favourite alt-indie songs
 

as far as im concerned there hasnt been a thread like this yet, and we have an abundance of greatest songs threads on every other forum. so, citizens of musicbanter, what are your favourite indie/alternative songs. i will alow traces of folk and blues etc as well....

1. willy mason- oxygen
2. manic street preachers- a design for life
3. brmc- suddenly
4. The stone roses- ten storey love song
5. portishead- sour times
6. pavement- shady lane
7. oasis- whatever
8. hot hot heat- bandages
9. jeff buckley- last goodbye
10. the doves- there goes the fear.

I'm here because of http://www.musicbanter.com/games-lis...litz-game.html , and I'm wondering why Sneer got zero response to his invitation to post favourites.

I'm hoping this thread might help to clarify what Indie/Alt music sounds like, because afaik it's a genre that defines itself by what it's not, i.e. not mainstream. But if that is the case, why does Sneer have an Oasis song in his list? Surely they're about as mainstream as you can get? :confused:

EDIT: Here's a sad factoid: as of right now, this thread has had 2,462 views and yet this post, 12 years after the OP is the first reply ever. Little wonder that Sneer is no longer around.

Alt/ Indie is a pretty wide net and some of it is commercial. Most of it isn't though. Anyway, this is a rough estimate of my favorite indie songs, at least from the nineties on...

1) Flaming Lips- Do You Realize
2) Radiohead- Karma Police
3) Wilco- Ashes of American Flags
4) Girls- Hellhole Ratrace
5) The Shins- Saint Simon
6) Elliott Smith- Waltz No. 2
7) Sufjan Stevens- John Wayne Gacy
8) Sparklehorse- Babies on the Sun
9) Yo La Tengo- My Little Corner of the World
10) Sam Phillips- Strawberry Road

Honorable Mentions include: PJ Harvey, Suede, Aimee Mann, Gomez, Magnetic Fields, Of Montreal (and the Elephant Six group in general), and, of course, the White Stripes. There are certainly others but I can’ think of them off the top of my head at the moment.


If we're also including the eighties, then the Pixies, Camper Van Beethoven, REM, Depeche Mode, Midnight Oil, and Spacemen 3, among others, have to be mentioned. The last one is certainly the most indie of that group.

^ Thanks for such a bunch of recommendations, rubber soul :thumb:

I've chosen this one as a kind of "whatare you listening to now" clip because Wilco have been on my To Do list for some time, mainly because of their connection to Uncle Tupelo:-


And right at the end of your lists, yes! I really like (most of) Spacemen 3, who caught my attention when I heard those two "walking with Jesus" songs.

The Walking With Jesus songs is what got me into Spacemen 3 too. They have at least two great albums but they did tail off in the end. Still, for Sound of Confusion and the Perfect Prescription, I'd highly recommend them if you're into retro psychedelia.

And in the 'you learn something everyday' department, I just discovered, via wiki, that Spacemen 3 evolved into Spiritualized. Now those are two totally different sounding bands when you think about it :laughing: .

^ Yes, I guess they are, but I downloaded them together at the same time, so I feel there's a similarity - but thanks for reminding me: Cop Shoot Cop is going on my list of fave Indie songs!

Alt-J sucks

The name Alternative Rock came about to avoid the irony of calling underground music "underground" when it became mainstream, or calling something College Rock when it's played on high-wattage mainstream FM stations. I think it came about around the time when Nirvana became household names and Grunge was no longer contained in Seattle area. They had to look for a new name and at some point started using the name Alternative or Alt-Rock.

Indie is from independent major record labels. The big three being Universal, Sony, and Warner. The confusion enters because some treat "indie" as a music genre, while others see it as the way the music is produced independently from a major label.

An impossible task to think of just ten, and then order them accordingly which I like more.

1. Wire - Outdoor Miner (1978)
2. The Only Ones - Another Girl, Another Planet (1978)
3. Actual Tigers - Testimony (2001)
4. Hum - Stars (1995)
5. Jump Little Children - Cathedrals (1998)
6. The Church - Flied of Mars (1982)
7. Urusei Yatsura - First Day on a New Planet (1996)
8. The Muffs - Outer Space (1997)
9. The Cardigans - Carnival (1995)
10. Sixpence None The Richer - Kiss Me (1997)

Please tell me you're a fan of the show that they're named after.

I only know of the Glaswegian band "Urusei Yatsura." I think Plastic Little is another group with an anime reference. I don't know how many are out there. Evangeline is a song inspired by a graphic novel heroine.

11. Mathew Sweet - Evangeline

This is one of my favorites too! :o


Off the top of my head:

Dirty Beaches - Lord Knows Best
Trailer Trash Tracys - Candy Girl
Chris Knox - The Outer Skin
Polaris - She Is Staggering
Sparklehorse - Apple Bed
The Magnetic Fields - Queen of the Savages, Long-Forgotten Fairytale
Low - Murderer, Point of Disgust, Walk Into the Sea
Mount Eerie - In the Rain, Clear Moon, Ravens, Moon I Already Know, I Walked Home Beholding
Tall Dwarfs - Crush, This Room Is Wrong, Thought Disorder
King Dude - Spiders in Her Hair, Holy Water, Lucifer's the Light of the World, A Little Bit of Baby Gonna Make Me Wanna Live Again
Mercury Rev - Little Rhymes, Goddess on a Highway
Willis Earl Beal - Wavering Lines, Evening's Kiss
Hum - Stars
Neko Case - Things That Scare Me, Runnin' Out Of Fools, City Swans, Blacklisted, Deep Red Bells, This Tornado Loves You
Strawberry Switchblade - Little River
Elliot Smith - Roman Candle
Chromatics - Shadow
PJ Harvey - Shame
Blonde Redhead - Elephant Woman
Cowboy Junkies - Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis)
The Afghan Whigs - When We Two Parted
The Mountain Goats - Moon Over Goldsboro
Sharon Van Etten - Your Love is Killing Me
Anna Calvi - Wolf Like Me
Vetiver - Lon Chaney
Cranes - Beautiful Friend
Kelley Deal 6000 - When He Calls Me Kitten

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is such a damn good album. You know, they're supposed to be alt country or folk or whatever, but this album sounds so advanced and not like anything else I've heard in the genres they're typically associated with. I love albums that do that.

I think they were considered alt-country when they first came out, probably because of the Uncle Tupelo connection, but they kept changing their sound as time went on. I'd prefer just to consider them Americana. They're one of my favorite bands these days.

Agreed. "Jesus, Etc" is my favorite song off that album. The lines "skyscrapers are scraping together / your voice is smoking" towards the end are just so good

The Waterboys: A Pagan Place
Killing Joke: A New Day

All time? Hmm.. Hard. Got to be more, but a few amazing ones:
1. Ben Folds Five - "Boxing"
2. Mac DeMarco - "Chamber of Reflection"
3. Dispatch - "The General"
4. Bright Eyes - "The First Day of My Life"

Like I say, so many more... haha too many too think of and post tho

**EDIT**
HOW could I forget Joanna Newsom?! So many good songs, I just say her entire first three albums.

Nice to see Strawberry Switchblade get a mention. Lots of great Glasgow indy music over the years, see if you can find The Wake, an early 80s Glasgow band thats pretty much forgotten.

Favorite Alt/Indie Songs
 

Neutral Milk Hotel - The King of Carrot Flowers
Radiohead - Airbag
Sleater-Kinney - the Fox, Burn Don't Freeze, Rollercoaster, Jumpers
The Breeders - No Aloha, Cannonball
Pixies - Debaser, Dead
Blonde Redhead - In Particular
Pavement - Range Life, Heaven is a Truck, Loretta's Scars, Rattled by the Rush
Courtney Barnett - Pedestrian at Best
Eels - Going to your Funeral
Kurt Vile - Jesus Fever
Björk - Army of Me
Super Furry Animals - Demons, Gathering Moss, Hermann loves Pauline
the Auteurs - Showgirl
the Boo Radleys - I Hang Suspended
the Flaming Lips - A Spoonful Weighs a Ton
the White Stripes - The Air Near my Fingers, Fell in Love with a Girl
Built to Spill - Twin Falls
Belly - Untogether
Beck - Lord Only Knows

Of Montreal - So Begins Our Alabee
Sufjan Stevens - Chicago (Adult Contemporary Version)
The Amps - Pacer
The Josephine Wiggs Experience - Arizona
Eyes Adrift - Alaska
Sweet 75 - Fetch
R.E.M. - Gardening At Night
The Pixies - Gigantic
Dinosaur Jr. - The Wagon
Cowboy Junkies - Speaking Confidentially
Skiploader - Synonym
Belly - Now They'll Sleep
Geggy Tah - Whoever You Are

Favourite Alt-indie songs
 

From what I've heard of them I kinda like them, but I much prefer the White Stripes

I try to stay away from Dutch music, because popular Dutch music is some of the worst ****e there is and it scared me away from trying to find the good stuff. Some Dutch bands that I do like:
-Jungle by Night: an afrobeat band from Amsterdam, they're fun
-Pip Blom: has a bit of a Courtney Barnett vibe, but not nearly as good. I like some of her songs

there is one piece of Dutch music that I really love: the songs of the 60's TV musical Ja Zuster Nee Zuster, written by Annie MG Schmidt, who is like the Dutch equivalent of Astrid Lindgren (but not nearly as good. If only Astrid Lidgren had made a musical). The songs are probably not as fun without the understanding of the lyrics and the childhood nostalgia, but whatever, they're amazing to me. They also re-recorded the songs when I was a kid for a film version but the originals are the good ****.

netherlands: the ex are a truly great band politically and musically. (postpunk/hardcore/alternative)
i d rec the records dizzy spells, their first colab with tom cora ( Scrabbling At The Lock), tumult.

belgium: dEUS!! absolutely loved them in the 90's, mainly the records ideal crash and in a bar under the sea.

Oh yeah I forgot about the ex! I haven't really explored them yet, I should definitely do that

oh, i didnt realise til now you live in the netherlands. you gotta go see them play live actually, i guess they ll play pretty often there...
saw them once some years ago-but with the new singer.
they are an absolutely must-see-live-band, their energy is so apparent. they re great!

The Ex is great, I'm especially fond of this album:

its the one with the horns isnt it? yeah great record also!
they really like to collaborate and experiment, many times withafrican musicians, they have a release with tortoise, but my favs are the albums with cellist tom cora.

here are some of my favorites, one per artist cause there are many:

Ween - friends (EP version)
Wilco - ashes of american flag
Interpol - not even jail
Teenage Fanclub - winter
The Notwist - pick up the phone
The Strokes - you only live once (not really indie but whatever)

2000's indies:
Sherwood - Middle of the night
The Killers - Mr. Bright side
Muse - Supermassive Black Hole
The Ting Tings - That's not my name
Jet - Are You Gonna Be My Girl
The Fray - Over my head, You found me
We Are Scientists - Nobody move, nobody gets hurt

I love “I am trying to break your heart” so goood

A guy I went to school with put out a song called Beautiful Stranger last night. I saw him perform and it was great, kinda crazy !

Amazing mix of songs in this thread. Some brilliant tunes I forgot about/ or never heard! Very tough but for me....

Bitter sweet symphony - verve
Slide away - oasis
Last night - strokes
Fortunate Son - CCR
Dakota - Stereophonics
LSF - Kasabain
Don't look back into the sun - Libertines
Common people - Pulp
The day we caught the train - OCS
I am the resurrection - Stone Roses

Alternative/Indie
Keane - This Is The Last Time
Oasis - Little By Little
The Stone Roses - Waterfall
Wolf Alice - Giant Peach
Blur - Parklife
Bloc Party - Helicopter
Catfish and The Bottlemen - Soundcheck
Alvvays - Archie, Marry Me
Snow Patrol - Run
Blossoms - There's A Reason Why
London Grammar - Big Picture
Folk
Laura Marling - Devil's Spoke
Mumford and Sons - Winter Winds
Phoebe Bridgers - Smoke Signals
George Ezra - Listen to The Man
The Head and The Heart - Down In The Valley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLwPXO6te3U

These are the ones that come to mind but very few are all time favorites.

Pavement - Grave architecture
JJ72 - Long way south
The Amps - Dedicated
The Breeders - Hag
Frank Black - Superabound
Sonic Youth - Incinerate
Pete and the pirates - Knots
Of montreal - Voltaic crusher
Tmbg - They'll need a crane
Daniel johnston - Fighting with myself
Zoe - Dead
Frank Black and the catholics - The man who was too loud
Phoenix - countdown
Tokyo police club - citizens of tomorrow
Bloc party - Like eating glass
Violent Femmes - Used to be
Vivian girls - I heard you say
Ween - Tried & true

And then there's this one which is a current fav of mine

Amazing list.

Thank you bud. :beer:

lemme share some pop from the greatest songwriter ever too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcpO4Wsj0WY

:yeah:

I was actually going to make my whole list just gbv songs cus they have so many great tunes.