What the hell is going on? This week in NYC went from 75 and sunny to the dreaded “wintry mix” in two days. At least it gets dark after 7 PM now and spring is just around the corner. We’ve already hit spring harvest as far as new releases go and fresh albums are landing fast and furious and it’s just going to get crazier. This week I review seven, including the fantastic new solo album from Hot Chip‘s Alexis Taylor, plus records by Cut Worms, The Notwist, The Monochrome Set and more.

It’s even busier over in Notable Releases with 12 albums, including the latest from Kim Gordon (I like it too), James Blake, Lamb of God, and more.

I talk about some of this week’s records on BV Weekly alongside my fellow editors Dave, Amanda and Andrew (congrats!), and other topics of conversation include the new Morrissey album, REM, Montreal music scene rom-com Mile End Kicks, and M for Montreal’s Mikey Rishwain joins us to discuss viral French-Canadian polka-dot mathrock duo Angine de Poitrine.

For even more with Mikey, check out this week’s episode of BV Interviews.

That’s enough for this week, head below for this week’s reviews.

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Alexis Taylor – Paris in the Spring (Night Time Stories)
The Hot Chip frontman delivers a solo album that moves the body and the heart

“Sometimes an audience wants to be told, what is this?” says Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor. “And I’m refusing to do that. You can find great things in music when you open up to real listening. No one needs to be told ‘what something is,’ otherwise why would we be making something so straightforward? Be ready to be surprised, to find something new in music, and let the music resonate with you.”

That’s good advice in general and also a perfect preface to Taylor’s sixth solo album and first in five years. Most of his previous five have very much been “solo albums,” sounding like one man working on his own — often with just a guitar, piano, or synthesizer — and decidedly far from the clubby pop he makes with Hot Chip. Paris in the Spring is a little different, though: heavy on collaborations, often richly produced, and not afraid to get dancey, while never fencing itself into one style or sound.

It is, however, quite good. Still more chill than any Hot Chip album, Paris in the Spring is powered by beats, grooves, and some very affecting songwriting. Taylor has always been an extremely empathetic artist, and he’s in very fine form here. Who else could title a thematically complex ballad “MP3s Can Make You Cry” and be sincere about it? “No good at streaming ’less the tears stream down my face,” he sings, wrapped in swirling strings and effervescent vocoder harmonies courtesy of Air’s Nicolas Godin. “Stream of consciousness is still my favourite place.”

Paris in the Spring also has a number of first-class pop songs: the thoughtful and euphoric “Out of Phase,” featuring backing vocals by Lola Kirke; the bass-forward, lightly funky “On a Whim,” featuring the distinctive falsetto of Scritti Politti’s Green Gartside; and the housey “I Can Feel Your Love,” produced by The Avalanches and featuring Étienne de Crécy.

There’s a lot of heartache and loss here, and not just on the slow songs. “There’s a Black Lodge in the sky / Is there hope left in your heart?” Taylor sings on the chugging “Black Lodge in the Sky,” which closes the album and is one of a few David Lynch-inspired moments here. “Chasing ghosts who have not died / We lose the ones who are close by.” On the soaring chorus of “I Can Feel Your Love,” he wonders, “What if you need this pain?” Then there’s the beautiful “Fainting by Numbers,” where, backed by an orchestra of synths, he tries to make up for lost time while wondering if it might already be too late.

Right in the middle of all these originals is a transformative cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses,” sending Mick and Keith’s classic into the cosmos on a gurgling bed of layered lo-fi synths that might bring a tear to Carl Sagan’s eye. Paris in the Spring is full of wonderful surprises that move both your body and your heart.

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Cut Worms – Transmitter (Jagjaguwar)
Jeff Tweedy helps Max Clarke bring Cut Worms’ retro style into the present on Album #4.

Max Clarke has always felt a little lost in time, making terrific records as Cut Worms that sound like they could’ve been made in the ’50s, ’60s, or ’70s, with lyrical themes of alienation that suggest he wasn’t made for the times he actually lives in. For his fourth album, Clarke emerges from the time capsule for a record you could almost call modern — or at least as close as he’s likely to get.

He hasn’t really changed his style, still writing songs steeped in classic pop, rock, country, and folk — you can still hear The Everly Brothers and Brian Wilson in these 10 tracks — it’s just that this time the arrangements and production don’t lean so heavily into references. Transmitter was produced by Jeff Tweedy at Wilco’s Loft studio in Chicago, and he seems to have nudged Cut Worms toward something that isn’t beholden to a specific era. You can hear echoes of Nick Lowe, post-R.E.M. jangle-pop, and ’90s alt-country, with all sorts of interesting filigrees and touches that have never appeared on a Cut Worms record before.

Clarke is still writing the same kind of sublime, poignant songs — wildly catchy and expertly crafted — that he always has, turning both the mundane and magical moments of life, as well as meditations on the American Dream, into instantly hummable, warmly melancholic snapshots. This time, though, they feel less like faded Polaroids found in a drawer and more like vivid Kodachrome — still nostalgic, but much more within reach.

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The Notwist – News from Planet Zombie (Morr Music)
The Notwist stretch out without losing their delicate touch 37 years into their existence

News From Planet Zombie is the long-running German indie band’s first album since 1995’s 12 to be recorded in the studio with their expanded 11-piece live formation. You can feel the extra oomph on first single “X-Ray,” which is noisier, wilder, and rawer than anything they’ve done post–Neon Golden, yet still anchored by a winsome, unmistakably Notwist-style chorus. It’s an instant Notwist classic, arriving 37 years into their history.

News From Planet Zombie doesn’t hit with full force on every track. The Notwist have always been masters of economy and space, letting songs grow organically. Opener “Teeth” bites gently, as so many of their classics do, while “Propeller” is sneakier with its arrangement, adding layers of brass, strings, and percussion over three minutes until you barely notice it’s reached a rolling boil.

Still at the heart of The Notwist are Markus and Micha Acher — their voices and melodies — and there are plenty of signature moves here, from the aforementioned “X-Ray,” to the sweetly motorik “The Turning,” the percussion-forward “How the Story Ends” (glitchy in spirit but built from organic instrumentation), and the exceedingly pretty, woodwind-filled closing track “Like This River.”

It’s always nice to have The Notwist back — in this case, bigger and arguably better.

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Crack Cloud – Peace and Purpose (Meat Machine)
The Calgary post-everything collective go DIY without losing their epic ambitions

After three albums of ambitious, widescreen post-everything rock, Canadian collective Crack Cloud have gone relatively micro. Peace on Purpose was made mostly by bandleader Zach Choy on his own, in his basement, using only one SM57 microphone and “a variety of junk instruments and speakers… favouring intuition over convention.”

It’s a story of strength and hope against insurmountable odds that works in everything from references to one-legged athlete Terry Fox’s 1980 run across Canada to dalliances with lo-fi techno-punk experiments, VU-style drone, power ballads, and tinny hard rock. As with all Crack Cloud albums, you can feel the blood, sweat, tears, and bile in every second — only this time it sounds like it was recorded in a shoebox.

Despite the DIY approach, Choy and crew still work on the same emotional scale, managing to deliver another impressive epic on what feels like a mumblecore budget.

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The Monochrome Set – Lotus Bridge (Tapete)
Bid and co. spin another witty, baroque indiepop adventure on their 17th album

The Monochrome Set have been making erudite, witty, baroque janglepop for nearly 50 years (minus a few hibernation gaps), with frontman Bid the sole constant, though bassist Andy Warren has been by his side for most of it. Guitarist Lester Square, who left in 2015, and his taut Spanish/spaghetti-western style are missed, but The Monochrome Set have sounded remarkably like their zippy selves in the decade since, including on their 17th album, Lotus Bridge.

As usual, there’s a lot going on thematically. “It seemed to me, as I wrote these lyrics, that this whole story was a metaphor for a crumbling civilization, and whether or not I would leave it behind if I were given the opportunity,” says Bid. “The other side of the bridge represents what seems to be an unknown future that I’m being asked to accept without explanation, and the other songs represent a journey back through the past and are a sometimes allegorical re-evaluation of it. I think that I managed to keep a close narrative thread in the lyrics, and deliberately kept the underlying musical structures in a similar tempo and key. Even old poetry is timeless, if it is about personal experiences.”

Likewise, Lotus Bridge’s lithe, energetic “Athanatoi,” “Diaphanous,” and “Leander” sound timeless, full of the swagger, élan, and derring-do you associate with The Monochrome Set, while “Map of the Night Sky” and “Arcadia” add an air of otherworldly mystery key to the album’s themes. Whether you follow the narrative or not, the songs enchant all on their own.

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The Orielles – Only You Left (Heavenly)
This creative UK trio offer a subtle reset that still pushes forward on LP#4

Manchester-via–West Yorkshire trio The Orielles have come a long way from their 2018 debut, Silver Dollar Moment. They’ve gone from scrappy indie rock to baggy-inspired grooves, spacey soundtrack work, and high-minded experimentalism, and they haven’t come close to making the same album twice.

“You’ve got to die and be reborn between albums,” says guitarist Henry Wade, while singer/bassist Esmé Hand-Halford adds, “It comes naturally — it’s not something we consciously do.” Eschewing the deconstructionist collage approach they used for 2022’s Tableau, the trio instead worked on tightly crafted songs at studios in Hamburg and on the Greek island of Hydra.

At first it sounds like a regression to their earliest work, but these songs are thornier, darker, and more oddly compelling than anything on Silver Dollar Moment. “We maybe wanted to subconsciously disguise this album as something that felt more light and easy on the ears,” admits drummer Sidonie Hand-Halford. “But it’s much more melancholic. It’s not a deeply sad album — it’s just leaning into the beauty of sadness a little bit.” Don’t stop changing, Orielles.

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Tenderness – True (Amorphous Sounds)
Peggy Sue’s Katy Beth Young steps into the spotlight with her gorgeous, dreamy solo debut

I was a fan of Brighton duo Peggy Sue, who were loosely part of the 2010s UK new-folk scene that gave us Laura Marling, Noah and the Whale, and other less interesting groups. In many ways they were the most interesting of the bunch, imbuing their songs with a little early-’60s rock and pop, the occasional whiff of fresh sea air, and the powerful voices and harmonies of Katy Beth Young and Rosa “Clae” Slade.

Katy now records on her own as Tenderness and brings many of those same wonderful qualities to her debut solo album. It was produced by Cate Le Bon right-hand man Euan Hinshelwood (aka Younghusband), with contributions from Peggy Sue’s Rosa Slade and Olly Joyce, La Luz’s Marian Li-Pino, and members of Deep Throat Choir (of which Young is also a member).

You don’t really need much more than Young’s voice and melodies to be transported to a dreamy neverland, but all the touches in the arrangements are just right. If you don’t instantly melt when the Hawaiian-style pedal steel wafts in on “Saturday Morning,” you may want to call your cardiologist. That playing — courtesy of Harry Bohay — is all over True and is just one of many reasons why this album is so special.

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INDIE BASEMENT CLASSIC: Felt – Forever Breathes the Lonely Word (Creation Records, 1986)
Few records epitomize mid-’80s British indie more than Felt’s fifth album

Led by the decidedly eccentric but frequently brilliant Lawrence Hayward — who was prone to 2 AM vacuuming and still goes only by his first name — Felt set out to release 10 albums and 10 singles in 10 years. “In and out in a decade,” he put it. He accomplished his goal, making crystalline guitar pop that owed much to Tom Verlaine (and just a little to Bob Dylan) across two sharply defined eras of the band.

Felt’s first four albums were on Cherry Red and featured guitarist Maurice Deebank’s distinctive arpeggiated style. The second era began with the group’s move to Creation, with Deebank out and keyboardist Martin Duffy in, adding rich, swirling organ to the band’s sound.

Forever Breathes the Lonely Word was Felt’s first album for Creation Records and remains the band’s masterwork, with shimmering production, Lawrence at his most lyrically romantic, and Duffy’s brilliant playing all over it. (That’s also Duffy — who died in 2022 — on the cover.) It’s just great song after great song, with “Rain of Crystal Spires,” “Down But Not Out,” “All the People I Like and Those That Are Dead,” and “A Wave Crashed on the Rocks” among the highlights. Few records epitomize mid-’80s British indie more than this.

Looking for more? Browse the Indie Basement archives.

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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.