Gimme Indie Rock 1
Back when indie really meant indie and alternative really was alternative, a handful of brave labels changed the shape of music by releasing albums by bands that cruised far below the mainstream radar in broken-down vans. Leave it to K-Tel to cull the best of the indie brat pack for what turns out to be a fairly surprising and definitive collection. The stalwarts are here (though in their full indie regalia, you might not recognize their later incarnations): theFlaming Lips,Yo La Tengo,Dinosaur Jr., theMekons, and theFall. No collection would be complete without the triumvirate of indiehood--theMinutemen,Hüsker Dü, and theMeat Puppets--and they are represented with well-chosen tracks (kudos for choosing Meat Puppets' "Swimming Pool"--pure skronk-rock torture). There's also a host of de rigueur circa-'85 scenesters: theFeelies,Galaxie 500,Spacemen 3, and theWedding Present. But the surprises are what make this two-CD set worth the price of admission: Savage Republic's Middle Eastern-inspired noise, "Andelusia"; theWipers' seminal protopop grunge on "Nothing Left to Lose"; the unrestrained weirdness of Death of Samantha's "Coca-Cola and Licorice";Half Japanese's "U.S. Teens Are Spoiled Bums"; Big Dipper's "She's Fetching"; and, best of all,Squirrel Bait's peerless and visionary "Sun God." Granted, ex-college-radio geeks may bemoan the exclusion of their favorite obscurity (Unrest,Big Black,Minor Threat, andScratch Acidcome to mind), and surely space for aReplacements' track could have been made, but otherwiseGimme Indie Rockis a sterling collection, as good as any mix tape made in the mid-'80s.--Tod Nelson