I am not a superstitious person and as someone who lives in Apartment #13 in his Brooklyn building (true story), I actually see Friday The 13th as lucky. I feel especially fortuitous today with a whole bunch of great records that are out today. One of them is a lock for my Top 10 of 2024, and the rest are pretty damn good too. I review the latest from Tindersticks, Nilüfer Yanya, Nada Surf, Robyn Hitchcock, Trentemøller, The Mystery Lights and new DFA Records artist Mermaid Chunky.

This week’s Indie Basement Classic is a record from a band I’ll be seeing live in October: Massive Attack.

If you need more reviews, Andrew also reviews seven albums this week in Notable Releases, including The Jesus Lizard, Foxing, and Floating Points.

It was a busy week for news as well: Franz Ferdinand announced a new album (and if you haven’t checked in on them in a while, the first single is good); we also got new album announcements from Warmduscher, Montreal krautrock devotees Yoo Doo Right, and New Zealand’s Fazerdaze. The Cure seem like they’re about to announce something as well. We’ll see.

Also: are Pulp making a new album? I argue yes. Liam Gallagher says Oasis are too but I’m less interested in that to be honest.

Have a good weekend! Head below for this week’s reviews.

ALBUM OF THE WEEK #1: Tindersticks – Soft Tissue (City Slang)
A dash of Memphis-style soul makes for one of Tindersticks’ best albums ever

“Baby I was falling, but the shit that I was falling through, thought it was just the world rising.” Stuart Staples has sounded weary since Tindersticks first got their start back in 1992 when he was just 27. His hangdog crooner style is essential to the band’s shabby chic charm and also what makes what they do so evergreen. Philosophizing and pondering matters of the heart against a backdrop of chamber pop, sometimes widescreen and sometimes lo-fi, works outside of trends and, like a well-constructed casual blazer, never goes out of style.

Following 2020’s string-heavy No Tragedy But Hope and 2021’s (excellent) experimental post-punk-inspired Distractions, new album Soft Tissue is warm and inviting, a distinctly Tindersticks riff on classic soul, full of sultry grooves and Memphis-style horn arrangements and backing vocals. It would be a very different album, but you could imagine the late, great Charles Bradley subbing for Staples on the whole thing, but especially on “New World,” “Nancy,” and “Turned My Back,” the three best numbers of the album. Stuart Staples’ voice, though, makes it a Tindersticks album through and through, and one of their best. It’s got the late night closing-time vibes, lyrics soaked in romance, regret and red wine, and eight great, memorable songs.

The best of the bunch is “Turned My Back,” where the horns, strings and Gina Foster’s backing vocals of “This FREEEDOM!” offer hopeful counterbalance to Staples’ tale of choosing the lonely road, burnt bridges and broken hearts be damned. They’ve dabbled in soul before (1999’s Simple Pleasure), but embracing Stax style arrangements is new territory for them. It works so well that it’s hard to believe it took Tindersticks 30 years to make a record like this. 

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ALBUM OF THE WEEK #2: Nilüfer Yanya – My Method Actor (Ninja Tune)
Strings enliven the West London singer-songwriter’s third album that finds her unique style still delivering the sultry goods

For her third album (and first for Ninja Tune), Nilüfer Yanya shrunk her creative pod to pandemic levels, making My Method Actor with regular collaborator/producer Wilma Archer and no one else. “This is the most intense album, in that respect,” Yanya says. “Because it’s only been us two. We didn’t let anyone else into the bubble.” That insular process has given us the West London artist’s most nuanced album yet, a refinement of the sound Yanya cultivated on 2019’s Miss Universe and 2022’s Painless, mixing grungy guitars with nimble grooves and her unique, sultry delivery. Nilüfer’s vocals are the key here; she often blends a lower register melody line with a second one sung in a breathy falsetto which mirrors her use of melodic basslines with delicately arpeggiated guitar. There’s always a little noise in there too: as gorgeous strings swell on “Ready for the Sun (touch),” so does a sinister, crackling feedback worthy of David Lynch. Few artists work droney textures into pop music today as well as Nilüfer Yanya, and her distinct guitar chording powers rock-leaning songs “Keep on Dancing” and “Like I Say (I runaway),” slippery R&B jam “Mutations,” and delicate ballads like “Binding.” Nobody else sounds like her, and My Method Actor finds Nilüfer continuing to rise.

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Nada Surf – Moon Mirror (New West)
Tenth album from these indie rock stalwarts finds them continuing to do what they do best

Thirty years into their career, Nada Surf have a signature style and inquisitive worldview that allows them to pull off the difficult trick of “same, but different” with each new record. “Every time we make an album, I’m asked (and ask myself) what it’s about,” says frontman Matthew Caws. “I never know how to answer that question. I’m still trying to figure everything out, and that’s probably as close to a theme as there is…I’m just trying to stay honest with myself and take my best guess at making sense of the world.” Moon Mirror is the band’s 10th, first for New West Records after 20 years on Barsuk, and another great example of what they do so well. Caws’ still has that wide-eyed wonder and way with a swelling melody that makes for songs that are hooky and hopeful but not sappy. Recorded at famed Rockfield Studios in Wales with producer Ian Laughton, the album mixes ’90s indie rock and synthy new wave for a crunchy/dreamy sound that allows for pop (“In Front of Me Now,” “Second Skin”), swaying anthems (“New Propeller,” the title track), and some welcome sludge (“Give Me the Sun,” the Teenage Fanclub-esque “Losing”). Thirty years into their career, with a record as good as this, I hope Caws never figures everything out.

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Trentemøller – Dreamweaver (In My Room)
The Danish artist heads into ’80s 4AD territory on his latest album

Denmark’s Anders Trentemøller has been working in the center of a moody venn diagram of electronica and dreampop for nearly three decades, specializing in gothy, downtempo atmosphere while also capable of creating floor-filling bangers. New album Dreamweaver falls mostly in the former category and almost plays like a tribute to late-’80s 4AD Records, This Mortal Coil in particular…if Ivo had had more of an interest in synthesizers and drum machines. Nylon string acoustic guitars are plucked lightly alongside swirling keyboards, with heavenly vocals courtesy Icelandic singer Disa who Trentemøller brought into his universe on the Memoria tour. It’s not pure ether, either, with songs like “Dreamweavers” and “Behind My Eyes” powering forward with a driving motorik beat. Gothy shoegaze has never been more popular than now and it’s good that vets like him are still showing the kids how it’s done.

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Robyn Hitchcock – 1967: Vacations in the Past (Tiny Ghost)
A companion to his new memoir, Robyn covers classic from the year that made him

Robyn Hitchcock recently released a memoir, 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left, where he tracks how that pivotal year in culture and music changed his life forever while attending boarding school as a young teenager: “When he arrives in January 1966, Robyn Hitchcock is still a boy pining for the comforts of home and his family’s loving au pair, Teresa. By December 1967, he’s mutated into a 6’2″ tall rabid Bob Dylan fan, whose two ambitions in life are to get really high and fly to Nashville.” Hitchcock also discovers Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd and other musical ur-texts for the songwriter and guitarist he would become with The Soft Boys and his long solo career.

To go along with the book, Robyn has made a companion album featuring covers of some of his favorite songs by artists from the original psychedelic era, including Pink Floyd, Small Faces, Tomorrow, The Incredible String Band, The Beatles, Procol Harum, and more. “I love playing these 1967 vintage compositions,” says Robyn. “As great songs do, they bottle fragments of time like fireflies in a jar. The original recordings were heavily produced, but my versions on this album are based on one or two acoustic guitars with a few effects thrown in to spice the sound and nod to the times.” He also gets some help from Kelley Stoltz and other friends. 1967 is not an essential album in Robyn’s catalog but it’s not trying to be; his love of these songs is evident though and it is a fun listen. The one Hitchcock original, the album’s title track, is a winner, however. “I take my vacations in the past,” he sings. “And they last forever.”

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The Mystery Lights – Purgatory (Daptone/Wick)
First album in five years from this superior garage-psych band sounds like a lost classic from the Nuggets era

The late-’00s garage-psych revival is well in the rear view and many of the artists from that scene who remain (Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Wand) have moved on beyond that sound. But there are a few True Believers still out there, like The Mystery Lights who were originally from Salinas but moved to Brooklyn in the mid-2010s. Led by Mike Brandon, the band have always been superior practitioners of the genre, bringing not just a blistering, high-energy live show but great songs to go along with it, not to mention a welcome dollop of soul that gives them high danceability (and landed them on Daptone imprint Wick). Purgatory is The Mystery Lights’ first album in five years and was, like their last two, produced by Wayne Gordon who knows how to give everything that proper vintage feel. That wouldn’t mean that much without the songs, but they are still delivering the goods: see “Mysteries,” “Trouble” and “Sorry I Forgot Your Name” for three examples. The Mystery Lights may echo the past but they’re keeping garage rock in the present tense.

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Mermaid Chunky – Slif Slaf Slof (DFA)
Eccentric debut album from the UK duo is an unlikely record for DFA to release and plays like a Wicker Man-themed rave

UK duo Mermaid Chunky (Freya Tate and Moina Moin) are the weirdest band ever to be signed to DFA Records. To be fair, with a mix of faery folk, performance art, tribal rhythms, and a hardware store’s supply of kitchen sinks, these two would probably be the weirdest artist on any label they were on. Apparently, DFA boss James Murphy heard an early single on NTS Radio and he immediately tracked them down, telling them “You’ve restored my faith in music,” and asked them to open for LCD Soundsystem at Brixton Academy in 2022. Their debut album is like a Wicker Man themed rave, heavy on the flutes and other ren fair instruments, but soon come the proggy synths, beats, and other eccentric noises. Is that a didgeridoo or a throat-singer? Maybe it’s a duck? I’m still not sure. There’s also a song, “chaperone,” that owes a lot to Barry White before heading into electro-banger disco territory. (It’s the most DFA song on the album.) Even if you’re down with the discography of Cocorosie and Let’s Eat Grandma, you’ve probably never heard anything quite like Mermaid Chunky, but they are fun, not wilfully obtuse. Will slif slaf slof restore your faith in music? Play it loud enough, under the right circumstances, and it just might.

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Massive Attack – Blue Lines (Wild Bunch/Virgin)
With Massive Attack’s first tour in five years set to touch down in the US next month, let’s look back at their flawless debut album

Born out of Bristol’s The Wild Bunch sound system that also spawned Soul II Soul, Massive Attack ( Robert “3D” Del Naja, Andrew “Mushroom” Vowles and Grant “Daddy G” Marshall) pioneered a new sound that mixed hip hop, UK club culture, dub, ’60s soundtracks and ’70s soul. It was still three years from being called “trip hop,” but the building blocks are all present on Massive Attack’s masterful debut album. 3D, Mushroom and Daddy built their songs on classic, evergreen parts — swelling strings, classic breakbeats, propulsive dubby basslines, inventive layered sampling — and gathered a group of fantastic voices to sing them, including Shara Nelson, reggae icon Horace Andy, and Neneh Cherry, not to mention Adrian “Tricky” Thaws’ distinctive, whispery drawl. The album’s many singles — “Safe from Harm,” “Unfinished Sympathy,” “Daydreaming,” “Hymn of the Big Wheel” and a cover of William DeVaughn’s “Be Thankful for What You Got” — are the clear highlights, but the rest of the record is just as good, especially “Five Man Army” which points to where Massive Attack’s sound would go on their next album, Protection. The style presented here has been imitated and diluted endlessly over the last 30 years, but Blue Lines still sounds fantastic, modern and effortlessly cool.

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The 20 Best Britpop Albums of 1995

20. Echobelly – On

Where Echobelly's debut album (1994's Everybody's Got One) was as shiny as Britpop got, the band scuffed things up just a little for its follow-up, and made On with American production team Sean Slade and Paul Q Kolderie (Buffalo Tom, Hole, Radiohead's The Bends). The guitars rip and roar a touch more, but songs like "Great Things," "King of the Kerb," and "Pantyhose and Roses" remain chipper, sugar-sweet and ridiculously catchy. Like on their debut, On's most distinctive feature remains singer Sonya Aurora Madan whose crystal clear voice really makes things soar.

19. Salad – Drink Me

London group Salad was led by Dutch musician and model Marijne van der Vlugt who was also a VJ for MTV Europe at the same time she was in the band. She was a striking presence in the band with a clear, powerful voice that cut through the often jagged guitars --- all of which set them apart from the rest of the Britpop pack. Certainly no other group was releasing anything quite as wonderfully odd as "Motorbike to Heaven" or "Drink the Elixir" at the time. Despite being on a major label (Island Records subsidiary Red), Salad were just a little too odd for mainstream popularity -- though Drink Me did briefly enter the UK Top 20 -- but it does, however, make the album ripe for rediscovery (they're also back in action).

18. Menswe@r – Nuisance

Every genre seems to have its blatantly commercial group that pays close attention to the competition, trying to beat them at their own game while proclaiming what they really want to be is famous. Menswe@r were that band for Britpop, a group that felt like they were conceived in the pages of the hype-heavy British music press or at a scene-y Camden pub like The Good Mixer. In fact, the band's Johnny Dean and Chris Gentry managed to get a quote about Menswe@r in an issue of Select when the band was just an idea in their head, and Melody Maker put them on the cover before they'd released a single. (MM did the same for Suede.) Musically, the group swiped ideas from all the other popular bands: Like Elastica, they ripped off Wire ("Daydreamer") and brought in a string section a la Oasis or Blur for swoony ballad "Being Brave." Pulp and Suede are also clearly points of reference from the hairstyles down. But as far as style-forward disposable pop goes, Nuisance is enjoyable fluff and, unlike some groups, Menswe@r don't attempt to hide what they're doing.

17. Various Artists – The Help Album

Some of the biggest artists in the UK and Ireland, including most of the Britpop Elite, contributed new songs to this high concept benefit album aiding the War Child charity. The concept was inspired by John Lennon's "Instant Karma" -- the idea that all art should be released to the world as soon as it's made. So 20 artists went into the studio on September 4, 1995 and the album was in the shops five days later. Some of the Britpop highlights: Radiohead's "Lucky," which would appear two years later on OK Computer; a new, terrific acoustic version of Oasis b-side "Fade Away" featuring Johnny Depp and Kate Moss; Suede covering Elvis Costello's "Shipbuilding" (also famously covered by Robert Wyatt); Blur in playful instrumental mode on "Eine kleine Lift Musik"; The KLF's Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty as The One World Orchestra with a cover of The Magnificent Seven theme (their first music in four years); Salad and Specials frontman Terry Hall covering "Dream a Little Dream of Me"; and The Charlatans covering Sly & The Family Stone's "Time for Livin'." The biggest deal was a cover of The Beatles' "Come Together" by The Smokin' Mojo Filters (aka Paul McCartney, Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller), but the secret best song is Sinead O'Connor's cover of Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billy Joe."

16. Shack – Waterpistol

Shack were one of those bands who seemed poised for stardom but just couldn't catch a break or get out of their own way. Led by brothers Michael and John Head, who spent most of the '80s in orchestral indie band The Pale Fountains, Shack updated the '60s merseybeat sounds of their Liverpool hometown, which landed them sonically somewhere between The La's and The Stone Roses. Recording of their second album took place in 1991, but went over schedule as Michael Head struggled to finish songs; when the album was finished, the studio burned down along with the album's masters. The only finished copy of the record was in the possession of producer Chris Allison...who accidentally left the tape in a rental car. The DAT tape was eventually tracked down but by the time it was back in the hands of the group, their label had folded. Waterpistol finally saw release in 1995, by which time Shack had been broken up for a couple years already, with Michael Head falling into heroin addiction. Drama and back luck aside, Waterpistol is a fantastic record that felt very of the moment in 1995, full of shoulda-been-hits like "Dragonfly," "Mood of the Morning" and "Walter's Song." A lost classic that is well worth seeking out.

15. The Verve – A Northern Soul

The Verve started off as a deeply psychedelic band, known more for Nick McCabe's awesome, tripped out guitar pyrotechnics and frontman Richard Ashcroft's million-mile stare than catchy melodies. That all changed with The Verve's second album, which they made with Oasis producer Owen Morris. McCabe's playing was still very cosmic but was now in service of hooky rock songs that also made better use of Ashcroft's powerful pipes. (Drummer Pete Salisbury and bassist Simon Jones, meanwhile, were one of the best rhythm sections of the '90s.) Tracks like "This is Music" and "A New Decade" were still pretty far out, but it was singles "On Your Own" and "History" that proved The Verve could give the Gallaghers a run for their money in the sweeping ballad department.

14. Blur – The Great Escape

After the one-two punch of 1993's Modern Life is Rubbish and 1994's Parklife, there was a lot of pressure on Blur to one up themselves again. Of course, anything short of amazing was gonna be a letdown, and at the time this third serving of quirky British life felt like one Full English Breakfast too many. (Blur were full, too; the band looked to Magic America for 1997's self titled album which, woohoo, gave them their first U.S. hit.) But with the distance of 25 years, The Great Escape is actually a really good album, from singalong hits "Stereotypes" and "Charmless Man" (one of the great Blur singles), to the swaying "Best Days" and bouncing "Top Man." Blur and The Great Escape really excel at sweeping mood pieces and three of their best are here: "The Universal," "He Thought of Cars" and "Yuko and Hiro." Even the none-more-Blur "Country House" sounds pretty good now.

13. Paul Weller – Stanley Road

Never one to get too comfortable with his surroundings, Paul Weller has had a pathological need to reinvent himself over the years. He broke up The Jam at the height of their stardom to form the politically active, suave pop group The Style Council, which he then disbanded in 1989 just after turning 30. He changed things up again for his '90s solo career, making the kind of earthy, soulful rock you might expect from Traffic or Joe Cocker. At the same time a new crop of British groups (Supergrass, Blur, Pulp) looked to The Jam and The Style Council for inspiration. It all made it a perfect time for a Weller comeback. Having primed things with 1993's Wild Wood, Paul really delivered with the million-selling Stanley Road that featured a host of collaborators, including Steve Winwood, his old Style Council cohort Mick Talbot and big fan Noel Gallagher. Stanley Road's sound fit right in between Oasis and The Charlatans and on the album's lead single, "Changing Man," he even addressed his need to blow things up and start again -- "Numbed by the effect, aware of the muse, too in touch with myself, I light the fuse" -- all while cementing his Modfather status.

12. Sleeper – Smart

Louise Wener and Jon Stewart, who had been in a number of college bands together before moving to London, took out an ad in Melody Maker: "Bass player and drummer wanted. Influences The Pixies and The Partridge Family." Sleeper were born. Wener was a charismatic frontwoman and an even better lyricist, riviling Jarvis Cocker with witty, relatable tales of romantic angst, mid-20s ennui and sex in the suburbs. All that can be found on Sleeper's debut album, Smart, which kicks off with three fantastic singles: love-the-one-you're-with Top 20 UK hit "Inbetweener," the Pixies-ish "Swallow," and decidedly randy "Delicious." The nine songs that follow are nearly as good. The IT Girl, released in 1996, is even better but Sleeper  wouldn't last much longer, breaking up in 1998 after their third album; Wener then put her observational talents to good use as a novelist (her debut, 2002's Goodnight Steve McQueen, is terrific). Sleeper reformed in 2017 and released the very good The Modern Age in 2019.

11. Gene – Olympian

London group Gene were dogged by comparisons to The Smiths, due mostly to frontman Martin Rossitter's at times uncanny vocal resemblance to Morrissey, but also their purple-prosed lyrics and a propensity for sticking some of their best songs on b-sides. Those comparisons were fairly superficial, though, with guitarist Steve Mason drawing more from Small Faces' Steve Marriott or Paul Weller than Johnny Marr, and Rossitter offering a more positive, romantic, us-vs-the-world outlook than Moz. Gene also tended to swing for the fences with big riffs and bigger anthemic choruses, and their debut album, Olympian, finds them connecting with real power, whether it was swaggering rock like "Haunted by You," "Car That Sped" and "To the City," or more windswept numbers like "London, Can You Wait" and the title track. To See the Sights, released the next year, collects non-LP singles and b-sides from this era and is, to further that Smiths comparison, their Hatful of Hollow and a great companion to Olympian.

10. The Charlatans – The Charlatans

The Charlatans are survivors, having started as part of the Manchester music scene in the wake of The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. But they have managed to change with the changing times, surviving a few major setbacks and tragedies, while maintaining their own identity and Hammond organ-led sound. As Madchester's high faded, guitars began figuring in a little more prominently into their sound. While 1994's Up to Our Hips stumbled, The Charlatans sorted themselves out by the time of their self-titled fourth album, which found them sounding more confident than ever, adopting a Stones-y Exile on Main Street vibe that put them right in heart of Britpop. The Charlatans was a #1 album for them, with terrific hit singles "Crashin' In," "Just When You're Thinkin Things Over" and "Just Lookin'." Another impressive pivot for one of the UK's most resilient bands of the last 30 years.

9. Teenage Fanclub – Grand Prix

Glasgow's Teenage Fanclub haven't altered their musical course much since forming in the late '80s, making a brand of jangly guitar pop that owes much to Big Star, Beach Boys and The Byrds. With a high level of quality that continues to this day, Teenage Fanclub have done it without ever really playing music industry games, just happy to crank out good record after good record. But in the mid-'90s, the Fannies' classic sound fit right in with the Britpop revival. It also coincided with the release of what is arguably their best album, Grand Prix, which to play off the album's Formula One cover art, has them firing on all cylinders. It helps to have three very good songwriters, and Grand Prix was their first record where guitarist Raymond McGinley's work rose to the level of his bandmates Norman Blake and Gerrard Love. Some of Teenage Fanclub's all-time best songs are here: Love's "Sparky's Dream" and "Don't Look Back," Blake's "Mellow Doubt" and "Neil Jung" and McGinley's "About You" and "Verisimilitude."

8. Boo Radleys – Wake Up!

The Boo Radleys began life as died-in-the-wool, noise-loving shoegazers but main songwriter Martin Carr always had a fondness for classic pop songwriting that fought its way through the noise of their early records. The band dabbled in straight-up guitar pop on 1993's Giant Steps, which is also around the time their label, Creation, signed a band named Oasis whose runaway success really changed everything for the label and the existing roster. Where bands like Ride and The Boo Radleys were once content to make "cool" indie records, there was now pressure to compete with the Gallaghers in the charts. Carr came from the same school of pop as The Kinks, The Beatles and The Zombies and proved to be a natural, with The Boo Radleys making the transition effortlessly on their fourth album, Wake Up! The ebullient, horn-filled first single "Wake Up Boo!" is a song, like Katrina & The Waves' "Walking on Sunshine," that was made to be played the minute the weather gets nice, and was a Top 10 hit for the band that stayed in the UK singles charts for most of the spring and summer. While that was the only hit on the album (which also went to #1) but "It's Lulu" and "Find the Answer Within" shoulda been smashes, too.

7. Black Grape – It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah

Happy Mondays crashed and burned during the making of their 1992 album Yes Please!, with frontman Shaun Ryder and other members of the band dealing with serious drug problems. Instead of disappearing off the face of the earth, Ryder and Mondays dancer/vibes man Bez rebounded surprisingly quickly, forming Black Grape in 1993, enlisting Ruthless Rap Assassins members Paul "Kermit" Leveridge and Ged Lynch as well as producer and songwriting partner Danny Saber. Past excesses thankfully hadn't dimmed Ryder's lyrical wit one bit, and the fresh start and new collaborators brought out the best in him. It's Great When You're Straight...Yeah, a title that referenced Ryder's new cleaned-up lifestyle, rivals Happy Mondays' Pills N' Thrills N' Bellyaches for sheer pleasure. The cover art, featuring a Pop Art illustration of Carlos the Jacklyn, referenced other things. Musically, Black Grape resembles Ryder's old band, but adapted to the mid-'90s with Kermit as a great vocal foil, and some of Britpop's anthemicism baked into singles "The Reverend Black Grape," "In the Name of the Father" (which takes swipes at the Catholic Church) and "Kelly's Heroes" (which sounds lot like Madonna's "Express Yourself"). Few artists manage a second act like this, let alone one so good.

6. Cast – All Change

The La's 1990 self-titled debut album is one of the direct precursors to Britpop and while frontman and songwriter Lee Mavers never made another album, sideman John Power proved more than up to the task of leading his own band, Cast. Enlisting Peter Wilkinson from Shack (another Liverpool band who had trouble with labels and frontmen), they formed a group who favored songs over bravado and drama. It was a formula that worked. Songs like "Alright," "Sandstorm," and "Finetime" sounded like classics from the get-go, with earworm choruses that stick in your head on first listen. John Leckie's production -- with layer upon layer of guitars and harmonies -- makes everything pop. The real appeal of All Change is just how effortless it all seems. These songs don't sound like they were written as much as they were always there just waiting to be heard.

5. Radiohead – The Bends

Nobody would call Radiohead Britpop now, and nobody really did in 1995 either, but The Bends definitely has more in common with Blur and Oasis than the proggy widescreen grandeur they would debut with OK Computer. These are pop songs played on guitars -- lots of guitars -- and tracks like "Fake Plastic Trees," "High and Dry," "Bones" and "The Bends" became the template for many new Britpop groups in the second half of the '90s. (See: Travis, Stereophonics, Longpigs, Coldplay.) John Leckie's production helps tracks like "Just" and "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" achieve liftoff, and The Bends is also notable as the record where they met Nigel Godrich, who engineered the record and would go on to form a beautiful friendship with the band that lasts to this day. Before The Bends, Radiohead were that band who did "Creep," but with this it was clear they would never be stuck in the land of One Hit Wonders.

4. Elastica – Elastica

Led by Justine Frischmann -- who had been an early member of Suede and for much of the '90s was one half of Britpop's #1 Power Couple with Blur's Damon Albarn -- Elastica were a breath of fresh air when they released "Stutter," their 1993 debut single that mixed punk, new wave and heaps of attitude. If you weren't paying attention then, you certainly were by the time of their third single, "Connection," that borrowed (and later paid for) its riff from Wire's "Three Girl Rhumba." When the song kicks in at the 20 second mark, you've got one of 1994's most undeniable hooks. The band were not shy about paying homage to bands they loved: "Line Up" also borrowed heavily from Wire, and "Waking Up" tipped its hat to The Stranglers' "No More Heroes." The wait for their debut album seemed like forever, and when it was finally released in March of 1995 it became the fastest selling UK album since Oasis' Definitely Maybe the year before and held onto the title till Arctic Monkeys' Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not in 2006. More than half of Elastica's songs had already seen release on singles (including some b-sides) which made it a little disappointing for fans at the time, but it now just sounds like a start-to-finish classic.

3. Oasis – (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?

In the storied Blur Vs Oasis battle of 1995, when the band's respective singles "Country House" and "Roll With It" were released on the same day in the UK (August 14), Blur debuted at #1 with the Gallaghers coming in at #2. But Oasis won the war just a couple months later when their second album was released and made them worldwide superstars. (Blur's 1995 album, The Great Escape, was very good but just a little too British for mainstream international appeal.) Songwriter Noel Gallagher was at the top of his confident game; he was still swiping bits from his heroes but had also figured out Oasis' style by this point, mixing equal parts melody and swagger, with sing-a-long choruses that sound good even when the lyrics don't make a lot of sense (often). Beyond singles like "Wonderwall," "Don't Look Back in Anger" and "Champagne Supernova," Morning Glory's deep cuts, like "Cast No Shadow," are just as good. While their boasts of "bigger than the Beatles" were tiresome, for a while Oasis made a very good argument.

2. Supergrass – I Should Coco

Supergrass frontman Gaz Coombes was only 19 when the band's debut album was released in May of 1995 (his bandmates weren't much older) and the record gets much of its charm from the trio's unbridled youthful energy that they managed to capture on tape. Its staying power, though, comes from the songs which are smart, insanely catchy and much more sophisticated than they first seem. I Should Coco incorporates a wide range of influences, including punk ("Caught by the Fuzz," "I'd Like to Know), glam ("Lose it," "Time"), '60s psych ("We're Not Supposed To"), and Britpop forebears the Kinks and Madness ("Alright," "Mansize Rooster"), but they jumble them together to make an infectious, distinctive sound. Supergrass were also ferociously talented musicians, with drummer Danny Goffey's playing keeping those energy levels high as the band tear though the album's 13 tracks in just 40 minutes, and that's including the six-minute spaced out, proggy "Sofa of My Lethargy". I Should Coco was a huge hit in the UK -- it was label Parlophone's biggest selling debut since The Beatles' Please Please Me -- and earns extra Britpop points for its title which incorporates Cockney Rhyming Slang.

1. Pulp – Different Class

Having led Pulp to general critical and public indifference since the early-'80s, Jarvis Cocker put the group on hold to study film at London's Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, where he had his mind expanded by raves and met Steve Mackey who would help usher in a new, more formidable lineup of the band. (He also met a girl from Greece with a thirst for knowledge who studied sculpture, memories of which would come in handy later.) With the '90s, Cocker's lyrical observations became sharper, his stage presence more assured, and Pulp's glammy disco snapped into sharp focus. 1994's His N' Hers was their best yet by a mile, but it did not prepare the world for the record Pulp would release the next year, a massive leap forward that had Cocker and Pulp working at the height of their powers and that perfectly aligned with Peak Britpop. His time at Saint Martin's College was inspiration for "Common People," a tale of upper class slumming that would quickly become Pulp's signature anthem. The album, Different Class, followed suit with 11 more brilliant tales of Misshapes, mistakes, and misfits, including: "Disco 2000," one of a few unrequited love songs here, this one set to a riff nicked from Laura Brannigan's "Gloria"; "Sorted for E's and Wizz" found Jarvis out of his head at a rave; and "Monday Morning" laid out the drudgery of mid-'20s endless post-college partying against ska backing. The hooks are plentiful and the quotable lines are endless, and while the record is exceedingly British it is somehow relatable to anyone who's ever felt out of place. "Blur Vs Oasis" may have been the hot topic in the British press in 1995, but Different Class rendered the debate instantly moot.