Gleefully, I Went To Tell My Friends

I found Indie MP3 archives yesterday while checking out The Minor Fall, The Major Lift’s link section. The purpose of the site is to post MP3s of obscure 80s UK indie singles, which is particularly intriguing for me since that is an area of music which I know very little about, so it’s a good education.

Not everything in the archive is particularly good, and it seems like some of these bands were falling all over themselves to nick both Johnny Marr’s guitar style AND Morrissey’s deliverary. However, I do begin to wonder whether The Smiths were as amazingly seminal as I assume they were, or if they were in fact borrowing crucial elements of their sound from their peers in the UK scene at the time. The songs that aren’t very Smiths-y at all are still pretty typical of the 80s UK indie that I have heard, which is to say there’s nothing here that doesn’t sound dated.

The songs that I like the most that are currently in the archive are We’ve Got A Fuzzbox And We’re Gonna Use It’s “Rules And Regulations”, which is fun and catchy girl-punk number; Age Of Chance’s frantic “Bible Of The Beats”; Mighty Mighty’s “Everybody Knows The Monkey”, which is sort of like Morrissey singing with Unrest; Room’s mellow “Here Comes The Floor”; the June Brides’ peppy “No Place Called Home”; and both Shop Assistants songs.