Rhino "Brit Box"

[Omar]

Discuss:

THE BRIT BOX: UK INDIE, SHOEGAZE, AND BRIT-POP GEMS OF THE LAST MILLENNIUM (Due 10/2/07).

Disc 1
1. The Smiths -- "How Soon Is Now?"
2. Cocteau Twins -- "Lorelei"
3. Felt -- "Primitive Painters"
4. Shop Assistants -- "Somewhere In China"
5. The Mighty Lemon Drops -- "My Biggest Thrill"
6. The Cure -- "Just Like Heaven"
7. Echo & The Bunnymen -- "Lips Like Sugar"
8. The Jesus And Mary Chain -- "April Skies"
9. Spacemen 3 -- "Walkin' With Jesus (Sound Of Confusion)"
10. The Primitives -- "Crash"
11. The Wonder Stuff -- "Unbearable"
12. The Stone Roses -- "She Bangs The Drums"
13. The Charlatans UK -- "The Only One I Know"
14. Happy Mondays -- "Step On"
15. Primal Scream -- "Loaded" [single version]
16. Inspiral Carpets -- "This Is How It Feels"
17. The Trash Can Sinatras -- "Obscurity Knocks"
18. The La's -- "There She Goes"
19. The Sundays -- "Here's Where The Story Ends"

Disc 2
1. Ride -- "Vapour Trail"
2. Pale Saints -- "Sight Of You"
3. My Bloody Valentine -- "Only Shallow"
4. Lush -- "For Love"
5. The Telescopes -- "Flying"
6. Chapterhouse -- "Pearl"
7. Catherine Wheel -- "I Want To Touch You"
8. Bleach -- "Trip & Slide"
9. Curve -- "Coast Is Clear"
10. Five Thirty -- "You"
11. Moose -- "This River Will Never Run Dry"
12. The Family Cat -- "(Thought I'd Died) And Gone To Heaven"
13. The Dylans -- "(Don't Cut Me Down) Mary Quant In Blue"
14. Thousand Yard Stare -- "0-0 A.E.T. (No Score After Extra Time)"
15. Ned's Atomic Dustbin -- "Grey Cell Green"
16. Birdland -- "Shoot You Down"
17. Manic Street Preachers -- "Stay Beautiful"
18. Teenage Fanclub -- "Star Sign"

Disc 3
1. Suede -- "Metal Mickey"
2. Swervedriver -- "Duel" [radio edit]
3. Eugenius -- "Breakfast"
4. Superstar -- "Barfly"
5. New Order -- "Regret"
6. James -- "Laid"
7. Nick Heyward -- "Kite"
8. The Boo Radleys -- "Lazarus"
9. Saint Etienne -- "You're In A Bad Way"
10. Stereolab -- "Wow & Flutter"
11. Blur -- "Tracy Jacks"
12. Oasis -- "Live Forever"
13. Pulp -- "Common People"
14. These Animal Men -- "Speeed King"
15. Mega City Four -- "Wallflower"
16. Echobelly -- "Insomniac"
17. Gene -- "Sleep Well Tonight"
18. Menswear -- "Sleeping In"
19. Supergrass -- "Alright"
20. Cast -- "Alright"
21. Elastica -- "Stutter"

Disc 4
1. Dodgy -- "In A Room"
2. Ash -- "Girl From Mars"
3. Sleeper -- "Sale Of The Century"
4. Marion -- "Sleep"
5. Kula Shaker -- "Tattva"
6. Ocean Colour Scene -- "The Riverboat Song"
7. Babybird -- "You're Gorgeous"
8. The Bluetones -- "Slight Return"
9. Super Furry Animals -- "Something 4 The Weekend"
10. The Divine Comedy -- "Something For The Weekend"
11. Cornershop -- "Brimful Of Asha"
12. Silver Sun -- "Service"
13. Spiritualized -- "Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space"
14. Mansun -- "Wide Open Space"
15. Hurricane #1 -- "Step Into My World"
16. The Verve -- "Lucky Man"
17. Rialto -- "Untouchable"
18. Catatonia -- "Mulder And Scully"
19. Placebo -- "You Don't Care About Us"
20. Gay Dad -- "Oh Jim"

[Chris L]

Disc 4
18. Catatonia -- "Mulder And Scully"

I've never heard this one, but save it for The 90's Pop Culture Box Part Deux.

[Susannah]

That tracklisting just brought back sweet memories of reading "Select" magazine for me during the spring of 1995.  Pretty neat!  Although, it could probably do with more Felt songs and the exclusion of Cast and Menswear...

[John Junk]

3. My Bloody Valentine -- "Only Shallow"
4. Lush -- "For Love"

I was a really big Lush fan in my mallternative years. I had a massive crush on the one with the red hair and the fact that she made fun of Dave Kendall on that Long Island alternative radio station only cemented my love.  The only thing that made the crush pass was when their music started getting really really bad.  "For Love" is pretty good, but their earlier stuff is shoe-gazing par excellence.   I gotta say, though, it's a little unfair putting them back to back with My Bloody Valentine.  Lush might rock, or have some songs that rock, but they have no songs that rule, and MBV definitely rules.

Discs 2 and 3 seem like my jams from the days of trying to program my VCR to tape 120 Minutes from 12 - 2 in the morning on Sundays so I could still get some sleep before the new week of high school started.  I could do without Disc 4 though.  Gay Dad?  No Thanks.

[Laurie]

TOTAL CRAP: MENSWEAR, KULA SHAKER, ECHOBELLY (YOU HEARD ME, CRAP), ELASTICA (OOH, LOOK AT ME, I CAN STEAL WIRE RIFFS AND MAKE LOADS OF MONEY HA HA HA), CAST, OCEAN COLOUR SCENE (I DON'T CARE IF THEY BACK PAUL WELLER, THEY SUCK), HURRICANE #1, MANSUN, PLACEBO, GAY DAD! THEY ALL SUCK! MY CAPSLOCK IS NOT BROKEN, I JUST FEEL THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO CONVEY HOW MUCH THEY SUCK.

There is some good stuff on there, to be sure, but the inclusion of the above artists makes the box set totally worthless. Spend your $60 on something else.

[Stan]

 Laurie, you forgot or failed to mention Birdland and their vortex of suck. A band I was in (Glueneck) opened for them in 1992 or 93 and blew them off the stage. We filled the room, they emptied it. They seemed pretty unhappy about the whole thing and we were really obnoxious to them.

 Good times.

[Laurie]

Lucky me, I've never heard Birdland.

[John Junk]

Elastica doesn't suck.  The Verve sucks.

[Omar]

Elastica doesn't suck.  The Verve sucks.

Junk!

[Laurie]

Eh, The Verve has a couple of good songs, and if I'm being perfectly honest, so does Echobelly (shut up, you know you love "I Can't Imagine the World Without Me").

Elastica, however, are BAD GUYS. I don't like them as people.

[Omar]

Eh, The Verve has a couple of good songs, and if I'm being perfectly honest, so does Echobelly (shut up, you know you love "I Can't Imagine the World Without Me").

Elastica, however, are BAD GUYS. I don't like them as people.

Scour the recaps -- me and Justine had a thing once.

[John Junk]

These are BAD GUYS, but they were still the best instrumental band of all time once they fired the blonde clown.

[Omar]

Eh, The Verve has a couple of good songs, and if I'm being perfectly honest, so does Echobelly (shut up, you know you love "I Can't Imagine the World Without Me").

Elastica, however, are BAD GUYS. I don't like them as people.

Scour the recaps -- me and Justine had a thing once.

Here are the details:

I couldn't find the 7" for digital transfer, but I assure you that "Stutter" is a total rip-off of "Mongoose", a song I wrote while in a college band called Loose Cannon. We mainly did Let's Active, Spin Doctors, The Feelies, and Anthrax covers (I put on the headdress for "Indians" just like Joey Belladonna!), but we also released several influential singles that did fairly well in the tri-state area, getting some burn on WFMU. We've been name-checked by Karen Orzolek in Spin and Thurston Moore was known to put us on mix tapes. Bobby Christgau gave the track "Choice Cuts" status in his Consumer Guide column, saying: "Punk-pop as self-consciously noncanonical market ploy, wound tight as a methedrine high. I love LC's bright, tough veneer and hectic sexuality. I'll happily get juiced on their quick charge." A little creepy, but we were very grateful, and it led to selling out of our initial press run of 25 copies. If you're interested, the single pops up on eBay from time to time. It's "Mongoose" b/w "Soaked" (1994, GOMP! Records). Yellow vinyl!

I made the mistake of playing the song on my acoustic guitar when Justine Frischmann visited my dorm during the fall semester of my sophomore year. We'd met the previous summer when I was in England working as a ball boy at Wimbledon. (Boris Becker said I was the best ball retriever and towel getter he'd ever seen. The Duchess of Kent agreed.) We stayed in touch, and she hopped across the pond to see me when she was taking a break from writing the Elastica debut. We did rails (+ other things) and everything seemed great, but then it became really weird and she started acting like a total bee-otch. I ended up getting knocked unconscious by Damon Albarn (he wielded a bejeweled scepter) outside of a club in NYC, waking up the next morning in front of Toad's Place in New Haven. I later found out that she also hooked up with our drummer (he looked like fading Yankees hurler Randy Johnson at the peak of his mulleted glory) and my 66-year-old History professor. After that, I soured on Brits and focused my romantic attention on America's girl next door: Juliana Hatfield. I'd rather not get into the details, but I will say that I still have a restraining order against her. And at the time, she claimed she could land us a deal with Mammoth Records and that sure as hell never materialized. I recently contacted labels about releasing a compilation of the entire Loose Cannon catalog, but no takers yet. I got Gerard Cosloy's number from Byron Coley (he agreed to do the liner notes), so I called him last week to make sure he got our letter. He was clearly annoyed and said: "Leave me alone, I'm watching the Mets game." He hung up. Jerk.

[John Junk]

That's an incredible story!  What an a-hole that lady is!  I've changed my tune.  And my profile.

[Laurie]

Yeah, I can totally see Damon Albarn swinging a scepter about lackadaisically.