Elastica- S/T (1995) / The Menace (2000) / The Radio One Sessions (2001) MP3 & FLAC

"I'd work very hard, but I'm lazy, I've got a lot of songs but they're all in my head. I'll get a guitar and a lover who pays me, if I can't be a star, I won't get out of bed."

Before forming Elastica (originally known as Onk) in mid-1992, Justine Frischmann was known more for her romantic conquests than her musical exploits. Having co-founded the iconic Brit-Pop band Suede in 1989 with then-college boyfriend Brett Anderson, Frischmann ended up being jettisoned from the band when she started up romantically with Damon Albarn of Brit-Pop rivals Blur. As former Suede lead guitarist Bernard Butler recalls, "She'd turn up late for rehearsals and say the worst thing in the world- 'I've been on a Blur video shoot.' That was when it ended, really. I think it was the day after she said that that Brett phoned me up and said, 'I've kicked her out.'"  Frischmann's version: "I just thought it was better to be Pete Best than Linda McCartney. Apart from anything, I just couldn't deal with being the second guitarist and having this strange, Lady Macbeth role in it along with being general mother to four blokes." Whatever the reason for her exit from Suede, she quickly set about forming her own band with another ex-Suede refugee, drummer Justin Welch who had also spent time in Spitfire.

After adding guitarist Donna Matthews, who had answered an ad the band had placed in Melody Maker specifying someone influenced by The Fall, The Stranglers and Wire, Elastica quickly gained exposure, first by opening for Blur as well as Pulp, recording a session for John Peel's BBC radio show, and then by issuing three very successful singles, one of which, "Connection," accomplished something few Brit-Pop bands were able to do: achieve chart success in the U.S. However, from the beginning, many accused Elastica of riding on the coattails of Albarn's immense success with Blur, and the band was also sued by two of their main influences, Wire and The Stranglers, for what amounted to plagiarism (they settled both cases out of court). Despite such adversity, Elastica's self-titled debut LP was nothing less than an unprecedented success, becoming the fastest selling debut album ever released in the U.K. and being nominated for the Mercury Prize. What made this success so surprising was how out of step Elastica was with the prevailing trends in indie music at the time; while most Brit-Pop bands were reaching back to either Glam-Rock (Suede) or the classic guitar-pop of The Beatles and The Kinks (Oasis and Blur respectively), Elastica's sound was firmly rooted in British Post-Punk bands such as Wire and the Buzzcocks (and in this sense, they were a full five years ahead of their time). The album itself is soaked in edgy, angular guitar riffs, defiantly blunt lyrics and masterful hooks, all of which highlight how the debate over the band's (lack of) originality was utterly beside the point. Afterall, if Frischmann & co. were borrowing ideas from Wire and The Stranglers, how was that any different than Oasis' liberal copping of The Beatles? In fact, one could argue that Elastica, just by virtue of the material they chose to "borrow," was far more "original" than most of their Brit-Pop brethren; it's not just any band that can transform the arty pretensions of Wire into a nearly perfect three-minute pop song.

Listening to the opening bars of the debut album's lead track, "Line Up," with its grimy guitar blasts and sexually suggestive lyrics, it becomes instantly clear just how influential Elastica's sound was with the Post-Punk revival crowd of the early 2000s. Yes, it does remind one a bit of Blur's "Girls and Boys," but it is far more aggressive in tone and darker in texture. On the impossibly infectious "Connection," Frischmann's Punk-infused sing-song vocal delivery and the band's sexy swagger combine into something that completely transcends their influences and is arguably one of the best singles released during the nineties. Despite (or perhaps due to) the enormous success of Elastica, the band was unable to produce a follow-up until The Menace was issued in 2000. During the course of the intervening six years between albums, drug abuse and the departure of several original band members took a heavy toll, as the band was constantly rumored to be on the verge of dissolution, something which finally came to fruition a year after their return. Nevertheless, it seems that Frischmann was prescient enough to see the writing on the wall at the height of Elastica's success: "In a musical sense, it seemed like all the good intentions had gone awry, very quickly. I mean, we got back from America and Blur had made The Great Escape, which I thought was a really, truly awful album- so cheesy, like a parody of Parklife, but without the balls or the intellect. And Oasis were enormous and I always found them incredibly dreary. There was this uncritical reverence surrounding the whole thing; it had seemed to me that maybe I was part of some force that was going to make music edgier and more interesting and then suddenly Blur were playing Wembley stadium and it was gone."

Suede- Dog Man Star (1994) Deluxe Edition (Bonus Disc + DVD Audio Rip) MP3 & FLAC

"And oh if you stay, I'll chase the rainblown fields away. We'll shine like the morning

and sin in the sun."

Like The Smiths before them, Suede, in its early and best incarnation, was built around the creative (and increasingly personal) tension between its two principal members: vocalist & lyricist Brett Anderson and guitarist Bernard Butler. Looking to blend the theatricality and subversive sexuality of early seventies British Glam with the dark edginess of Post-Punk as a response to the Shoegaze scene that was profoundly devoid of both, Anderson & Butler were able to run counter to nearly every prevailing early-nineties trend in alternative music while fashioning what was to become one of the most successful debut albums in British music history. The two had become close friends after the exit of Justine Frischmann from the band in 1991 (she had dumped long-time boyfriend Anderson in order to take up with Damon Albarn of Blur); however, it was during the two 1993 American tours in support of their debut album, Suede, that the seeds for the dissolution of Anderson and Butler's working relationship were sown. Butler, grieving the death of his father and increasingly disenchanted with the band's indulgent lifestyle while on tour, became an alienated figure in the band. Even with the success of the ironically titled stand-alone single "Stay Together," tensions between Anderson and Butler only increased once work commenced on Suede's follow-up LP, Dog Man Star, which, despite the overwhelming enmity swirling about during its creation, is justly considered Suede's masterpiece. Battling endlessly with producer Ed Buller and demanding a lengthier, more improvisational approach to many of the songs (for example, "The Asphalt World" was initially 25 minutes long and reportedly included an eight minute guitar solo!), Butler was eventually compelled to quit the band before the completion of the album. In hindsight, Anderson claims Butler's exit was inevitable given the dynamic and volatile nature of their creative partnership: "He's that kind of artist, Bernard. He has to experience tension and strife in order to do what he does. And I guess that's fine because it makes him what he is. But I do think that it was a tragedy, him leaving, because there was still a lot of gas left in the tank. I have no doubt we could have gone on to achieve something quite extraordinary if he'd hung around." Bernard Butler: "I felt I couldn't go any further with it, musically. We were just never in the studio making music; there was so much else going on. I was always on my own, writing stuff that was getting wasted. Brett was too busy partying. When it came to recording [Dog Man Star] there were so many things I wanted to do with these songs I'd spent an awful long time trying to mould, working out ideas and trying to challenge myself and challenge the band, and I just heard too many times, 'No, you can't do that.' I was sick to death of it." While Butler would ultimately disown Dog Man Star, it is hard to argue against the album's brilliance; if it is the product of the band's (or Anderson's) solipsistic withdrawal into its own pathos-drenched interiors, it is a withdrawal sketched in the kind of lush melancholy and artistic excess that hadn't been seen or heard from since the height of the British Glam-Rock movement. While largely eschewing the Glam-crunch that characterized much of the debut album, Dog Man Star is bathed in hazy, almost hallucinogenic, textures that echo Anderson's often oblique lyrics, which were directly inspired by his growing appetite for drug-induced states of altered consciousness: "I was actually having visions of Armageddon and riots in the streets and inventing strange things, living in this surreal world [....] I was kind of aware that everything was getting slightly strange. I was quite into all these people that had visions and were slightly off their nuts, people like Lewis Carroll. I was quite into that whole idea of becoming the recording artist as lunatic. I was quite into that extremity, but I was definitely living it. It was good fun!" The album was greeted with a chorus of critical praise upon its release, but failed miserably at replicating the commercial prowess of its predecessor. As such, Dog Man Star is often described as an unfocused artistic failure, but nothing could be further from the truth; in fact, it just might be the most ambitious and enduring work to come out of the U.K. during the nineties.

Suede- "The Wild Ones" Video (1994)

Here's a taster for what's coming next...

Suede- S/T (1993) Deluxe Edition (Bonus Disc + DVD Audio Rip) MP3 & FLAC

"I was born as a pantomime horse, ugly as the sun when he falls to the floor."

Suede always seemed an odd choice for poster boys of the "Brit-Pop" movement; far more rooted in early-seventies Glam than mid-sixties guitar-pop, far more gloomy Manchester than jingle-jangle "Madchester," few bands had inspired as much hype before releasing their debut album (including being featured on the front cover of Melody Maker), and fewer still had ever delivered on the hype the way Suede did. Quite literally marrying the androgyny & excess of Ziggy-era Bowie to the dark working-class romanticism of The Smiths, Brett Anderson, Bernard Butler & co. couldn't have been more out of step with the music trends dominating London and America during the early-nineties; however, Suede possessed a magnetic stage presence that was rare in an era known for its shoegazing. As one music journalist put it: "They had charm, aggression, and [...] if not exactly eroticism, then something a little bit dangerous and exciting." After parting ways with original member Justine Frischmann who would later resurface as the lead singer of Elastica, Suede issued a slew of successful singles throughout 1992 and early 1993 before releasing its eponymous debut album, which promptly became the most successful debut in British music history (only to be eclipsed by Oasis a year later). Drenched in the same literate nihilism, polymorphous perversity, and theatrical pretensions that made Bowie's early work feel so dangerously compelling, Suede, nevertheless, has a distinctive feel all its own due to the palpable creative tension between Anderson and Butler that is evident throughout the album, a dynamic rivalry, somewhat reminiscent of Morrissey and Johnny Marr, that would result in Butler's acrimonious exit the following year. From brilliant Glam-anthems such as "So Young" and "The Drowners" to the sultry gloom of songs such as "Pantomime Horse" and "Sleeping Pills," Anderson's preening, "mockney" lead vocals intricately intertwine with Butler's lush, molten lava guitar leads, spinning a web of hazy, melancholy decadence that lends the music a certain sense of grandeur dressed up in Punk attitude and Glam-inspired androgyny. Regarding the latter, Anderson, like Bowie before him, sensed the mystique of ambiguity: "Too much music is about a very straightforward sense of sexuality [....] Twisted sexuality is the only kind that interests me. The people that matter in music [...] don't declare their sexuality. Morrissey never has and he's all the more interesting for that."

Elastica- "Stutter" Video (1995)

Let's take another trip down Brit-pop memory lane. Elastica: certainly not the most original band to ever grace a stage, but they were pretty fantastic at that Post-Punk revival stuff (and were so long before it was the trendy thing to do)

Blur- 10 Year Anniversary Box Set (1999) MP3 & FLAC -For sradams777-

"I met him in a crowded room where people go to drink away their gloom. He sat me down and so began the story of a charmless man."

Originally a fair to middling Shoegaze band who had arrived too late in the game to be successful purveyors of the Manchester sound that dominated their early efforts, Blur eventually re-invented themselves as Brit-pop revivalists, and in the process, became one of the most important and influential U.K. bands of the nineties. Blur- and before that Seymour until they changed their name at the behest of their record company, in hindsight, a very wise move- were little more than scene-jumpers with a tepid first single, "She's So High," until coming under the influence of producer Stephen Street, who was best known at the time for his engineering and production work with The Smiths. Under Street's tutelage, Blur came up with their breakthrough single, "There's No Other Way"; however, internally, things were disintegrating: while Blur were quickly outgrowing their dependence on the Manchester scene for inspiration, Food Records was very resistant to a change in direction, as they were evidently more interesting in milking the Manchester sound for as long as possible. Things eventually came to a head on the ensuing U.S. tour in support of the band's debut L.P., Leisure, during which relations between band members began to disintegrate and homesickness reached epidemic proportions, as Damon Albarn recalls, "I just started to miss really simple things [....] I missed everything about England, so I started writing songs which created an English atmosphere." Thus, the seeds for Blur's transformation were sown. Despite an occasionally nationalistic tone, especially in interviews, Blur's decision to foreground the "Englishness" of their music was not unlike The Kinks' decision, 25 years earlier, to move from Mersey-Beat-influenced Garage-Rock to Ray Davies' psychedelic-tinged explorations of traditional British culture, with the irony being that in Blur's case, it made them superstars (at least on their side of the pond), while for The Kinks, despite resulting in unprecedented artistic heights for the band, it considerably diminished their mainstream commercial appeal (if only temporarily). With albums such as Modern Life Is Rubbish, Parklife, and The Great Escape, Blur were at the forefront of a British guitar-pop revival that included bands such as Suede, Pulp, The Boo Radleys, Elastica, and arch-rivals, Oasis, to name but a few. During these years, Blur cultivated a well-publicized rivalry with Oasis that, at times, verged on a feud; however, what distinguished Blur's brand of Brit-Pop from that of bands like Oasis was its post-modern sensibilities, not the least of which was the ability to sound simultaneously tongue-in-cheek, even humorous, and viciously satirical in a socio-political sense. Another aspect of the band that contrasted sharply with the competition was their penchant for artistic re-invention, a characteristic largely attributable to guitarist Graham Coxon. During their Brit-Pop years, Blur was quite dismissive of and staunchly resistant to the influence of American indie music on the British music scene, leading Albarn to claim at one point, "If punk was about getting rid of hippies, then I'm getting rid of grunge." Nevertheless, by the mid-nineties, Coxon was falling under the influence of various American Lo-Fi and Noise-Rock bands and consequently had no interest in continuing in the vein of The Great Escape, something that very nearly spelled the end for Blur, as his band-mates were initially not eager to re-invent themselves at the height of their commercial and critical appeal. However, they eventually came around to Coxon's idea of making music "to scare people again." The result was Blur, which Albarn termed, "English slacker," an album that largely redefined the band's sound by assimilating American Lo-Fi influences such as Beck and Pavement and garnered the band critical acclaim while (at least initially) alienating their fan-base. Blur's final album of the decade, 13, saw the band move even further afield of their Brit-Pop past by ending their long-standing relationship with Stephen Street and enlisting William Orbit as producer, who reportedly gave Coxon free-reign in the studio and encouraged Albarn to explore his crush on gospel music. As a result, 13 stands as Blur's most stripped down and darkest album, but also its most self-indulgent. When all is said and done, Blur was probably the most consistently great British band of the nineties, which is even more impressive given the fact that, stylistically, they were not a band to rest on their laurels.

Suede- "So Young" Live (1993) from Love & Poison

In their early incarnation with Bernard Butler on guitar, Suede were one hell of an impressive band.

Blur- "The Universal" Video (1995)

Viddy well brothers, viddy well! Oh yes, and there's a massive Blur post in the works too :)

The Verve- "Slide Away" (1992) Live, Camden

In its heyday, this band put its contemporaries to shame, and yes, this includes Radiohead, Blur, Pulp, etc. Verve live was nothing less than a fucking religious experience.

Paisley Underground Series, #10: Pink Floyd- The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967) 40th Anniversary Box Set (3 Discs) MP3 & FLAC

"You only have to read the lines; they're scribbley black and everything shines."

While there had already been a burgeoning underground psychedelic music scene underway in the U.K. and elsewhere for at least a year (e.g. the Los Angeles and San Francisco scenes in the U.S.), the summer of 1967 was the point at which this psychotropic-inspired sound crossed into the mainstream with the release of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. While an endless amount of material has been written about the cultural and artistic impact of this album (I might even try to add to this if I ever decide to post some "Fab Four"), Pink Floyd's debut LP, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is arguably the most innovative, experimental and hallucinogenic masterpiece released that iconic summer. At this point in their development, Pink Floyd was essentially Syd Barrett's band, and while the the lyrics are often replete with images of childhood and fairytales (the album's title is borrowed from The Wind and the Willows), musically, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, while containing more than its share of  whimsy, is often quite dark thanks to Rick Wright's electric organ work, which would prove to be highly influential on later neo-psych movements such as The Paisley Underground. And this is the reason Pink Floyd's debut outshines many of its "summer of love" contemporaries; rather than offering straight forward pop tinged with psychedelic refraction or hippie anthems to acid utopias, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn explores both the intense euphoria and the terrifying chaos comprising a psychedelic experience. A perfect example of this brilliant duality is "Matilda Mother"; while Barrett sings from the perspective of a child oscillating between fantasy and fear, the music progressively grows creepy and unsettling. However, things are even darker on "Astronomy Domine," which contains some great acid guitar work and constitutes the aural equivalent of falling down a rabbit hole. The Piper at the Gates of Dawn manages to sound both time-bound and timeless, and in doing so, it stands as one of the most essential and influential albums of the psychedelic era.

The Easybeats- "Sorry" (1966) Live on TV

A great clip from an extremely underrated Australian Mod-Beat Garage-Rock band: The Easybeats

Ride- Nowhere (1990) 20th Anniversary Edition (Bonus Disc) MP3 & FLAC -For iggy1-

"And the train rushes past like a day gone too fast."

While My Bloody Valentine's Loveless is considered, in most quarters, as the holy grail of the original UK Shoegaze movement, a strong case can be made that Ride's debut long-player, Nowhere, is just as good if not better (though vastly different). Previous to Nowhere, Ride had released several EPs that positioned them as a band on the cusp of brilliance; these early releases all revealed a sound forged out of antecedents such as The Jesus and Mary Chain and the aforementioned My Bloody Valentine, but in addition, Ride sounded like a band who had spent some time listening to Nuggets -era psychedelia. While the foundation for Nowhere is clearly discernible in these EPs, the album itself sees the band transform these influences into something abrasively vibrant and recognizably their own, and if this isn't enough, beneath all the jangle, distortion, and reverb are some pretty fine pop songs for those with ears to hear. On the superb opening track "Seagull," Ride is at its psychedelic best, complete with backward-masked guitars, duo vocals by Mark Gardener and Andy Bell, and a killer hook buried beneath the guitar squall. Another standout is "Vapour Trail," a track featuring some lovely guitar jangle and a more solemn tone while still retaining the power of the more intense songs. While Nowhere is rightly labeled a Shoegaze album, throughout the proceedings, Ride seem intent on playing with some of the conventions of the genre, which might be the reason the album hasn't aged a day in 20 years.  Guitar-based pop simply doesn't get any better than this.

Ride- Smile (1990) MP3 & FLAC

"And when I see you sliding past, I make my plans, and then my plans slip through my fingers just like sand."

While My Bloody Valentine is often cited as the pinnacle of the Shoegaze movement of the late eighties and early nineties, Ride's first smattering of EPs and their debut full-length, Nowhere, are nearly as good, with the added bonus of pushing the "wall of sound" approach into regions more visceral and less fussed-over than their contemporaries. On Smile, a compilation of the band's first two EPs for Creation, the influence of Psychocandy is palpable, and like The Jesus and Mary Chain, Ride are careful to wrap their layers of distortion around sugar-sweet garage-pop gems. For example, on one of the album's obvious highlights, "Chelsea Girl," Ride tap into a mid-sixties garage-psych sound but take it somewhere new with heavily distorted guitar squalls and Loz Colbert's manic drumming. While "Silver" heads into darker neo-psychedelic territory, "Furthest Sense" nods in the direction of My Bloody Valentine, but whereas that band buries melody in layers of guitar refraction, Ride pushes the song's pop structure to the foreground. Though Ride's debut album (and masterpiece) is more fully-formed and better recorded, the EPs comprising Smile should by no means be overlooked.

The Fall- Live at the Witch Trials (1979) Expanded Edition (Bonus Disc) MP3 & FLAC

"He spits in the sky. It falls in his eye, and then he gets to sitting, talking to his kitten."

Misanthropy can be a compelling form of artistic expression when it avoids taking itself too seriously, and nowhere is this more in evidence than on The Fall's sprawling, ironically titled debut, Live at the Witch Trials. Falling somewhere between the aggressive anti-aestheticism of Punk and the dark artiness of Post-Punk (and somehow embodying the best traits of both), while also verging into the experimental excess of Kraut-Rock, The Fall, in their original incarnation, were a shambolic, frightening, convention-flaunting enigma masquerading as a Punk band a year late to the party. All of these elements are clearly on display on one of the album's standout tracks, "Two Steps Back," with its strange, simplistic keyboard part juxtaposed to the ominous atonal guitar tearing through the mix, and then there's Mark E. Smith chant-singing through what sounds like a bored sneer. Also well-worthy of mention is "Music Scene," a funk-based song that anticipates Gang of Four's early eighties material, and features Smith lyrically skewering- you guessed it- the music industry. A deserving target if you ask me. Live at the Witch Trials is not for the faint-of-heart, but if you have even a passing interest in the UK Punk movement of the late seventies, this iconoclastic gem is essential listening.

The Smiths- Louder Than Bombs (1987) MP3 & FLAC

"Because the music that they constantly play, it says nothing to me about my life."

Louder Than Bombs, originally a U.S.-only hodgepodge of stray singles, b-sides, Peel sessions, and tracks culled from both The Smiths' debut and the UK-only compilation, Hatful of Hollow, is an unwieldy, unfocused, and still somehow mostly brilliant reminder of how peerless The Smiths were in their mid-eighties heyday. The album's true riches are the singles (and their b-sides) that were not included on The Smiths' four studio albums. Chief among these is "Shoplifters of the World Unite," a bludgeoning, lo-fi paean to stepping out of the closet, which features a seductively glum vocal from Morrissey and some nice multi-layered guitar work from Johnny Marr. The b-side of this single, the brilliant "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby," while being one of the most traditionally structured rock songs The Smiths ever recorded, is a wonderfully acerbic send-up of a record exec's dismissive attitude toward promoting the band. Louder Than Bombs' finest moment is arguably "Panic," a sarcastic yet sincere indictment of the banality of commercial radio, complete with a children's chorus chanting "Hang the DJ!"  If not the finest moment in The Smith's justly legendary discography, Louder Than Bombs is no less essential for it.

The Colour Field- Virgins and Philistines (1985) / Deception (1987) MP3 & FLAC -For Stefano-

"Let's conjure up a day of beauty, fulfill our tender duties."

After the demise of Fun Boy Three, a strange and occasionally brilliant hybrid of Ska and New Wave pop, Terry Hall formed The Colour Field in Manchester. Whereas Fun Boy Three, despite a strong impulse toward experimentation, always kept its finger on the pulse of current UK pop trends, on their debut, The Colour Field sounded like a band completely out of time and place in the mid-eighties, all but ensuring their commercial failure. Drawing on various influences from the sixties such as baroque Chamber Pop, Jangle-Pop, and Psychedelia, Virgins and Philistines has held up rather well over the years, whereas much of what was "contemporary" in 1985 now sounds badly dated. Such are the ironic whims of pop culture. Terry Hall's approach as a vocalist in The Colour Field isn't much different from his work with The Specials and Fun Boy Three: cool, laconic, and minimalist but thoroughly charming. For example, on "Castles in the Air," Hall's coy vocals provide a perfect counterpoint to the song's baroque melodrama that comes complete with weeping cellos and Spanish guitar. On their second album and swan-song, Deception, The Colour Field largely abandoned the sixties pop fetish for a more recognizably eighties sound; nevertheless, Hall's acerbic wit is still fully on display, and the album contains some genuinely fine moments such as "Miss Texas 1967," a gorgeous acoustic ballad that sounds like it would have been more at home on Virgins and Philistines.

The House of Love- S/T "Butterfly Album" (1990) MP3 & FLAC

"In a garden in the house of love, sitting lonely on a plastic chair, sun is cruel when he hides away. I need a sister, I'll just stay."

A lush, stunning, overwrought masterpiece of an album, The House of Love's second consecutive self-titled LP (the first long-player born of their ill-fated relationship with Fontana Records) stands as one of the great indie releases of the nineties, even though its status as the missing link between Post-Punk and Brit-Pop has all but assured it of a slow descent into relative obscurity. Legend has it that the recording sessions for the album were a nightmare, as the band was not only quickly fragmenting, but was also saddled with an artistically unsympathetic producer. Despite all this, House of Love is both cohesive and dynamic. The album opens with "Hannah," a song built around some lovely echoing guitar parts, which are cut through by Guy Chadwick's measured vocals until the chorus, where things are kicked up a sonic notch- overall, an outstandingly constructed song. The next track, a re-recording of the pre-album single "Shine On," is just as good; though the lyrics are obscure, melodically, this is one of The House of Love's most memorable songs. The final part of the opening trilogy, "Beatles and the Stones," is a shimmering, gorgeous ballad, whose theme is more about isolation than sixties nostalgia. Criminally out of print, this is, nevertheless, an album not to be missed.

XTC- "Making Plans for Nigel" (1979) Live, Top of the Pops

Sure, they're lip-syncing, it is TOTPs after all, but live XTC is live XTC! A rare thing indeed!

R@diohe@d- Hail to the Th13f (2003) Special Collector's Edition (Bonus Disc) MP3 & FLAC -For ZackyJ-

"I can watch and not take part, where I end and where you start."

In the early noughties, it appeared that Radiohead had painted themselves into a corner artistically. Having largely traded in the "PoMo" Art-Rock of The Bends and OK Computer for the glitchy electronic textures of Kid A and its sister album Amnesiac, it seemed to set them up for the inevitable "return to form" or for official resident status in Autechreland. As a resolution to this cliffhanger, Hail to the Thief seems, on the surface, to indicate the former, as many of its songs are certainly more conventional in sound and structure than those found on its two predecessors. However, it quickly becomes apparent upon further listens that Radiohead is attempting to integrate both aesthetic inclinations into something new, both organic and electronic, both melodically inviting and chillingly alienating. In a way, Hail to the Thief can be viewed as the last album on which Radiohead was unselfconsciously pursuing their sonic muse; it's follow-up, In Rainbows, seemed much more preoccupied with the band's legacy than with sonic inventiveness. A truly underrated album.

The Smiths- S/T (1984) MP3 & FLAC -For Jo Jo-

"It's time the tale were told of how you took a child and you made him old."

Simply put, The Smiths were the most important band of the eighties, and there is no better place to find out why than their eponymous debut, a raw and intensely beautiful album that brilliantly combines highly melodic guitar-pop with many of the hallmarks of the Post-Punk movement. The Smiths had initially recorded many of these tracks with Troy Tate (former guitarist for The Teardrop Explodes) in the production seat, but were convinced by John Porter, who had production credits with Japan and Roxy Music, that the sessions were unsalvageable. Under the auspices of Porter, The Smiths proceeded to record a stunner that would signal a sea change on the British music scene. The Smiths is nothing if not doggedly unconventional, and I can remember hearing "What Difference Does It Make?" for the first time back in 1984, thinking how strange Morrissey's disaffected vocals and Johnny Marr's charging guitar sounded in amongst all the synth-pop pablum dominating alt-rock radio in those days. From Marr's inventive song-structures to Morrissey's distinctive croon to the strangely literate lyrics to the band's unblinking willingness to explore the darkest recesses of alienation, The Smiths were simultaneously the crowning achievement of British Post-Punk and the harbinger of its demise. An absolute classic.