30 indie rock records I swear by (part I)

[This post ran a little long – if you’re reading in your email app, click ‘read in app’ or ‘view in browser’ to get the whole thing]

The second I embarked on writing this particular list, I realised I had a few problems.

The first was the elusive nature of the ‘indie rock’ label. Long disconnected from the economic concept of bands releasing their music independently, many cornerstones of indie rock were released on major labels and bolstered with substantial marketing budgets. So, what do we have left? Music that has guitars in it? Catchy riffs? Can’t be too dark, or it becomes post-punk. Too complex? Might be math rock. Too melancholic and Midwestern? Oops, you’ve stumbled into emo territory.

The second problem was the sheer number of records I could have included in this list. I realised that I needed some guard rails to make things a little easier, so – perhaps controversially – I’m only picking records from the 21st century.

Here’s my thinking: the proliferation of ‘indie rock’ really accelerated in the 2000s, becoming a catch-all for guitar bands with one foot in the mainstream and the other in indie cred circles.

Of course, prior to the turn of the century indie rock music was aplenty: Mercury Rev, Neutral Milk Hotel, Yo La Tengo, Sonic Youth to name but a few.

But somewhere in the early 2000s, the discovery of this music became intrinsically linked to the growing communities of the internet. Blogs like Gorilla vs. Bear and Drowned in Sound spoke of records from bands like TV on the Radio and Bloc Party as the second comings of rock music.

From the 2000s and beyond, indie rock became a genuine monoculture. That’s why, to me, indie rock will always be broadly a 21st century thing. Agree or disagree? Do let me know.

One other bit of housekeeping. As always, this is a highly personal list. As such, there are a few omissions that some readers will balk at. I’ll reel them off here to get it out the way: No Is This It (never liked The Strokes), no LCD Soundsystem (always left me cold), and no Wilco (no, not even Yankee Hotel Foxtrot).

Phew, that was like ripping off a very sticky plaster.

If you want to listen along whilst you read, I’ve curated the usual playlists on Spotify and Apple Music. I hope you find something new to enjoy!

Cementing her position as an icon of 90s rock with Rid of Me and To Bring You My Love, Polly Jane Harvey has never been one for resting on her laurels. Instead of churning out carbon copies of her earlier records, she shifted focus and delivered a perfect indie rock record at the turn of the millennium. Written both in New York and the English county of Dorset (not far from where I’m writing this feature), Harvey made a conscious decision to move away from the dark, nauseating sound of her 90s output to find something brighter and breezier. As a result, Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea traded menace for melody without sacrificing any of Harvey’s intensity. Where earlier records clawed the listener, this record opens its arms. In one release, she proved that reinvention could be just as powerful as confrontation.

On the playlist: ‘Big Exit’ & ‘This Mess We’re In’

I first became aware of these pugnacious indie punks through an NME live review of their performance at the legendary Scala. The writer fawned over the baffling stage antics of frontman Tim Harrington, who by all accounts sounded like one of the most unhinged frontmen to ever pick up a mic: “Everyone ends up onstage, under the thrall of a rotund bearded ringmaster who is, by this point, dressed in nothing but a pink nightie.” I’ve never been lucky enough to catch Les Savy Fav live, but have spent the past two decades playing Inches to death. Collecting nine seven-inch singles released between 1995 and 2004, this was no cheap cash grab in the tradition of most ‘greatest hits’ releases. In fact, for my money this remains the greatest project the New York group ever released, not to mention one of the most underrated indie rock records of the 2000s.

On the playlist: ‘The Sweat Descends’ & ‘Our Coastal Hymn’

Back in 2011 when I grabbed this CD from my local music shop, I had no idea what was in store for me. The only certainty was that this was the most incredible album cover I had ever laid eyes on. I mean, look at it! Taken by Polish photographer Mirosław Świątek, it captures an insect sleeping in the early hours of daylight, dappled with microscopic droplets of morning dew. It’s pure psychedelic iridescence, a mirroring of the music that makes up Eye Contact. Throughout their career the New York band have artfully combined Middle-Eastern influences, ambient, and even psychedelic rock, effortlessly threaded together by the entrancing vocal presence of Lizzi Bougatsos. The 11-minute scene-setter ‘Glass Jar’ couldn’t be a stronger way to kick-start this kaleidoscopic odyssey. Never bettered, this was their finest moment.

On the playlist: ‘Glass Jar’ & ‘MindKilla’

For a mere moment, Silent Alarm lost out on this list to the Oxford band’s sophomore follow-up A Weekend In The City. Sacrilege to some, the dual forces of Bloc Party’s first two records were monolithic in my late childhood, so much so that I can barely choose between them. In the end, I think the 2005 debut just edges it (even if AWITC has ‘Uniform’, one of the best songs they ever wrote). Two decades later, the immediacy of Silent Alarm remains: Matt Tong’s incisive percussive patterns, Kele Okereke’s palpable angst, the melodic bass lines of Gordon Moakes, and the creativity of Russell Lissack’s guitar work (even if it’s hugely indebted to fellow Oxford-hailers Radiohead). Like Arctic Monkeys’ debut, it’s difficult to overstate the influence Silent Alarm had on 90s kids navigating teenage hormones and cutting their teeth on guitar bands. And it still hits.

On the playlist: ‘Positive Tension’ & ‘This Modern Love’

Taking the list into soft-rock, 80s pop territory is Alex Cameron’s biting satire of sleazeballs. The Australian musician embodies masculine identity at its most toxic on Forced Witness, performing grubby little stories with varying degrees of offence that make you think, “who is this terrible person?” In an interview with BK Mag back in 2017, Cameron offered a window into the record while talking about penultimate track ‘Marlon Brando’: “I wanted to tear this person to shreds, this bigoted, ignorant bully…my goal was to paint this realistic portrait that if a person ever came across it, they’d be compelled to have a look at themselves.” The real card trick is somehow making these sardonic takedowns incredibly catchy and likeable. It’s a record stuffed with earworms – Cameron made a greatest-hits-level LP, complete with an Angel Olsen duet that evokes grainy CRT broadcasts and soft-focus camerawork.

On the playlist: ‘Stranger’s Kiss (duet with Angel Olsen)’ & ‘Marlon Brando’

Whatever happened to Late of the Pier? The question has rung out since the disappearance which followed their synth-heavy, show-stopping debut. Riding on the tidal wave of psych-indie groups of the mid-2000s, Late of the Pier sounded a little like MGMT and Klaxons but burned far brighter. Maximalist as fuck and way up in your personal space, Sam Eastgate and the rest of the Leicestershire band threw the kitchen sink – and the rest of the house – at listeners with Fantasy Black Channel. It has a weather-beaten skronk that no other group replicated in the 2000s indie rock scene, where synths and guitars fizz and pop as they’re crammed into an approximation of a dance-punk indie format. Then, that was it. The band members went to work on other projects, and drummer Ross Dawson tragically died in an accident in 2015. We’ll probably never hear a Late of the Pier record again, but their only LP remains one of the cult gems of the 2000s.

On the playlist: ‘Heartbeat’ & ‘Focker’

Picking a single Mitski record was a much easier assignment than I had expected. Whilst my own absolute favourite is probably 2018’s Be the Cowboy, the American singer-songwriter lit up the indie world with 2016’s Puberty 2, collecting praise and acclaim during a year already stuffed to the gills with excellent records. Before she moved onto her more ornate, burnished songwriting of the past half-decade, Puberty 2 had a tatty crunch to it. Recorded in just two weeks, it sounds like thoughts and emotions erratically scribbled across a page before being struck out: ink smudged, paper torn, she’s putting her heart there for all to see, presentation be damned. It’s also the record responsible for ‘Your Best American Girl’, a generational song that set Brixton Academy alight last time I saw her perform.

On the playlist: ‘Happy’ & ‘Your Best American Girl’

On visiting LA’s legendary Amoeba Music in 2017, I perused the racks of records with my dad for at least an hour. He looked puzzled when I left with just one purchase: a cassette of Celebration Rock. “Do you have a tape player?” he asked. A fair question. I did not. But if I ever found myself travelling the breadth of North America in a beat-up 80s Mustang with only a tape deck, I’d have the perfect company. Brian King and David Prowse put out a flawless rock record in 2012, with a breathless quality only equalled by Jeff Rosenstock’s WORRY in the years since. The British Columbia duo found a formula for huge songs with stadium-like singalongs, wrapped in the economic one-two punch of power chords and pummelling drums. Every track has a soul that reminds me of the most earnest Springsteen moments, albeit a hell of a lot louder. And, unlike Boss-worshippers The Gaslight Anthem, Prowse and King make this well-worn sound entirely their own. One day, I’ll have a reason to play that tape.

On the playlist: ‘Fire’s Highway’ & ‘The House That Heaven Built’

As the October nights were drawing in, it was a particularly foggy evening when I donned my headphones to take a first listen to Archie Marshall’s third King Krule record, wandering through the liminal spaces of dimly-lit alleyways connecting housing estates. It doesn’t matter where I am now when I listen to THE OOZ, because that situation became so directly connected to my first experience of it that it will forever be the sound of dark corners – the smell of bark from the nearby children’s playground, the crunch of glass underfoot. Even if you don’t choose this very suburban scene to listen to this record, you’d be hard-pressed to deny the lethargic, night-time aura of the tracks here. Marshall’s an artist who has always absorbed influences like a sponge, allowing them to seep out of his own songwriting. Hidden inside THE OOZ are elements of surf rock, if the surf was crashing against the concrete tide walls of a decrepit English seaside town. Or smoky jazz drifting from the window above a boarded-up shopfront.

On the playlist: ‘Dum Surfer’ & ‘Czech One’

In a list mostly absent of crushing sadness, the third release from US band The Antlers has got us covered in that department. Wringing tears from listeners back in 2009, Hospice tells the story of an abusive relationship, through the metaphor of a hospice worker who falls in love with a cancer patient. It’s devastating stuff. Speaking to NME back in 2019 for the 10th anniversary of the record, Peter Silberman reflected on the impression this record had on listeners across the world: “I think what’s valuable about it is that there’s something cathartic and redemptive about it. The protagonist comes out the other side having realised something important about how to be in the world. How to regard yourself, and regard other people.” It’s astonishing to look back and see how the work of a single person had such a profound effect on so many. Silberman produced something deeply personal which spoke to millions.

On the playlist: ‘Kettering’ & ‘Two’

Angel Olsen really stepped up her game with All Mirrors, bringing a swooning string section to songs about the fleeting nature of love and reflections on past lives. Olsen has always been a formidable presence on the mic, but never with as much elegance and panache as the 11 tracks of this record. Dramatic flourishes seem as effortless as a flick of the wrist, with string sweeps reinforcing a vocal performance magnified by swirling delay and reverb. Olsen’s string melodies remind me of the kind employed by Radiohead across A Moon Shaped Pool, taking centre stage both in the upper and lower registers. Unafraid to wade into the waters of sentimentality, final track ‘Chance’ is one of the most gorgeous ballads of the 2010s.

On the playlist: ‘Lark’ & ‘Chance’

If “tramps like us, baby we were born to run” was the cry of freedom for the disillusioned youth of the mid-70s, the unsubtle inversion that blasts The Monitor into orbit is one primed for resigned Millennials: “tramps like us, baby we were born to die”. Titus Andronicus are an absolute gem of a group. Hailing from New Jersey, their 2010 masterpiece is held together with duct tape and tangled XLR cables, evoking the great garage bands from decades past. Patrick Stickles draws from the concept of the American Civil War to frame The Monitor, weaving the struggle against oppression with the very modern anxieties of navigating a world without meaning or purpose in the 2010s. It’s alcohol-soaked bar singalongs at their finest, with lyrical complexity and dexterity if you take the time to really listen.

On the playlist: ‘A More Perfect Union’ & ‘Theme from “Cheers”’

This record took on a new significance in my life just a few months ago, when my wife and I – newly married – walked out of our ceremony to ‘Chicago’, amidst the clapping and cheering of our families and friends. Those with keen ears will have also heard a few other tracks quietly humming in the distance during our wedding breakfast. Illinois is now one of those landmark records in our relationship that I’ll never be able to listen to objectively. But who the hell would want to listen to music ‘objectively’ anyway? Illinois is Stevens’ best record, his most gratifying and immediate. For a record which spans 22 tracks across 73 minutes, the life-affirming quality of the songs never falters over that time. The record was part of a project where Stevens jokingly planned to write records for all 50 states of the US. Though he might have moved onto other modes of songwriting, including the excellent Carrie & Lowell, this remains one of the greatest indie rock records ever made.

On the playlist: ‘Chicago’ & ‘The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders Part 1’

(Adapted from an October edition of In My Ears)

Since its release back in the late noughties, I’ve not let a single autumn pass without at least a handful of listens to this fine record. I was 16 at time of release: dripping in anxiety, a new school for sixth form and a fresh set of braces to boot. Like many of my peers, I carried the blinkered adolescent notion that my life was somehow ‘bad’. Worries about school, girls, plans for university and the future, I lacked perspective on quite how lucky I was to grow up in the home and town that I did. So when Glasvegas came along, James Allan’s hearty Scottish voice propelled me into a completely alien world: tales of domestic violence, absent fathers, crime-wracked streets. Lest we forget, at that point Glasgow had been dubbed the “knife crime capital of Europe”. Yet here was a band that wore the good and bad of their heritage on their sleeves, nay in the literal name. There was pride and community to be found amongst the tragedy: ‘Flowers & Football Tops’ imagines people coming together to remember the death of a young man, laying wreaths and kits down on wet tarmac. Glasvegas never quite managed to reach the highs of their debut again, releasing good records but nothing that moved me in the way their debut did. For me, it will forever be a reminder of a world outside my own experience, a hefty dose of perspective that led me towards filmmakers like Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, covering poverty and the tragic social issues that many in the UK face. Come to think of it, this record probably made me pay more attention to politics, an interest that eventually led me to becoming a community reporter. So, thanks James and co – Glasvegas has a lot to answer for.

On the playlist: ‘Geraldine’ & ‘Polmont on my Mind’

Thanks for reading, and let me know what you think should be on the second half of the list next week!