girly indie

i was collating some tunes into a playlist on mp3 player the other day and struck on the idea of choosing my favourite inde tunes with girl singers. or something along those lines. i thought i may as well share it here - complete with links to the tracks (the quality is purposefully poor to save space - and hopefully to persuade anybody who downloads these and likes them to go out and obtain them properly so you can have a decent quality listenable version. any record company lawyer types watching - note the above, if you want me to take these down, consider it done.

you can get a list of the links here: link

you can right-click and 'save as...' for each file, though if you click on it, you may well hear a streamed version. i don't know.

- 01 Echobelly - Great Things
A Britpop era band, and very good they were too. Part of the NWONW (New Wave Of New Wave) thing in the pre-Britpop days, before everybody starting wearing adidas and fred perry and thought they may as well start another 'genre'. This appeared on Britpop Now, the excellent BBC2 program summarising all those bands - watch this song here

- 02 Elastica - All Nighter
Another Britpop band. Their first album is ace , I particularly like this one - better than Connection and Line Up in my opinion. The question remains though - is Justine Frischmann fit? 11 years and I still can't figure it out. I think she is. you decide

- 03 Sleeper - What Do I Do Now
yep, another Britpop-era band. This is off their second album, the It Girl and one of my favourite sleeper songs, though I think Smart is generally a better album. Louise Wener is an author now with three books under her belt. Anybody who has seen any footage of Sleeper live will attest that they tend to like to play in cold venues a lot.

- 04 Powder - Afrodisiac
yeah, Britpop band, etc etc - though sounds a bit more like Hole than the Jam/Wire/Kinks albums the rest of the bands were listening too. I like it though, also shown on Britpop Now. The front-woman Pearl is married to the drummer for supergrass.

- 05 Kenickie - In Your Car
A cracking sunderland band who rode on the tails of Britpop. At The Club is an extremely fine album. Montrose gimps it up for charity

- 06 Catatonia - I Am the Mob
See question above about Justine Frischmann.
Catatonia were good, this tune is good, Mulder and Scerlyyyy is also good. Her solo album Cockahoop is also good - recorded after kicking booze and heading to tennesse.

- 07 Lush - Single Girl
I much prefer this post-britpop era lush to their shoegazing stuff. I wasn't sure whether to put this or Ladykillers here. Both are good.

- 08 theaudience - Pessimist Is Never Disappointed
first band of moon-faced pop singer sophie ellis bextor. they were actually really bloody good but split after one album so SEB could pursue a career of mediocrity.

- 09 The Chicks - Daria
the chicks. three young northern irish girls, think there were all about 15 when they released this EP in 1998. they toured with ash. they didn't do anything else. a shame.

- 10 Charlotte Hatherley - Kim Wilde
former ash woman, though she recorded this whilst with the band. When I saw Ash in 1997, before Nu-clear sounds came out, I think it was only her second gig with the band. By all accounts, she received death-threats for the first few years from girly ash fans obsessed with tim wheeler.

- 11 Bis - Kandy Pop
i think it was a john peel fave in 96. they got a lot of attention for going on TOTP before being signed. ultimately fizzled into nothing. ON chemikal underground records, if that means anything. Scottish. Think they may be mates of Belle and Sebastian. Or simple minds. or someone up there.

- 12 Helen Love - Debbie Loves Joey
some welsh woman who does some great stuff. the debbie and joey in question are debby harry and joey ramone

- 13 Talulah Gosh - Beatnik Boy
Twee mid-80S band from oxfordshire (i think). They were on that NME C86 compilation. A favourite band of Graham Coxon apparently. Very Jangly.

- 14 Heavenly - P.U.N.K. Girl
This is a cheat - half of Talulah Gosh went on to form Heavenly, which was a kind of more-polished version of Talulah Gosh. They were on K Records in America, home of jangly and indier-than-thou bands.

- 15 The Aislers Set - my boyfriend could be a spanish man
Kind of like a current day American version of Tallulah Gosh

- 16 Weezer - I Just Threw Out The Love Of My Dreams
Another cheat - whereas Weezer are normally a bloke only band, they got in Petra Haden to sing this song (apparently it was written from a girl's perspective). petra guested on loads of bands albums in the california area during the 90s, as did her sister rachel, a violin player. she was in the rentals, an offshoot of weezer. she's done some solo stuff too - including an album that covers all of the who sell out, using nothing but her own voice - she 'sings' all the instruments. it's pretty good for a few listens at least.

- 17 The Vaselines - Son Of A Gun
another semi-cheat - half of this is sung by a bloke. Nirvana covered this on Incesticide - they were a favourite band of Kurt's. From Scotland apparently, so probably friends of Simple Minds too, and possibly Wet Wet Wet and the Proclaimers.

- 18 Saturday Looks Good To Me - Meet Me By The Water
Sound a bit like The Aisler's Set.

- 19 The Fiery Furnaces - Im Gonna Run
the lead singer eleanor some-onE-or-other is the missus of alex kapranos. i saw hot hot heat in dec 03, the bill being fiery furnaces, then franz ferdinand then hhh. i presume that is the tour on which they met. franz ferdinand were ac, of course i'd not heard anything (except, i think, darts of pleasure). fiery furnaces are hit and miss IMO , but i like this.

- 20 Mint Royale - Dont Falter
Oops, another semi-cheat - this is sung by Lauren Laverne (of Kenickie), but I'm happy to include it as she didn't song on their song I've posted here.

- 21 Annie - Chewing Gum
some anaemic scandinavian singer. its probably a bit far fetched calling this indie, but i quite like it

- 22 Sissy Bar - Gin and Juice
i've never heard of them before or since. this is a cover of a snoop dogg song but it's really good, in the same vein as heavenly or something.

- 23 Kate Nash-The Shit Song demo
saw her support ben kweller the other week. some young cockney gel, a mate of lily allen apparently, but kate is better.

- 24 The Slits - I Heard It Through the Grapevine
A superb dub/punk cover of this motown classic. It took me a while to like the vocal style, but now this is one of my favourite covers ever.

- 25 The Moldy Peaches - D.2. Boyfriend
original band of kimya dawson (and adam green). she is solo now, and on K records (home of heavenly, above). listen to the lyrics and the words in them though - except for the first verse about her mates all pretending to be going out with members of duran duran (hence the name which is really D^2 boyfriend), the rest are pretty cool.

so theres yous haves its. i would label controversial tracks as 4,9,11,19,21,22 or 25, though give them a go.