Indie Basement is a weekly column on BrooklynVegan focusing on classic indie and alternative artists, “college rock,” and new and current acts who follow a similar path. There are reviews of new albums, reissues, box sets, books and sometimes movies and television shows. I’ve rounded up April’s best music, highlighting my favorite songs and albums, plus links to relevant features and news, a monthly playlist, and more.

April was overflowing with great music and I struggled a bit to pare my picks for the month down to 10 songs and five albums. In fact I failed and wrote about 13 songs this month. Albums stayed at a tight five but there were so many runners up, including A Certain Ratio, Fat White Family, English Teacher, The Reds Pinks & Purples, The Libertines, Joe Pernice, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross’ Challengers Score, Dog Park and more. Songs from those records and more are on the Indie Basement Best of April playlist which you can listen to on Spotify or TIDAL.

If you need more Best picks, check out the Indie Basement Best Albums of 2024 So Far (Q1) list. and BrooklynVegan’s Q1 list.

I also looked back on Blur’s Parklife for its 30th anniversary, and did a number of interviews with musicians about record collecting (including Sloan’s Jay Ferguson, Gruff Rhys, and Ducks LTD) for our Record Store Day issue of the BrooklynVegan digital magazine (which is free and easy to subscribe to!).

Head below for my Best of April 2024 song and album reviews…

INDIE BASEMENT – BEST SONGS OF APRIL 2024

Bibi Club – “Parc de Beauvoir”

Montreal’s Bibi Club scratch a similar itch as Blonde Redhead or The Notwist, making music that is droney, dreamy and danceable, with an air of melancholy mystery. “Parc de Beauvoir” snares you from the opening snap of the drums, but when Adèle Trottier-Rivard’s darkly winsome vocals lets loose the “ooh ooh” chorus you’re willingly wrapping the net around yourself. Add a Peter Hook-style bass lead and wobbly synths, and you’re totally hooked.

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Caribou – “Honey”

Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching a bunch of house / acid house / rave / clubbing documentaries on YouTube lately (including one hosted by Idris Elba), but Caribou’s new single is hitting me square in the 1999s. With its skipping beat and wub-wub bass, “Honey” owes a more than a little to Mr Oizo and someone should really make a video of Flat Eric jamming out to it. (It would also be a better video than the AI-assisted psychedelic flamingo one it actually has.) What makes “Honey” so sweet, though, are the drops, especially the second one which toys with you and lasts so long you start to wonder if the beat will actually kick back in. Spoiler alert: it does and is awesome.

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The Folk Implosion – “Moonlit Kind”

I love how natural (no pun intended) the Folk Implosion’s return is playing out. Lou Barlow and John Davis don’t sound like they’re trying to recreate their ’90s hits but you can feel the same vibes on “Moonlit Kind,” which mixes acoustic guitars and funky beats / electronics but doesn’t do so in a way that’s trying to pander to the kids…or Kids. Heads will bob, but gently.

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Emma Anderson – “Inner Light” (MEMORIALS Mix)

Lush co-founder Emma Anderson’s 2023 solo debut was excellent, but this rework of “Inner Light” by MEMORIALS (Electrelane’s Verity Susman and It Hugs Back’s Matthew Simms) is even better, turning the jangly, hazy original into a psychedelic Bond theme with orchestral sweep, fuzzy guitars, and a dramatic ending. Emma, consider working with these two for your next record.

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Fontaines D.C. – “Starburster”

After three albums, are Fontaines D.C. about to level up? The first single from ROMANCE (their first album for XL) sure sounds like it, or at least like a swerve into a new lane. Working with Arctic Monkeys producer James Ford, “Starburster” swings with a shuffling, banging disco beat that puts it in Happy Mondays territory, with frontman Grian Chatten’s recent collab with Kneecap seeming to have rubbed off on his delivery here as he details a panic attack, complete with gasps for air. There are swerves within swerves — a string-laden middle eighth comes out of nowhere but works — keeping listeners on their toes. It’s high anxiety you can dance to.

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Guided by Voices – “Serene King”

“Serene King” is from Guided by Voices’ upcoming FORTIETH album. That’s right, 4-0. And it’s fantastic, just as rocking, anthemic, hooky and fist-pumping as you’d want from Robert Pollard and what is arguably the best-ever lineup of the band, complete with a tight twin-lead guitar solo. All in three minutes and 15 seconds. How does Bob do it? Actually, I don’t want to know, but please never stop.

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Gustaf – “Happiest Thought”

What is the happiest thought you’ve ever had? It’s a question Lydia Gammill asks on this outlier from Gustaf’s second album. Most Gustaf songs tend to feature music as brash as her delivery, but “Happiest Thought” goes the opposite way with a slinky groove powered by a very cool synth riff that you could imagine in a full-on club track. The juxtaposition works as Gammill second guesses herself, wondering if she’s ever had a happy thought at all. Things get more frenetic as it goes but with a pleasing tension that only releases in its final seconds.

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King Hannah – “Davey Says”

London duo King Hannah are really stretching out on their second album. Neither of the first two singles are quite what you’re expecting from them, in good ways. If Sharon Van Etten collab “Big Swimmer” was KH at their prettiest, free of their signature reverb and ragged guitar heroics, “Davey Says” is them at both their grungiest and poppiest, a garage rock earworm with a video has them playing in an actual garage. I can’t wait to hear where the rest of this album goes.

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Loma – “How it Starts”

Loma’s second album, Don’t Shy Away, was one of the great surprises of 2020 (a surprise to me, at least), an album that was hypnotic, haunting, mysterious and comforting all at once. The trio of Cross Record’s Emily Cross and Dan Duszynski, and Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg took their time with its followup, and the first single is an understated stunner with a gorgeous melody and harmonies, but it’s the layers and layers of atmosphere that really pull you in. Fun fact: Laurie Anderson gave them access to an AI that had been trained on her work, with its lyrical suggestions were used as a starting block on “How It Starts.”

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Metronomy ft Naima Bock & Joshua Idehen – “With Balance”

Metronomy have never sounded like this. With the band on touring hiatus, Joseph Mount has been stretching his wings via collaborations with new artists that he likes on a series of EPs in hope of working some of those ideas into the next proper Metronomy album. “With Balance” was cowritten with Naima Bock (maker of Indie Basement’s #1 album of 2022) and everything really bends to her sorrowful, folky style. But then in comes collaborator #2, poet/rapper Joshua Idehen, who pulls the song in a different but still un-Metronomy-like direction. It all flows naturally, though, and is a welcome surprise for a project that is closing in on its 20th anniversary. Weirdly, the mix in the music video is different and better than what’s on streaming services.

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Nilüfer Yanya – “Like I Say (I runaway)”

Over the course of two albums, Nilüfer Yanya has established an instantly recognizable signature sound, mixing elements of folk, electronic music and grungy ’90s alt-rock into a very satisfying blend. “Like I Say (I runaway),” her first single for Ninja Tune, is another ace in her deck. The syncopated rhythm, the melodic bass, and hazy guitars work in perfect sync with Nilüfer’s emotive, spine-tingling vocals. Let’s hope Album #3 is announced soon.

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+/- (Plus/Minus) – “Borrowed Time”

For a band that have been around for nearly 25 years, +/- (Plus/Minus) sound full of youthful energy on “Borrowed Time,” a song that is actually about getting older but is the kind of hyper-jangle indie rock that could’ve been out on Teenbeat Records in 1995. Guitars slash like a hedge trimmer across a field of wildflowers, sending a riot of color flying into the air as the chorus soars along with them. Someone needs to get this in front of Vampire Weekend fans.

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Redd Kross – “Candy Coloured Catastrophe”

Speaking of eternal youth, has another band personified the teenage dream of rock n’ roll as well and for as long as Redd Kross? Jeff and Steven McDonald were actual teenagers when they started the band in the late ’70s, and they have outlasted most of their peers while still sounding and, for the most part, looking the same. “Candy Coloured Catastrophe” is a joyous, kaleidoscopic blast of big riff power pop that Redd Kross do better than almost anyone else today. “I’m ready to start our third act, and for it to be magnificent,” says Steven McDonald, so make way.

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INDIE BASEMENT – BEST ALBUMS OF APRIL 2024

Cindy Lee – Diamond Jubilee (Realistik) 

Patrick Flegel hasn’t released a Cindy Lee album since 2020 (when they released three albums) but has clearly been busy. Diamond Jubilee is a two-hour and two-minute magnum opus that encompasses a wide variety of styles that showcase Flegel’s many talents as a songwriter, musician and producer. It’s a lot to take in but it’s easily Cindy Lee’s most accessible work yet. While still very much in the Cindy Lee lo-fi dreamworld of early-’60s pop, country and rock n’ roll, there are less weird-for-weird’s-sake sonic tapestries and instead a parade of memorable song after memorable song.

Note: technically this was out at the end of March but almost no one heard it till the start of April which is when I reviewed it so I included here.

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The Woodentops – Fruits of the Deep (Little People Big Music)

South London band The Woodentops have been around since the mid-’80s, having set their sound — anthemic melodies, sunshine positivity, acoustic guitars, clattering percussion, manic tempos — on their debut single “Plenty” which was released 40 years ago. (They were Rough Trade labelmates and contemporaries with The Smiths and also unexpectedly a piece of the ecstasy-fueled Second Summer of Love rave scene.) As someone who holds their 1986 debut Giant in very high regard (one of my all-time favorite albums) I’m happy to report that their first album ina decade is pretty wonderful and has all the signature Woodentops elements intact, and adds some new twists, too. McGinty’s voice sounds the same as it did in 1986, warm and inviting, and there’s just something magical that happens when it mixes with the acoustic guitars and driving rhythms. Like the best Woodentops records, Fruits of the Deep welcomes you with open arms but isn’t afraid to get a little weird, and Rolo and the rest of the band seem to be doing this for themselves (the album is self-released), a motivating factor that often results in the best art. Welcome back!

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Mount Kimbie – The Sunset Violent (Warp)

Despite being signed to Warp Records, having participated in the acclaimed DJ Kicks mix series and regular appearances on electronic music festivals, London’s Mount Kimbie have never been ones to be pinned down. They’ve long collaborated with King Krule, and since 2017’s Love What Survives they’ve sounded more like a band than other UK electronic duos of which there are many. For their fourth studio album, founding members Dominic Maker and Kai Campos have, with the addition of Andrea Balency-Béarn and Marc Pel, turned Mount Kimbie into an indie rock band, albeit one that is still very interested in all manner of electronics; The Sunset Violent is one of the more unique, surprising, and memorable pop records of the year. What makes this album so special is the way Mount Kimbie blend guitars and electronics into something that doesn’t quite sit in either world, as gleaming chords sheer off into distorted fragments and melt into the keyboards. The very best songs here, “Figure in the Surf” for example, are an android-like hybrid that owe a little to early-’80s proggy art-pop practitioners like Bill Nelson and Japan. Elsewhere, songs like “Yukka Tree” have more than a whiff of shoegaze to them, but Mount Kimbie fold it all into the distinct sound of this fascinating, engrossing album.

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METZ – Up On Gravity Hill (Sub Pop)

Up on Gravity Hill is Toronto noisemakers METZ’s most melodic, nuanced record to date, packed with earworms that may still induce tinnitus. Alex Edkins’ guitars remain shringy, Chris Slorach’s basslines are as flinty as ever and drummer Hayden Menzies still sounds like he’s trying to bash his kit through the floor, but there are big hooks at the heart of all these songs, from the insistent harmonies of “99,” to the massive sing-along chorus of “Entwined (Street Light Buzz),” the swirling miasma that is “Superior Mirage,” and the towering, anthemic “Light Your Way Home” that, mood-wise, is unlike anything they’ve ever done before. Even a song titled “Wound Tight,” which is an apt description for the band’s sound up to this point, has a pop center. That added use of melody and harmony has the effect of taking METZ further into (heavy) shoegaze territory. It’s a natural fit for these three, moving from anger to catharsis, not mellowing or maturing, but evolving.

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Pet Shop Boys – Nonetheless (Parlophone)

After 14 albums and nearly 40 years, we know what to expect from a Pet Shop Boys album: elegant synthpop with Neil Tennant’s thoughtful, well-read lyricism, a combination that drove some of the more unusual pop hits of the ’80s and ’90s. Add in the band’s impeccable style and you’ve got a formula designed to last. That said, Nonetheless is a bit of a return-to-form for Tennant and Chris Lowe, which finds them back on Parlophone Records after a decade off and, working with producer James Ford (Arctic Monkeys / Depeche Mode), delivering one of their more lush-sounding records in recent years. That’s due in part to a string section that classes up nearly every song. The album also feels like a return to a decidedly ’80s palette, including orchestra hit samples, synth horns, electro handclaps, and other drum machine sounds that recall early-’80s Arthur Baker productions. There’s also “New London Boy,” that flashes back to the Reagan/Thatcher era with a rappy style right out of “West in Girls.” As usual Tennant’s got a lot on his mind — Brexit, mortality, sexuality — but his lyrics rarely take the obvious path. Pet Shop Boys continue to give us what we want, as well as what we need.

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Here is a playlist featuring all the songs I review, tracks from my album picks (apart from Cindy Lee which is not on streaming apart from this full-LP YouTube stream), plus another 30 or so songs I loved from April. You can listen on Spotify or the far superior sounding TIDAL:

Looking for more? Browse the Indie Basement archives.

And check out what’s new in our shop.

Creation Records’ 21 Best Records

21. Biff Bang Pow! – Oblivion (1987)

Alan McGee wasn't just the head of Creation Records, he was also one its musical artists, involved in a few projects over the years, including Laughing Apple, Revolving Paint Dream and his longest-running group, Biff Bang Pow! that also featured, at various points, label co-founders Dick Green and Joe Foster, as well as Primal Scream's Andrew Innes. Oblivion, the second of two albums Biff Bang Pow! released in 1987, is the group's best record, full of the sort of jangly pastiche psychedelia you'd expect from a band that, like his label, were named after '60s beat group The Creation. McGee's a better songwriter than he is a singer but his fey vocal style works just fine on terrifically titled tracks like "A Girl Called Destruction," "The Only Colour in the World is Love" and "She's Got Diamonds in Her Hair." The band's other 1987 album, The Girl Who Runs the Beat Hotel, is worth checking out too and contains the band's best-ever single, the Andrew Innes-sung "Someone Stole My Wheels."

20. Various Artists – Creation Soup Vol 1-5 (1990)

Most people associate Creation Records with their '90s heyday of Oasis, Primal Scream, Ride, Super Furry Animals and My Bloody Valentine, but the label's first five years were full of singles from jangly, '60s-inspired bands who most people have probably never heard of, most of which were only released on 7". In 1990 Creation gathered them all up for a five volume CD set. McGee notes that "The first twenty came in hand folded sleeves which Joe Foster and I used to stay up and fold all night four or five times a week." They include great early singles by Primal Scream, Felt, The Loft, The Weather Prophets, The Jasmine Minks, The Pastels, House of Love, Biff Bang Pow!, The Bodines, and more. Noticeably absent from these, though, is the label's breakthrough -- The Jesus & Mary Chain's 1984 debut single "Upside Down" (due to rights issues). Creation Soup is still a fascinating look at the formative years of a label that would become an indie powerhouse.

19. The Jesus & Mary Chain – Munki (1998)

The Jesus and Mary Chain's 1984 debut single, "Upside Down," turned the UK indie scene upside down with its then-novel approach of taking a Phil Spector-eque pop song and wrapping it in pummeling noise and feedback. It also put Creation Records on the map, paving the way for House of Love, My Bloody Valentine, Ride and many more of the label's most famous groups. JAMC made the leap to Warner Bros immediately after this single but Creation founder Alan McGee stayed the band's manager, and JAMC quickly became alt-rock stars. By the late-'90s, though, Jim and William Reid felt chewed up and spit out by the music industry and weren't getting along with each other so well, either. If Warner had lost interest in the band after five albums, McGee had not, and welcomed the Reids back to Creation with open arms. Bookended by the supercatchy "I Love Rock N' Roll" and tinnitus-inducing "I Hate Rock N' Roll," the sprawling, 17-track Munki plays like a career retrospective, including buzzsaw pop, semi-acoustic numbers, duets with Hope Sandoval, and dissonant noise jams. Munki served as a great final word on the JAMC...till they reformed and made a new album 19 years later.

18. The Loft – One Round the Fair (1989) / The Weather Prophets – Diesel River (1988)

You can't really tell the story of Creation Records without including Peter Astor, the label's first shining star, who wrote charming, literate songs with his Television/VU-esque bands The Loft and The Weather Prophets. (The Loft's original name was The Living Room, which was also the name of Alan McGee's pre-Creation London club night; Astor changed it to avoid confusion.) Astor also had a face meant for magazine covers, as well as a fine if not exceptional Tom Verlaine-esque voice that probably kept his groups from crossing over into more mainstream success. Not that Creation Records' Alan McGee didn't try. The Loft broke up before making a full length record but their excellent singles "Why Does the Rain" (which Astor recorded with The Weather Prophets, too) and "Up the Hill and Down the Slope" are among Creation's best early singles and, along with the b-sides, make up compilation Once Round The Fair. Astor and Loft bandmate Dave Morgan formed The Weather Prophets who continued in much the same direction, releasing three albums that never quite captured the magic of the band's Creation singles, most of which are collected on Diesel River (though your best bet is 2004 best-of comp Blue Skies & Free-Rides).

17. Adorable – Against Perfection (1993)

Making their debut with the undeniable "Sunshine Smile," Adorable were initially lumped in with the shoegaze scene, because almost everything on Creation in 1992 was kinda shoegaze, but the band were closer in spirit to House of Love's textured, romantic pop than My Bloody Valentine or Swervedriver. They owed a lot to the Pixies and The Wedding Present, too, held Echo & The Bunnymen in the highest regard, and Fijalkowski had no shortage of big hooks and mile-wide choruses in his arsenal. Their debut album, Against Perfection, is one of the great, underrated UK indie records of the early '90s, jam-packed with memorable melodies, roaring/chiming guitars, clever/heartfelt lyrics and lots of swagger. The American release, via SBK records, betters the UK version by adding "Sunshine Smile" and another early single, "I'll Be Your Saint," alongside killer album cuts like "A to Fade In," "Homeboy," "Favorite Fallen Idol" and "Still Life."

16. The Jazz Butcher – Fishcotheque (1988)

With the Jazz Butcher's mid-'80s albums for Glass Records, which featured a band that included bassist (and ex Bauhaus member) David J, The Jazz Butcher (Pat Fish) had gained the reputation for whimsical indie a la Robyn Hitchcock. Signing to Creation, Pat started a new version of the group with collaborator Kizzy O'Callahan, intent on changing his image. That makeover began with 1988's Fishcotheque, one of his best albums that showed a new, more serious side to The Jazz Butcher. "I was keen to get as far away from all those 'w, words that had followed my group around," Fish wrote later of the album, "to make it as clear as I could that this was a rock & roll thing, not some 'eccentricity.' I had my shades and I had my fringed suede jacket and I had the Weather Prophets rhythm section." Witty without being wacky, Fishcotheque is loaded with great songs, including the punky "Looking for Lot 49," the wistful "Swell" and "The Next Move Sideways," terrific pop number "Let's Get it Wrong," and one of his best-ever songs, "Susie," which features Sonic Boom on feedback. Pat didn't entirely abandon his "w" side, though, which rears its head on "Living in a Village" and vegan rap song "The Best Way" (which isn't as kooky as it may seem).

15. Momus – The Tender Pervert (1988)

Named after the Greek god of satire and mockery, Momus (aka Scottish artist Nic Currie) was Creation's most idiosyncratic artist on record*, writing almost exclusively about sex and death but in a high-minded style that was likely to quote the bible or ancient literature, and playing in a style somewhere between Donovan and Jacques Brel. (Most eccentric in real life: Felt's Lawrence.) As the '80s went on, Currie would incorporate Pet Shop Boys-style synthpop into the Momus sound. The Tender Pervert was his first real flirtation with drum machines, and was a deeply twisted, angry record fueled by disgust with Margaret Thatcher's response to the AIDS crisis. "I'm so furious about this that I decide that, if gay people are not only dying but being gagged by the government while dying, it's up to straight people to promote homosexuality in their place," Currie wrote reflecting on the record. Momus is at the height of his witty, erudite powers here on tracks like "The Angels Are Voyeurs," "The Homosexual," "A Complete History of Sexual Jealousy (Parts 17-24)" and the elegant, complex "Bishonen." Currie is not wrong when he writes that The Tender Pervert is "my best and most definitive album" -- it's also the best place to start for this artist who is definitely an acquired taste.

14. Swervedriver – Ejector Seat Reservation (1995)

Swervedriver were one of the best groups of the original shoegaze era, but by 1995 interest in the genre in their home country (and label, Creation) had fully moved on to Britpop. Unlike some bands (Ride, Lush), Swervedriver stuck to their guitar pedals while trying to expand upon their sound with their third album, Ejector Seat Reservation. It was still heavy, but there was an equal emphasis on melody and maelstrom, adding elements of Bowie and Bolan to the mix, not to mention a string and horn section. It's Swervedriver's best album and loaded with memorable songs, including pile-driver "Bring Me the Head of the Fortune Teller," the poppy/heavy "The Other Jesus," elegant first single "Last Day on Earth," and soaring closing cut "To the Birds." Unfortunately there was no time to celebrate: Creation Records dropped Swervedriver the week after Ejector Seat Reservation was released and deleted the album from their catalog, making it for years the band's hardest-to-find album.

13. Saint Etienne – Good Humor (1997)

Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs formed Saint Etienne in 1990 as a way to mix their obsession with '60s and '70s pop, R&B, soul and reggae with the indie dance and rave culture that had taken over the UK at the time. They originally envisioned the group as having a different vocalist for every single, but that changed when they met Sarah Cracknell, and Saint Etienne became a trio. After three albums of sample-based dance pop, Saint Etienne changed course, and decamped to Malmo, Sweden to make a full-band album with Cardigans producer Tore Johannsen at his famed Tambourine Studios. Armed with a group of crack session musicians, Good Humor is unlike any other record in Saint Etienne's catalog before or since, working in elements of exotica, acid jazz and Beach Boys/Phil Spector wall of sound pop. While Saint Etienne's previous albums had been released by Heavenly Recordings through Creation, Good Humor was the first -- and last -- to be released by Creation proper. Singles "Sylvie" and "The Bad Photographer" were both Top 30 UK hits and Good Humor remains Saint Etienne's biggest seller in the US (where it was released by Sub Pop).

12. The Boo Radleys – Giant Steps (1993)

Liverpool band The Boo Radleys began as one of the noisiest of the '90s shoegazers, with some songs on their 1991 Creation debut, Everything's Alright Forever, sounding like a garbage truck in a rockslide. But deep down, guitarist Martin Carr was a lover of the classics -- The Beatles, Kinks and other late-'60s psychedelic pop -- and that side of him was ready to emerge. The watershed moment was the title track of 1992's Lazarus EP which took a roaring, anthemic melody and built it up slowly with an extended, dubbed-out intro. It's one of their best-ever tracks. "Lazarus" turned out to be the first taste of what would be their magnum opus -- the boundary pushing, Coltrane-referencing, appropriately named third album, Giant Steps. Noise and hazy effects still rang through songs like "I Hang Suspended," "Butterfly McQueen," "Rodney King - Song for Lenny Bruce" and "Take the Time Around," but nothing was obscuring the massive hooks Carr loaded the songs with. There were also just straight-up pop songs like "Wishin' I Was Skinny," "Barney and Me," and "If You Want it, Take It." It's a record that, in its own way, is every bit as ambitious as Screamadelica or Loveless, and one that opened Creation's door for Britpop's coming surge. "I felt that everything was moving towards this big pop thing," Carr says in David Cavanagh's The Creation Records Story. "Loads of bands -- young bands with guitars -- were getting into the charts. Blur were getting there. Suede were having hits. We didn’t sell that many records with Giant Steps but everyone was dying to see what we were going to do next." Next would net them a massive UK hit single -- 1995's "Wake Up Boo!" -- but Giant Steps is still their finest hour.

11. Super Furry Animals – Radiator (1997)

Oasis may have been Creation's biggest selling act of the '90s (by a mile) but, pound for pound, Super Furry Animals were probably the best. The band were proudly Welsh, not afraid to sing in their native tongue, and wildly creative, with a wide anarchic streak. Their terrific 1996 debut album, Fuzzy Logic, paid tribute to Welsh drug smuggler (and national hero) Howard Marks both on the cover art and on song "Hanging With Howard Marks," and the same year they released single "The Man Don't Give a Fuck" which sampled Steely Dan and held the record, at 50 utterances, for most "fucks" given in a song (till Insane Clown Posse's "Fuck the World" beat it in 1999). Just a year later, SFA were back with Radiator, a record that was leaps and bounds better than their debut, and where they went from being a lot of fun to one of the more consistently great, wildly creative bands of the era. (They still are.) Radiator incorporates Madchester-y shuffle ("Play it Cool," "The Placid Casual"), Bowie-style spacerock ("Demons," "Bass tuned to DEAD"), punk, and mutant pop ("Herman Loves Pauline") into a style that became distinctly their own.

10. Slowdive – Souvlaki (1993)

Influenced by the Cocteau Twins' ethereal style, not to mention The Jesus and Mary Chain and probably a fair amount of goth, Pink Floyd and prog, Slowdive didn’t really sound like any other group from the original shoegaze era, riding a massive wave of shimmering guitars that were at times so transformed by effects pedals, they resembled synthesizers. Like their early EPs, the band's debut album, Just for a Day, was hypnotic and sensuous, wrapping listeners in layer upon layer of gorgeous haze, but it was maybe a little lacking in focus and A-level material. Not a problem with their sophomore album that nestles memorable songs and a stronger rhythmic backbone into their signature aural cloudwork. Their best album to date, Souvlaki features some of their catchiest songs ("Alison," "When the Sun Hits," "40 Days") with muscular material like "Machine Gun," vivid trip-out "Yellow Melon" and two songs ( "Sing," "Here She Comes") featuring keyboards and treatments by Brian Eno. Best of all, though, is "Souvlaki Space Station" which takes their spiraling sound deep into dub territory. Never as popular at the time as their shoegaze contemporaries Ride or Lush, Slowdive's records have aged better than most things from the '90s, and the group have led one of the most satisfying second acts in recent memory.

9. Teenage Fanclub – Grand Prix (1995)

Teenage Fanclub's third album, Bandwagonesque, is one of the three pillars in Creation's 1991 crown (the other two are slightly higher up on this list), and an album that, along with Ride's Nowhere, helped the label realize its place as a home for classic guitar pop done in new and exciting ways, or at least by new and exciting groups. What Teenage Fanclub did wasn't exactly new -- they drank deep from the well of Big Star and Dinosaur Jr. -- but they did it very well and had three three talented singer-songwriters who had yet to reach their creative potential. That hit with 1995's Grand Prix that, to carry on the Formula One racing theme, had Norman Blake, Gerrard Love and Raymond McGinley firing on all cylinders, with such instant earworms as "Sparky's Dream," "Neil Jung," "Mellow Doubt," "Verisimilitude," and "Don't Look Back." The album was also released at the height of Britpop and pulled the Fannies into that orbit, even though they were never really part of that scene. While they may not equal Oasis in the ambition and swagger department, Grand Prix delivers just as many classics as (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, just in a more humble way.

8. Sugar – Copper Blue (1992)

Spoiler alert: this is the only American-made album on this list. Creation did release a few records by U.S. acts (Medicine, Guided by Voices, The Cramps) but not many, and most were more licensing deals than actual signings. But Bob Mould put together separate deals with Creation in the UK and Rykodisc in North America for his new band Sugar who rivaled MBV for being loudest-ever group on the label. With their roaring, punk-injected guitar pop sound, the trio (Mould, bassist David Barbe and drummer Malcolm Travis) were definitely a more natural fit with a label of noisemakers like Creation than Rykodisc (who were mainly known for being the first CD-only label). In any case, Sugar's classic debut album is one of 1992's best, and one of the greatest albums Creation Records released, with Mould's signature mix of rippers ("Changes," "A Good Idea") and pop songs ("Helpless," "If I Can't Change Your Mind") and even a little prog ("Hoover Dam"). Copper Blue was actually more of a hit across the pond first, reaching #10 in the UK album charts and with NME naming it the Best Album of 1992; the record really caught on with American alt-rock radio and MTV in 1993. Sugar burned bright and hot, releasing Beaster a mere six months later, yet flamed out during sessions for their second album. Still, Copper Blue remains one of Mould's best collection of songs.

7. Felt – Forever Breathes the Lonely Word (1986)

Led by the decidedly eccentric but frequently brilliant Lawrence Hayward who was prone to 2 AM vacuuming and still only goes 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) with two sharply defined eras of the band. Felt's first four albums were on Cherry Red and featured guitarist Maurice Deebank's distinctive arpeggiated guitar style; the second began with the group's move to Creation, with Deebank out and keyboardist Martin Duffy in, adding wonderful, rich organ to the band's sound. Forever Breathes the Lonely Word was Felt's first album for Creation and is Felt's masterwork, with shimmering production, Lawrence at his most lyrically romantic, and Duffy's brilliant playing all over it. It's just great song after great song, including "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," being particular highlights. Creation's first great album.

6. Ride – Nowhere (1990)

Oxford's Ride released their debut album in 1990 and perfectly split Creation Records' two decades in existence down the middle. The band were clearly a product of the student indie scene that Creation was at the center of, owing much to House of Love, My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus & Mary Chain and early Primal Scream, but they were a half step generation younger, savvy, and ambitious. You could easily imagine songs like "Seagull" and "Kaleidoscope" being released with thinner production by the label just a couple years earlier, but Ride were not a group who just wanted to play to 150 people the rest of their lives. While undeniably part of the psychedelic shoegaze scene -- they remain of the genre's most iconic bands -- Andy Bell and Mark Gardner were great songwriters, too, and underneath Nowhere's beautiful murk, haze and feedback is some serious musicianship and craft. Nowhere owes as much to The Byrds as it does MBV and is loaded with great tunes, as can be heard on the undeniable classic "Vapour Trail" -- perhaps the greatest song to come out on Creation Records and not get released as a single. Ride would get more ambitious (and pop-savvy) on 1992's excellent Going Blank Again, and would make a grab for the Britpop ring on 1994's Carnival of Light, but Nowhere is the sound of a scene and a label at the dawn of the '90s.

5. House of Love – House of Love (1988)

While The Jesus & Mary Chain's "Upside Down" put Creation Records on the map, The House of Love's debut album was the first album released by the label that really registered shockwaves beyond the indie charts. Led by Guy Chadwick, whose deep voice matched his high cheekbones, House of Love had some of JAMC's squall but fed it through Chadwick's graceful songwriting and guitarist Terry Bickers' inventive playing. Opening salvo "Christine" is such a stunner, from the roaring guitars to the "Bah bah be dah dah" hook, if the rest of the album had been a dud it still might've made this list. But House of Love is all hits, from the dark, sexy cool of "Road" and "Hope" to the riff-heavy "Sulfur" and "Salome" to the ethereal grandeur of "Man to Child," and the album's second best song, "Love in a Car." The album was also as big an influence on the burgeoning shoegaze scene as My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything, and it's hard to imagine groups like Ride and Catherine Wheel existing without House of Love.

4. Oasis – (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)

As Andy Bell of Ride, who would end up joining Oasis by the end of the '90s, told us, Oasis "were the band Creation had been waiting for, and I think the label was also exactly what the band needed." Oasis fit Creation head Alan McGee's rock n' roll ethos, ticking every box possible with a cup-runneth-over mix of attitude, razor-sharp wit, hedonistic joie-de-vivre and arrogance. It might've all been too much if Noel Gallagher wasn't a one-man hit factory, losing songs in the couch that were better than many bands wrote in their whole career. They were definitely the guitar band McGee had always wanted, turning out singles like his '60s and '70s heroes, but putting a fresh face on them just in time to lead in the new Britpop movement that pushed grunge out of the country much like the USA had done to the King's army some 200+ years before. While 1994's Definitely Maybe was a fantastic debut, Oasis managed to follow it up just a year later with an even better album, one of the best of 1995 and without a doubt the peak of Gallaghers' powers. (What's the Story) Morning Glory? even managed to be a hit in America, something a British rock band hadn't done in years. The album is filthy with classics, from singles like "Wonderwall," "Don't Look Back in Anger," "Champagne Supernova," and "Roll With It" to deep cuts like "Cast No Shadow," and "She's Electric." While Oasis stayed popular throughout their existence, creatively, it was diminishing returns after this -- but in 1995 the band could do no wrong.

3. My Bloody Valentine – Isn’t Anything (1988)

If Loveless was the sound of "how'd they do that?," Isn't Anything was the sound of "I wanna do that!" It's hard to imagine Ride, Swervedriver, The Boo Radleys or any of the rest of the soon-to-erupt shoegaze scene -- or half the indie rock of the '90s -- happening the way it did without the visceral impact of My Bloody Valentine's first album for Creation. Songs like "(When You Wake (You're Still in a Dream," "Feed Me With Your Kiss" and "Sueisfine" hit like a brick and sound like you've already been knocked senseless. Kevin Shield's glide guitar sound -- a unique mix of tuning and playing style -- was mysterious, instantly distinctive and deceptively attainable. The band used less effects pedals than most people thought. "The sound is purely physical," MBV Svengali Kevin Shields said at the time. "It's movement, a manual moving of the string: the short travel of he Jazzmaster and Jaguar tremolo that gives it that characteristic sort of upwards drone to the chord." My Bloody Valentine even managed to make acoustic guitars seem heavy ("Come Cupid") and the band's more ethereal tracks like "Lose My Breath" were aptly named. The album has a reputation for thin, tinny sonics, but Kevin Shields' all-analog 2018 remastered edition really shows what a gorgeous monster it is.

2. My Bloody Valentine – Loveless (1991)

A record so monumentally important to popular music it's all but impossible to overstate its importance, Loveless is a bonafide classic. It's also a record that took forever and somewhere around £250,000 to complete, that nearly bankrupted Creation, forcing the label to drop the band shortly after Loveless' release, and sell 49% of its stake to Sony Music. ("Overdue" and "over budget," meanwhile, are words associated with the band to this day.) Even though countless artists have stolen from Kevin Shields' signature "glide guitar" style, what the band get from their instruments on Loveless still sounds like nothing else. The four dry snare hits that open the album do not prepare you for the sludgy, white-dwarf heavy riff of opener "Only Shallow," or when the song shifts into pure beauty and back again. Moments like that happen throughout Loveless, from the ethereal slipstream of "To Here Knows When" to the poppy indie rock of "When You Sleep," to the dreamy, danceable perfection of "Soon." So many rock critic cliches and adjectives were created -- and wore out their welcome -- with folks trying to describe Loveless, yet you can't not be in awe 30 years on. It nearly destroyed the label but has always stood as one of its finest moments.

1. Primal Scream – Screamadelica (1991)

Led by gangly, cocksure Bobby Gillespie (who was The Jesus & Mary Chain's original drummer and grew up with Creation boss Alan McGee), Primal Scream were Creation Records' longest-running band, having released their debut single, "All Fall Down" on the label in 1985, and XTRMNTR in 2000, the last album released by the label before it dissolved. Like McGee, Gillespie seemed to live and breathe rock n' roll and he and his bandmates, including the invaluable Andrew Innes, at times managed to stay cool purely on attitude while releasing less-than-stellar early records. Things for them changed, though, when they gave their lackluster, Stonesy single "I'm Losing More Than I Ever Had" to DJ Andrew Weatherall to remix. He took out almost all the vocals, threw a beat under it and added a sample of Peter Fonda From The Wild Angels yelling "We wanna be free to do what we wanna do! We wanna get loaded and we wanna have a good time!" Released in February 1990, "Loaded" was one of the cornerstones of the acid house/Madchester scene and forever changed Primal Scream's trajectory. They spent nearly two years on one continuous party, working with Weatherall, Jah Wobble, Stones producer Jimmy Miller -- whatever suited their fancy and vibe -- and releasing singles along the way which would eventually be collected as the era-defining Screamadelica. It shouldn't have worked, but that sense of freedom made it come together beautifully. "Instead of having two guitars, bass, drums, vocals... we destroyed that," Gillespie said in The Creation Records Story. "It was anything goes - synth, tabla, drum machine, no vocals, instrumentals, gospel singers, sitars. The whole range of anything goes noises and suddenly the band were freed. It was a much looser approach to making music. And then getting people like Andy and Hugo, and Alex Patterson and Thrash from The Orb, Jimmy Miller, Wobble, you know – these people, Messing with our music, taking it somewhere else, making it more interstellar, as far out as… It was incredible. The greatest time." You still feel that listening to Screamadelica, too.