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US gets taste of Indie Top 20
In much the same way as the UK success of Now Thats What I Call Music spawned indie compilation copyists - first the sublime Indie Top 20 series marshaled by former Peel associate Clive Selwood; then the ridculous Shine series - now Now is big in the US, it's getting some upstart competition too.
It's called This is Next", although the presence of Sonic Youth in the debut tracklisting makes the promise of unknown pleasures offered by the title ring a little hollow. The line-up isn't bad:
01 Bloc Party - "The Prayer"
02 Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Cheated Hearts"
03 Sonic Youth - "Do You Believe in Rapture?"
04 The Shins - "Phantom Limb"
05 Spoon - "The Underdog"
06 Bright Eyes - "Four Winds"
07 Cat Power - "Lived in Bars"
08 Neko Case - "Hold On, Hold On"
09 Of Montreal - "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse"
10 Deerhoof - "The Perfect Me"
11 The Hold Steady - "Chips Ahoy!"
12 Cold War Kids - "Hang Me Up to Dry"
13 Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - "Colleen"
14 M. Ward - "Chinese Translation"
15 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - "Satan Said Dance"
... but nothing that you don't already get on the Paste magazine covermounts, say.
4 comments:
Indie Top 20 were grate! I found a few in my collection the other day. (12 and 13, I think). I also stumbled across a few 'Volume' compos, the ones with the fish on the front.
Pitchfork Media have The Hold Steady's Chips Ahoy! for a free Download.
Well Worth it.
In what way were the Shine CDs ridiculous, and this isn't? What a strange thing to say. They both seem like exactly what they are - samplers of a mainstream "indie" movement designed to push the alternative towards the record buying mainstream. (Bright Eyes are hardly obscure are they - several squillion plays on Last.fm.) Don't get me wrong, I loved the Shine CDs -I bought my Britpop loving girlfriend the whole set of all ten last xmas. But why the snobbery?
Anon...
Well, the fundamental ridiculousness of the Shine series was that it was a supposedly "indie/underground" album that was being released not merely by a major label - Universal - but by their TV division, which exists to make up compilations to be flogged during the breaks on Corrie. Somewhat of a contradiction between mission statement and reality.
Plus, I think Kula Shaker and/or Ocean Colour Scene appeared on every one. You can't get more ridiculous than that.
But I do agree with you about the underpinning logic of the project - whereas, I think, Indie Top 20 at least tried to provide a way of collecting records that were released on short runs and were difficult to find at the time, this is aimed much more at trying to sneak a few more Hold Steady Cds into baskets at Borders, isn't it?
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