of beauty thequietus

New Order – Love Vigilantes saw New Order shun the expensive electronics now at their disposal for a melody produced by a cheap wind instrument you can find in any music shop. Sumner’s trusty melodica produces the distinctive intro riff at the beginning as the singer begins one of his occasional forays into pop storytelling. Here, the song’s protagonist is a soldier longing to return from war to see his wife and child. The tragic punchline is that he arrives home as a ghost, witnessing his spouse’s tears as she opens the telegram telling her he’s dead. It’s another oddly touching slice of otherwise skyscraping, uplifting pop, with a guitar middle-eight so perfectly constructed that longtime New Order fan and Lightning Seed Ian Broudie would pay homage to it on his own sublime 1989 hit, Pure. theguardian

REO Speedwagon – Can’t Fight This Feeling a song about giving in and admitting that you actually care about someone… when Cronin caves in, he does it in the biggest possible way: Massed harmonies, screaming guitars, pounding drama-nerd pianos, overwrought metaphors about ships and candles and whirlwinds. He turns surrender into something ecstatic.

“Can’t Fight This Feeling” is pure adult-contemporary gloop. It starts out as sleepy waiting-room music, with Cronin’s pinched whine of a voice sharing space with piano tinkles and ookily slick ’80s-overproduction textures. But when the song kicks in, it jumps about five levels. That intro is boring, but it also builds tension, and then the chorus blows off all that tension in a big way. From that point on, “Can’t Fight This Feeling” is pure prom-slow-dance grandeur, from its reaching-for-the-heavens guitar solo to the way the backing harmonies get louder and louder throughout. Cronin’s voice remains whiny, but every time he hits that chorus, his whine sounds like it’s got a little more strength and conviction to it.

All of which is to say: “Can’t Fight This Feeling” is the good kind of adult-contemporary gloop. It’s dramatic and self-serious and massively catchy, with tremendous drunken-singalong potential. Kevin Cronin can’t fight this feeling anymore. He’s forgotten what he started fighting for. And if he has to crawl upon this floor? Come crashing through your door? Baby, he can’t fight this feeling anymore. How am I supposed to resist that? stereogum

The Waterboys – Whole Of The Moon an emotive hit that even the most contrarian chorus-hater could not begrudge as a rousing classic. Surely? faroutmagazine

In Embrace – This Brilliant Evening lovestruck-pop…became their calling card and ‘Single of the Fortnight’ in Smash Hits scaredtogethappy

The Smiths – Stretch Out And Wait a quiet yet devastating urban romance that picks up where “Please Please Please” left off. Two people with icy-cold hands put their philosophical dread aside to share a moment of solace. And on acoustic guitar, Marr makes it sound easy – except entire careers have been spent trying and failing to duplicate what he does here with just a few strums. rollingstone

The Loft – Up The Hill And Down The Slope would I am sure, appear in any or every Top Ten of greatest ‘indie when it Meant Something’ singles ever made.  It still sounds as magnificent as the day it was recorded… Often imitated, never bettered, The Loft were C86 the year before it ‘happened’ louderthanwar

The Passmore Sisters – Dance The House Down they issued a string of singles that were often sweetly delivered but usually laced with menace c85

The Fall – Cruiser’s Creek This tale of office-party excess typifies the seismic creative shift that Smith’s first wife, Brix, brought to the lineup. Out went nights in workingmen’s clubs in Prestwich and Smith’s beloved Oxfam chic; in came Brix’s twangy guitar, an Armani suit and (God forbid) Smith in eyeliner. While retaining the doctrines of repetition and tension, the Brix-era Fall brought in a pop sensibility that took them ever chartward. The Fall have had more top 40 hits that haven’t entered the top 20 than any other group and Cruiser’s Creek illustrates exactly why: it’s leftfield and outsiderly, yet the insistent tune is surely as catchy as anything by the Beatles theguardian

Madonna – Into The Groove the chorus still gets me. It makes me believe the inane truth that “only when I’m dancing can I feel this free“, and reminds me with that irresistible bridge – improvised on the spot by Madonna in the studio – that plenty of songs have celebrated both dancing and sex, but few have done it this well guardian

Dead Or Alive – You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) “The first time ‘You Spin Me Round’ was on Top of the Pops – that was just barbaric, it was demonic. ‘You Spin Me Round’ is a hallmark in British music and it will never, ever date.”  Morrissey may talk a lot of bollocks these days, but his assessment of Dead Or Alive’s classic single, in a 1985 Smash Hits interview alongside his mate Pete Burns, was bang on the money. Moz saw through the red-top gender-bender headlines and the band’s almost inevitable one-hit wonder status and homed in on the pure evil, lustful glee of the record, revelling in the spectacle of one of 80s pop’s finest weirdos (and there were many) belting out an irresistible, relentless slab of sexed-up goth disco on primetime TV… Production trio Stock Aitken & Waterman were just beginning to break out of the Hi-NRG club scene with hits by Divine and Hazell Dean, but were looking for that first big hit. When singer Pete Burns gave Waterman a demo tape of ‘You Spin Me Round‘, he knew they’d found it – “You walked in with a piece of gold and said to me ‘Would you shine it?’” he recalled in a 2009 interview with Burns. “You did shine it” replied Burns, “with knobs on.” godisinthetvzine

Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill ( A Deal With God) simultaneously functions as pop and something infinitely stranger. Its sound is ghostly and faintly sinister – an ominous cloud of synthesiser hangs in the background; weird, garbled backing vocals crash in out of nowhere – but its chorus is exhilarating and euphoric. It draws the listener inexorably into its idiosyncratic world: pop music made by someone alive to the possibilities of what pop music can be theguardian

Prefab Sprout – Bonny Thomas Dolby’s contribution was to bring his own brand of geekery… but it was as producer on Prefab Sprout’s second album Steve McQueen that he helped make the uncoolest cool record of his career.

Dolby’s role to upbraid the tracks whilst resisting the urge to smother them in technological gloss paid huge dividends, as Steve McQueen was a contemporary sounding masterpiece that brimmed with humanity and flawless observation. On Bonny however any sheen was illusory, as over a lonely sounding wind McAloon near-whispers to a melancholic guitar strum, a feather touch making the little crescendos feel like sighs in an empty room arcticreviews

The Dentists – Strawberries Are Growing In My Garden (And It’s Wintertime) Despite copious amount of nicotine, alcohol and fried food I have somehow managed to defy the fertility gods and sire three beautiful children. I now have responsibilities like a mortgage and trying to teach my kids how to avoid becoming social reprobates.

I have also managed to pick up lots of strange habits like insisting my tea tastes better from a particular mug, never being able to sleep unless I have ‘my pillow’, being confused to the point of distraction over my eldest child’s fashion sense, insisting on buying physical format music and moaning about all manner of trivialities and minutiae in life.

I like to explain it all by saying I have matured intellectually enough to know what is right and wrong and to know what I like. This, of course, is merely a euphemism for the reality of the situation…i.e. I am rapidly getting old.

One of my current ‘old man grumbles’ is that the internet music scene is helping to kill off the brilliance of a ‘regional sound’. Now I know deep down that the internet is the best thing that has ever happened to music as it allows me to discover music I would never have found. However this does always satiate ‘grumpy old man’ who misses the times when Liverpool went through the Merseybeat era, Manchester bands started playing music on an 18th century church organ in the Baggy scene and places like Seattle hurled numerous grunge bands onto the world.

One of the regional sounds was called the Medway scene and was pioneered in the previously sleepy British County of Kent was pioneered in the late 70’s by various Billy Childish bands playing in unfashionable musical outposts such as Rochester, Gillingham, Chatham and Strood. The Dentists were undoubtedly the poster boys of the scene garnering both limited commercial success and massive critical acclaim on both sides of the atlantic.

Strawberries are Growing in my Garden (In Winter Time) became something of a cultural idiom at the time. I am not quite sure what the playful lyrics mean or what cultural significance it had for the youngsters but I just remember everyone knowing the words and jumping to the dance floor when even the very first spidery chiming guitar notes were released from the speakers.

It always makes me laugh when music snobs mock the 80’s as The Dentists are one of 100’s of bands from the era that either helped define todays indie-music scene or would sit very easily in the upper echelons of acclaimed bands if they were around today in their pomp and I will be forever grateful that my grumpy old stage had not engulfed me at that point and I still had enough energy to stomp around the dance floor to ‘Strawberries…’ janglepophub

Grab Grab The Haddock – Last Fond Goodbye This terminally cute London quartet with the daft name spun off from the defunct Marine Girls but, unlike former bandmate Tracey Thorn (who went on to form Everything but the Girl), Alice Fox and her crew still hawk the chaotic tunelessness that made the Marine Girls so insufferable trouserpress

The Chills – This Is The Way “Fill your head with alcohol, comic books and drugs …” From the dreamy The Lost EP. I never knew there was a video of this until now and when I watched the deeply melancholy video clip for the first time, I burst into tears then promptly watched it another nine times. The autoharp, the juice bottle, the simplicity theguardian

The Triffids – Beautiful Waste a majestic, anthemic song that you’d think could not fail to be a big hit, but it did just that of course drownedinsound

The Colourfield – Thinking Of You a totally different sound from that of Terry Hall‘s previous bands – lots of acoustic guitar with a very clean production – quintessential pop music with a hint of indie in many ways. It came as such a shock to long-standing fans and many other music critics that one reviewer was led to write:-

‘This lot have absolutely nothing going for them. No sense of humour. No glamour. No good melodies. No danceable rhythms. No excitement. No controversy. No emotion. Nothing whatsoever. They are, in short, ruddy awful’

He was of course, quite wrong… This is a record that was ahead of its time. Just four years later, Paul Heaton formed The Beautiful South and released a bundle of hit singles and albums that aren’t a million miles away from that of The Colourfield. And just after that, Ian Broudie formed The Lightning Seeds to great acclaim, and again much of the sound of his band could be traced back to The Colourfield.

It’s a gloriously mellow piece of work, sometimes low-key, but filled with gorgeous pop music throughout – hints of Spanish guitar, synth-produced strings, woodwind instruments and keyboards all appear at different times on different songs…Thinking back, I think its fair to assume that the main reason no-one took it seriously was that Terry Hall had forged a reputation as a representative of disaffected youth and having been pigeon-holed in that fashion not too many were keen to allow him to carve a different and more lasting niche. thenewvinylvillain

The Housemartins – Flag Day It’s both a message of how things never change, and that this lot was heading for chart success louderthanwar

Einstürzende Neubauten – Yü-gung (Fütter Mein Ego/Feed My Ego) there’s that iconic scream which sounds like he’s inhaling and exhaling at the same time. While the song probably doesn’t strictly speaking deserve to be seven minutes long, the rhythm’s so goddamn infectious that I don’t care; truth be told, I actually listen to it on a semi-regular basis just for the rhythm section alone, it’s that catchy sputnikmusic

Husker Du – Books About UFOs Hart didn’t only write songs about death and depravity. This jaunty piano highlight from 1985’s New Day Rising draws out his playfulness, offering the kind of character study you can imagine having influenced Belle and Sebastian pitchfork

Talking Heads – And She Was  in the grand tradition of smuggling references to illegal drugs into chart hits, tells the story of “a blissed-out hippie-chick in Baltimore” who used to drop acid in a field by the Yoo-hoo chocolate soda factory and fly high out of her mind above the city. There’s something sweetly innocent and transcendent about her trip, “a pleasant elevation” that becomes an out-of-body experience a she watches herself below “like a movie”. theguardian

Whitney Houston – How Will I Know? a perfectly formed slice of mid-80s bubblegum soul – booming drums, sax solo and all – as bright and appealing as the neon colours splashed around the set of its video theguardian

Propaganda – Duel that catchy little ditty that has been turning up on the radio every so often for years but you can’t quite put a title or band name to it. But ‘Duel’, probably Propaganda’s most poppy song, hides the fact that the relatively short-lived Düsseldorf-originating group was quite a significant member of a German new wave synth-art-rock movement in the 1980s godisinthetvzine

The Associates – Take Me To The Girl winningly sung, upbeat and sweet, with another killer Mackenzie couplet: “My flesh was always weak/ My tango less than chic.” thequietus

The Sedgemorons – Drop Dead Darling led on to them writing a musical Rock & Roll Is Pretty Exciting, about a carpark attendant whose carpark is set to be turned into a disco and recruits a posse of gunmen to halt the enterprise. After this there would be no further projects – how could there be c85liner notes

Dire Straits – Your Latest Trick almost makes the sax acceptable nme

The Wedding Present – Go Out and Get ‘Em Boy not too shabby, although the lo-fi nature of the production kind of gives away that things were basic in the studio and money was tight thenewvinylvillain

Big Flame – Debra  On first listen … rough around the edges, but by the end of the day, 10-15 spins later, they seemed like beautifully polished gems thegreatleapforward

The June Brides – Josef’s Gone still makes the heart swell all these years later.  The lyric recounts the heart-in-mouth, what-will-happen-next feeling of taking to a stage to perform a clutch of songs, and is I presume simultaneously a homage to seeing Josef K do precisely the same.  That feeling of nervousness that a musician has is not so dissimilar to a fan’s for his favourites as they take to the stage – will this be a good night?  Will they do themselves justice, be loved by all these other ears, who may not be as on their side as I am?  It’s simultaneously about that feeling of anticipation, and an elegy for lost times backedwith

REM – Driver 8 At that time, Michael Stipe has said he was bulimic, terrified that he had Aids, and he was having a nervous breakdown. This song is a moment of joy in a record where swampy depths reign theguardian

Beat Happening – Our Secret They barely knew how to play at this point, but they knew what a great pop song should sound like. Ever the gentleman, Calvin is going to run away with a girl, but first he’s going to have dinner with her family, I assume to tell them of their plans. What a punk finestkiss

Biff Bang Pow! – The Chocolate Elephant Man Alan McGee will forever be an Indie impressario, the lynchpin behind Primal Scream and Oasis. But he was also an integral part of the musical fabric during those seminal early years at Creation. Previously, he had fronted Laughing Apple for three Jam-ish post-punk singles. Partnering with Dick Green, McGee named his new band Biff Bang Pow!…Debut album Pass The Paintbrush, Honey was the label’s best kept secret scaredtogethappy

Primal Scream – All Fall Down regarded as something of a joke, as indeed were the band.  It’s since become a staple at every indie/twee disco across the planet, and the tune something of a template for many badge-wearing boys and girls who wanted to sing quietly into a microphone.  I’ve a feeling the modern-day Primal Scream wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face if they tried to play this live these days thenewvinylvillain

Dream Academy – Life In A Northern Town “That’s the best thing you’ve done. Why don’t you let me produce it for you?” David Gilmour