Happy March! Spring is on the horizon, but the winter of my disco tent is still with us, as Marie Davidson has made the club record of the year so far. I also review new records from Swervedriver, Bob Mould, The Tubs, Moreish Idols, LAKE, JJULIUS, and Air‘s JB Dunckel & Jonathan Fitoussi.

For more of this week’s new records, head to Notable Releases where Andrew reviews the latest from Jason Isbell, Alabaster DePlume, Lady Gaga and more.

If you’re in NYC, the New Colossus Festival is happening through Sunday and lots of groups I’ve written about here are playing. Check out my guide to the fest.

In other news: much to my surprise and delight, The Beta Band reunion is coming to North America; Billy Nomates announced her third album; Belly announced a ‘King’ 30th Anniversary tour; and Stereolab will be back this fall (and maybe MEMORIALS will be with them).

Pour one out for Brian James and Roy Ayers.

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Marie Davidson – City of Clowns (DEEWEE)
Essaie Pas singer teams with Soulwax for her first solo album in five years. It’s awesome.

“I want your data!” Marie Davidson, who is one half of Montreal coldwave duo Essaie Pas, has made the club record of the year so far — a sleek, sexy, banger-filled electronic album that is also a defiant condemnation of our screen-addled times. She’s having her cake and eating it too, all while offering us a bite before yanking it away, throwing it on the floor and dancing all over it. This album rules.

City of Clowns was inspired by The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Shoshana Zuboff’s 2019 treatise on how the human race is letting tech companies alter our existence, almost entirely for the worse. “In the time that has passed [since I read it], people have become more aware of how deep this is, but people have capitulated a lot too,” Marie says. “It’s changing the way we live. It’s literally changing our species – the way we interact with each other, and the way we interact with ourselves.” In other hands, this source text could generate a preachy slog, but Davidson bends it to her will, turning it into sassy dancefloor fun, albeit with a mile-wide vicious streak. She’s created a character who has beaten men at their own game, from tech bros to reply guys and music industry oppressors, and she’s gleeful with every heel-turn.

Helping her achieve this are her Essaie Pas partner, Pierre Guerineau, and co-producers Stephen and David Dewaele of Soulwax (whose label, DEEWEE, also released the album). As with her previous records, Davidson and Guerineau have a clear idea of what she wants sonically, and there are elements of techno and minimal wave here, but this time the mid-’80s are a big influence, from underground scenes like industrial subgenre EBM and Belgium’s New Beat to high concept artists like Will Powers. Here’s where the Dewaeles’ input shines. City of Clowns sounds amazing, gleaming like polished steel, still minimal yet brutalist skyscraper huge, and every sonic element matters, from the synth lines that dance across the ice on “Statistical Modelling,” the mix of early drum machines, organic percussionto the punchy, stabbing basslines throughout the album. City of Clowns is an instant dance classic, a concept record that works even without knowing that there is one, and may make you dance while doing the dishes. It did me.

City Of Clowns by Marie Davidson

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Moreish Idols – All In The Game (Speedy Wunderground)
Proggy, earthy UK group puts melody ahead of mathiness on their appealing if eccentric full-length debut

UK quintet Moreish Idols originate from Falmouth, Cornwall, a seaside town where life moves slower and locals do things differently (and some still speak Cornish). The band now call London home, but brought a bit of Cornwall’s distinctive charm with them, and fell in with the same proggy scene as black midi and Black Country, New Road. Like those bands, they also fell in with Dan Carey who these days functions as an unofficial member of the group as well as their producer while running the label they’re on, Speedy Wunderground. All in the Game is Moreish Idols’ debut album, and I’d call it eccentric but very listenable indie that makes room for woodwinds and banjo alongside skronk and angularity. (At times, on songs like “Pale Blue Dot” and “Dream Pixel,” they recall early-2000s groups like Beta Band and Badly Drawn Boy.) The most unique aspect of the band co-frontmen Jude Lilley and Tom Wilson who sing in unison, and their low voices are as earthy as the music. While they are fond of unusual chords and time signatures, the weird and the math never overtake the songs.

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LAKE – Bucolic Gone (Don Giovanni)
Pacific Northwest indiepop vets give soft rock a good name on their gentlly beautiful 10th album

Olympia, WA’s LAKE have been making gentle indie pop for two decades now, gaining early cult fame when their song “No Wonder I” became the closing theme for Cartoon Network series Adventure Time. It was a perfect fit, as the trio’s winsome, earnest and beautiful music recalls early-’70s public television children’s shows, not to mention earth-toned soft rock hitmakers like The Carpenters or Bread. That is not a bad thing in my book, as LAKE take the best parts of that genre, leave the cheese behind, and add a spacey wonder to it all. Bucolic Gone is the band’s 10th album, first for Don Giovanni and is the kind of record where you feel more at ease within seconds of hitting play. The production is absolutely gorgeous, with ’70s analog synths sailing alongside pedal steel guitar, xylophone, oboes and strings, as Ashley Erikkson and Eli Moore harmonize sweetly on songs like “Blue Horizon,” “Love is Deeper Now,” and “Beautiful Sunlight.” There is also a strong happy/sad element to their music, not melancholic per se, more “beauty in the vastness of the cosmos and our insignificance in it.” LAKE are a band who have aged wonderfully into their own sound, and a new version of “No Wonder I” brings everything full circle on their 20th anniversary.

Bucolic Gone by LAKE

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The Tubs – Cotton Crown (Trouble in Mind)
Second album from these gray-sky UK janglemasters is more of the same and that’s a good thing

Owen “O” Williams may be the preeminent janglepop practitioner of the 2020s. The former Joanna Gruesome co-leader has kept us in a constant flow of strummy pop thanks to his current groups Ex-Vöid and The Tubs. With Lan McArdle (Ex-Vöid, Joanna Gruesome) singing backup on many of the songs, the feeling it’s all flowing from the same tap is even more pronounced, but when the songs are this catchy, labels hardly matter. As on The Tubs’ debut album, subject matter is personal and often heavy, but Williams spikes his songs with just enough humor, and lots of hooks. You can hear echoes of Bob Mould and Richard Thompson in songs like “Narcisist” and “Chain Reaction,” but more than anything Cotton Crown recalls the early-’90s heyday of alt-rock radio when Gin Blossoms were mixing sugar and salt in equal measure and these bittersweet earworms are very satisfying.

Cotton Crown by The Tubs

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Bob Mould – Here We Go Crazy (Granary Music)
Bob Mould still knows his way around powerpop hooks and keeps the volume at 10 on his 15th solo album

After more than 40 years making punky power-pop with Husker Du, Sugar and as a solo artist, Bob Mould has a style that is instantly recognizable. Not just his voice, but the melodies — it’s a truly signature style that’s there whether his guitars are merely loud or deafening. It’s not just what you expect from him, it’s what you want. Here We Go Crazy is Mould’s 15th solo album, and his sonic painter’s palette on this one is Sheets of Rain Black and Beaster Blue, a darker, heavier, more ripping record than he’s delivered in a while. “I’m refining my primary sound and style through simplicity, brevity, and clarity,” Bob says. “Under the hood, there’s a number of contrasting themes. Control and chaos, hypervigilance and helplessness, uncertainty and unconditional love.” It’s angrier, too, with a title that feels very much of the times with lyrics like “Take another drag off a cigarette / Itching for a fight near the swing set” and “Standing on the edge of collapse / Memories are fading fast,” but Bob never forgets to leave you humming.

Here We Go Crazy by Bob Mould

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Swervedriver – The World’s Fair (Outer Battery Records)
Swervedriver return to shoegaze’s most perfect format, the EP, for their first release in five years

UK shoegaze vets Swervedriver have been back together longer than they were during their original run, and the band’s style (heavy riffage, soaring melodies) has nicely mellowed since the ’90s. There’s no question what band has made The World’s Fair even with the prominent piano that runs through lead single “Volume Control.” This release also marks a return to a format Swervedriver were masters of in the original shoegaze era. “We haven’t really done an EP since our days with Creation,” says singer/guitarist Adam Franklin (we are fans of the EP too). “I have no idea why it was the done thing back then, but it was a cool way to present your music with no sort of commitment to direction. You could just go off on one on any song if you wanted, and that’s what we wanted to do again here. I’ve always consumed music via singles anyway and was always partial to a good B-side or three.” Marking the end of a five-year hiatus and coming just in time to still ride the crest of the current shoegaze revival, this is a very welcome return and if they aren’t destroying eardrums this time around, their magisterial side is soaring higher than ever. Swervedriver are still blowin’ cool.

The World’s Fair EP by Swervedriver

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JJULIUS – VOL III (DFA)
The Swede is not your typical DFA artist, apart from being very cool

Musician and producer JJ Ulius, who some of you might know as one half of Gothenburg duo Monokultur, is back with his third album as JJULIUS, which is also his first for DFA. While some of it is on the dancey side, this is not what I’d call “classic DFA,” but it is very Swedish and Vol III sounds like it could’ve come out in the mid-’00s when Peter Bjorn and John, The Concretes, and The Radio Dept were lighting up the music blogs. JJ and partner Loopel write pop songs, but arrange and produce them with an avant-garde bent. This one benefits from the presence of Viagra Boys drummer Tor Sjödén who gives extra kick (and snare and toms) to the whole thing. I’m more partial to the pop numbers, like the very Concretes opener “Brinna Ut,” but “Verkligheten och” is just a remix away from being a dancefloor stormer.

JJULIUS-VOL.3 by JJULIUS

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JB Dunckel & Jonathan Fitoussi – Mirages II (Transversales)
Zone out to krautrock instrumentals on this second collaboration between to French synth experts, one of whom is also in Air

Air’s JB Dunckel and fellow French synth afficianado Jonathan Fitoussi first collaborated on 2019’s Mirages and now they’re back with a second helping of lush electronic instrumentals. While none of this sounds like Air (for one thing, no vocoder), it’s all in the same orbit, albeit flying over Germany: “Ghost Town” and “Tanzanite” have the motorik, one-chord Rotherian drive of Neu! or Harmonia, while the arpeggiations of “Marimbalum” and “Autumnal Equinox” strike a dreamy shade of tangerine. While this will not likely replace Moon Safari or 10,000 Hz Legend in anyone’s collection, Mirages II is a lovely soundbath and welcome addition to any zone-out playlist.

MIRAGES II by JB Dunckel & Jonathan Fitoussi

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INDIE BASEMENT CLASSIC: The Weathermen – The Black Album According to the Weathermen (Play It Again Sam, 1988)
The second album from this Belgian-American electronic group sounds very much of its mid-’80s era, it’s still a lot of kinky fun

Listening to Marie Davidson’s fantastic new album City of Clowns over and over again for the last few weeks (see my review above if you somehow missed it), I was transported back to the late ’80s, specifically thinking of a relatively obscure electronic group I liked a lot, The Weathermen. Formed in 1985 by Belgians Jean-Marc Lederman and Michel Van Gysel along with American vocalist Bruce Geduldig (also of cult post-punks Tuxedomoon), The Weathermen were born out of the the Belgian “New Beat” scene that incorporated bits of industrial, its offshoot EBM, techno, house and, later in the decade, acid house. The band started as a joke and were never too serious, but they were skilled and creative musicians/producers with an ear for pop hooks. They excelled at very catchy dance music that could go kinky and dark or into kitschy ’60s nostalgia territory. Geduldig’s distinctly California accent set them apart from all super-serious groups like Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb, and also he created a scorned ex-girlfriend character named Susanna Stammer that popped up on some of their best songs. The first two Weathermen albums are great, but I’m gonna give 1988’s The Black Album the edge over debut Ten Deadly Kisses as it features Susanna Stammer’s two finest moments — banger “Poison” and sultry “Punishment Park” (a duet with himself) — as well as the very fun “Barbie & Ken,” and hard-edged “Time Bomb Benny” and “Tough Times.” The Black Album According to the Weathermen and Davidson’s City of Clowns make a nice double feature.

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Creation Records’ 21 Best Records

21. Biff Bang Pow! – Oblivion (1987)

Alan McGee wasn't just the head of Creation Records, he was also one its musical artists, involved in a few projects over the years, including Laughing Apple, Revolving Paint Dream and his longest-running group, Biff Bang Pow! that also featured, at various points, label co-founders Dick Green and Joe Foster, as well as Primal Scream's Andrew Innes. Oblivion, the second of two albums Biff Bang Pow! released in 1987, is the group's best record, full of the sort of jangly pastiche psychedelia you'd expect from a band that, like his label, were named after '60s beat group The Creation. McGee's a better songwriter than he is a singer but his fey vocal style works just fine on terrifically titled tracks like "A Girl Called Destruction," "The Only Colour in the World is Love" and "She's Got Diamonds in Her Hair." The band's other 1987 album, The Girl Who Runs the Beat Hotel, is worth checking out too and contains the band's best-ever single, the Andrew Innes-sung "Someone Stole My Wheels."

20. Various Artists – Creation Soup Vol 1-5 (1990)

Most people associate Creation Records with their '90s heyday of Oasis, Primal Scream, Ride, Super Furry Animals and My Bloody Valentine, but the label's first five years were full of singles from jangly, '60s-inspired bands who most people have probably never heard of, most of which were only released on 7". In 1990 Creation gathered them all up for a five volume CD set. McGee notes that "The first twenty came in hand folded sleeves which Joe Foster and I used to stay up and fold all night four or five times a week." They include great early singles by Primal Scream, Felt, The Loft, The Weather Prophets, The Jasmine Minks, The Pastels, House of Love, Biff Bang Pow!, The Bodines, and more. Noticeably absent from these, though, is the label's breakthrough -- The Jesus & Mary Chain's 1984 debut single "Upside Down" (due to rights issues). Creation Soup is still a fascinating look at the formative years of a label that would become an indie powerhouse.

19. The Jesus & Mary Chain – Munki (1998)

The Jesus and Mary Chain's 1984 debut single, "Upside Down," turned the UK indie scene upside down with its then-novel approach of taking a Phil Spector-eque pop song and wrapping it in pummeling noise and feedback. It also put Creation Records on the map, paving the way for House of Love, My Bloody Valentine, Ride and many more of the label's most famous groups. JAMC made the leap to Warner Bros immediately after this single but Creation founder Alan McGee stayed the band's manager, and JAMC quickly became alt-rock stars. By the late-'90s, though, Jim and William Reid felt chewed up and spit out by the music industry and weren't getting along with each other so well, either. If Warner had lost interest in the band after five albums, McGee had not, and welcomed the Reids back to Creation with open arms. Bookended by the supercatchy "I Love Rock N' Roll" and tinnitus-inducing "I Hate Rock N' Roll," the sprawling, 17-track Munki plays like a career retrospective, including buzzsaw pop, semi-acoustic numbers, duets with Hope Sandoval, and dissonant noise jams. Munki served as a great final word on the JAMC...till they reformed and made a new album 19 years later.

18. The Loft – One Round the Fair (1989) / The Weather Prophets – Diesel River (1988)

You can't really tell the story of Creation Records without including Peter Astor, the label's first shining star, who wrote charming, literate songs with his Television/VU-esque bands The Loft and The Weather Prophets. (The Loft's original name was The Living Room, which was also the name of Alan McGee's pre-Creation London club night; Astor changed it to avoid confusion.) Astor also had a face meant for magazine covers, as well as a fine if not exceptional Tom Verlaine-esque voice that probably kept his groups from crossing over into more mainstream success. Not that Creation Records' Alan McGee didn't try. The Loft broke up before making a full length record but their excellent singles "Why Does the Rain" (which Astor recorded with The Weather Prophets, too) and "Up the Hill and Down the Slope" are among Creation's best early singles and, along with the b-sides, make up compilation Once Round The Fair. Astor and Loft bandmate Dave Morgan formed The Weather Prophets who continued in much the same direction, releasing three albums that never quite captured the magic of the band's Creation singles, most of which are collected on Diesel River (though your best bet is 2004 best-of comp Blue Skies & Free-Rides).

17. Adorable – Against Perfection (1993)

Making their debut with the undeniable "Sunshine Smile," Adorable were initially lumped in with the shoegaze scene, because almost everything on Creation in 1992 was kinda shoegaze, but the band were closer in spirit to House of Love's textured, romantic pop than My Bloody Valentine or Swervedriver. They owed a lot to the Pixies and The Wedding Present, too, held Echo & The Bunnymen in the highest regard, and Fijalkowski had no shortage of big hooks and mile-wide choruses in his arsenal. Their debut album, Against Perfection, is one of the great, underrated UK indie records of the early '90s, jam-packed with memorable melodies, roaring/chiming guitars, clever/heartfelt lyrics and lots of swagger. The American release, via SBK records, betters the UK version by adding "Sunshine Smile" and another early single, "I'll Be Your Saint," alongside killer album cuts like "A to Fade In," "Homeboy," "Favorite Fallen Idol" and "Still Life."

16. The Jazz Butcher – Fishcotheque (1988)

With the Jazz Butcher's mid-'80s albums for Glass Records, which featured a band that included bassist (and ex Bauhaus member) David J, The Jazz Butcher (Pat Fish) had gained the reputation for whimsical indie a la Robyn Hitchcock. Signing to Creation, Pat started a new version of the group with collaborator Kizzy O'Callahan, intent on changing his image. That makeover began with 1988's Fishcotheque, one of his best albums that showed a new, more serious side to The Jazz Butcher. "I was keen to get as far away from all those 'w, words that had followed my group around," Fish wrote later of the album, "to make it as clear as I could that this was a rock & roll thing, not some 'eccentricity.' I had my shades and I had my fringed suede jacket and I had the Weather Prophets rhythm section." Witty without being wacky, Fishcotheque is loaded with great songs, including the punky "Looking for Lot 49," the wistful "Swell" and "The Next Move Sideways," terrific pop number "Let's Get it Wrong," and one of his best-ever songs, "Susie," which features Sonic Boom on feedback. Pat didn't entirely abandon his "w" side, though, which rears its head on "Living in a Village" and vegan rap song "The Best Way" (which isn't as kooky as it may seem).

15. Momus – The Tender Pervert (1988)

Named after the Greek god of satire and mockery, Momus (aka Scottish artist Nic Currie) was Creation's most idiosyncratic artist on record*, writing almost exclusively about sex and death but in a high-minded style that was likely to quote the bible or ancient literature, and playing in a style somewhere between Donovan and Jacques Brel. (Most eccentric in real life: Felt's Lawrence.) As the '80s went on, Currie would incorporate Pet Shop Boys-style synthpop into the Momus sound. The Tender Pervert was his first real flirtation with drum machines, and was a deeply twisted, angry record fueled by disgust with Margaret Thatcher's response to the AIDS crisis. "I'm so furious about this that I decide that, if gay people are not only dying but being gagged by the government while dying, it's up to straight people to promote homosexuality in their place," Currie wrote reflecting on the record. Momus is at the height of his witty, erudite powers here on tracks like "The Angels Are Voyeurs," "The Homosexual," "A Complete History of Sexual Jealousy (Parts 17-24)" and the elegant, complex "Bishonen." Currie is not wrong when he writes that The Tender Pervert is "my best and most definitive album" -- it's also the best place to start for this artist who is definitely an acquired taste.

14. Swervedriver – Ejector Seat Reservation (1995)

Swervedriver were one of the best groups of the original shoegaze era, but by 1995 interest in the genre in their home country (and label, Creation) had fully moved on to Britpop. Unlike some bands (Ride, Lush), Swervedriver stuck to their guitar pedals while trying to expand upon their sound with their third album, Ejector Seat Reservation. It was still heavy, but there was an equal emphasis on melody and maelstrom, adding elements of Bowie and Bolan to the mix, not to mention a string and horn section. It's Swervedriver's best album and loaded with memorable songs, including pile-driver "Bring Me the Head of the Fortune Teller," the poppy/heavy "The Other Jesus," elegant first single "Last Day on Earth," and soaring closing cut "To the Birds." Unfortunately there was no time to celebrate: Creation Records dropped Swervedriver the week after Ejector Seat Reservation was released and deleted the album from their catalog, making it for years the band's hardest-to-find album.

13. Saint Etienne – Good Humor (1997)

Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs formed Saint Etienne in 1990 as a way to mix their obsession with '60s and '70s pop, R&B, soul and reggae with the indie dance and rave culture that had taken over the UK at the time. They originally envisioned the group as having a different vocalist for every single, but that changed when they met Sarah Cracknell, and Saint Etienne became a trio. After three albums of sample-based dance pop, Saint Etienne changed course, and decamped to Malmo, Sweden to make a full-band album with Cardigans producer Tore Johannsen at his famed Tambourine Studios. Armed with a group of crack session musicians, Good Humor is unlike any other record in Saint Etienne's catalog before or since, working in elements of exotica, acid jazz and Beach Boys/Phil Spector wall of sound pop. While Saint Etienne's previous albums had been released by Heavenly Recordings through Creation, Good Humor was the first -- and last -- to be released by Creation proper. Singles "Sylvie" and "The Bad Photographer" were both Top 30 UK hits and Good Humor remains Saint Etienne's biggest seller in the US (where it was released by Sub Pop).

12. The Boo Radleys – Giant Steps (1993)

Liverpool band The Boo Radleys began as one of the noisiest of the '90s shoegazers, with some songs on their 1991 Creation debut, Everything's Alright Forever, sounding like a garbage truck in a rockslide. But deep down, guitarist Martin Carr was a lover of the classics -- The Beatles, Kinks and other late-'60s psychedelic pop -- and that side of him was ready to emerge. The watershed moment was the title track of 1992's Lazarus EP which took a roaring, anthemic melody and built it up slowly with an extended, dubbed-out intro. It's one of their best-ever tracks. "Lazarus" turned out to be the first taste of what would be their magnum opus -- the boundary pushing, Coltrane-referencing, appropriately named third album, Giant Steps. Noise and hazy effects still rang through songs like "I Hang Suspended," "Butterfly McQueen," "Rodney King - Song for Lenny Bruce" and "Take the Time Around," but nothing was obscuring the massive hooks Carr loaded the songs with. There were also just straight-up pop songs like "Wishin' I Was Skinny," "Barney and Me," and "If You Want it, Take It." It's a record that, in its own way, is every bit as ambitious as Screamadelica or Loveless, and one that opened Creation's door for Britpop's coming surge. "I felt that everything was moving towards this big pop thing," Carr says in David Cavanagh's The Creation Records Story. "Loads of bands -- young bands with guitars -- were getting into the charts. Blur were getting there. Suede were having hits. We didn’t sell that many records with Giant Steps but everyone was dying to see what we were going to do next." Next would net them a massive UK hit single -- 1995's "Wake Up Boo!" -- but Giant Steps is still their finest hour.

11. Super Furry Animals – Radiator (1997)

Oasis may have been Creation's biggest selling act of the '90s (by a mile) but, pound for pound, Super Furry Animals were probably the best. The band were proudly Welsh, not afraid to sing in their native tongue, and wildly creative, with a wide anarchic streak. Their terrific 1996 debut album, Fuzzy Logic, paid tribute to Welsh drug smuggler (and national hero) Howard Marks both on the cover art and on song "Hanging With Howard Marks," and the same year they released single "The Man Don't Give a Fuck" which sampled Steely Dan and held the record, at 50 utterances, for most "fucks" given in a song (till Insane Clown Posse's "Fuck the World" beat it in 1999). Just a year later, SFA were back with Radiator, a record that was leaps and bounds better than their debut, and where they went from being a lot of fun to one of the more consistently great, wildly creative bands of the era. (They still are.) Radiator incorporates Madchester-y shuffle ("Play it Cool," "The Placid Casual"), Bowie-style spacerock ("Demons," "Bass tuned to DEAD"), punk, and mutant pop ("Herman Loves Pauline") into a style that became distinctly their own.

10. Slowdive – Souvlaki (1993)

Influenced by the Cocteau Twins' ethereal style, not to mention The Jesus and Mary Chain and probably a fair amount of goth, Pink Floyd and prog, Slowdive didn’t really sound like any other group from the original shoegaze era, riding a massive wave of shimmering guitars that were at times so transformed by effects pedals, they resembled synthesizers. Like their early EPs, the band's debut album, Just for a Day, was hypnotic and sensuous, wrapping listeners in layer upon layer of gorgeous haze, but it was maybe a little lacking in focus and A-level material. Not a problem with their sophomore album that nestles memorable songs and a stronger rhythmic backbone into their signature aural cloudwork. Their best album to date, Souvlaki features some of their catchiest songs ("Alison," "When the Sun Hits," "40 Days") with muscular material like "Machine Gun," vivid trip-out "Yellow Melon" and two songs ( "Sing," "Here She Comes") featuring keyboards and treatments by Brian Eno. Best of all, though, is "Souvlaki Space Station" which takes their spiraling sound deep into dub territory. Never as popular at the time as their shoegaze contemporaries Ride or Lush, Slowdive's records have aged better than most things from the '90s, and the group have led one of the most satisfying second acts in recent memory.

9. Teenage Fanclub – Grand Prix (1995)

Teenage Fanclub's third album, Bandwagonesque, is one of the three pillars in Creation's 1991 crown (the other two are slightly higher up on this list), and an album that, along with Ride's Nowhere, helped the label realize its place as a home for classic guitar pop done in new and exciting ways, or at least by new and exciting groups. What Teenage Fanclub did wasn't exactly new -- they drank deep from the well of Big Star and Dinosaur Jr. -- but they did it very well and had three three talented singer-songwriters who had yet to reach their creative potential. That hit with 1995's Grand Prix that, to carry on the Formula One racing theme, had Norman Blake, Gerrard Love and Raymond McGinley firing on all cylinders, with such instant earworms as "Sparky's Dream," "Neil Jung," "Mellow Doubt," "Verisimilitude," and "Don't Look Back." The album was also released at the height of Britpop and pulled the Fannies into that orbit, even though they were never really part of that scene. While they may not equal Oasis in the ambition and swagger department, Grand Prix delivers just as many classics as (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, just in a more humble way.

8. Sugar – Copper Blue (1992)

Spoiler alert: this is the only American-made album on this list. Creation did release a few records by U.S. acts (Medicine, Guided by Voices, The Cramps) but not many, and most were more licensing deals than actual signings. But Bob Mould put together separate deals with Creation in the UK and Rykodisc in North America for his new band Sugar who rivaled MBV for being loudest-ever group on the label. With their roaring, punk-injected guitar pop sound, the trio (Mould, bassist David Barbe and drummer Malcolm Travis) were definitely a more natural fit with a label of noisemakers like Creation than Rykodisc (who were mainly known for being the first CD-only label). In any case, Sugar's classic debut album is one of 1992's best, and one of the greatest albums Creation Records released, with Mould's signature mix of rippers ("Changes," "A Good Idea") and pop songs ("Helpless," "If I Can't Change Your Mind") and even a little prog ("Hoover Dam"). Copper Blue was actually more of a hit across the pond first, reaching #10 in the UK album charts and with NME naming it the Best Album of 1992; the record really caught on with American alt-rock radio and MTV in 1993. Sugar burned bright and hot, releasing Beaster a mere six months later, yet flamed out during sessions for their second album. Still, Copper Blue remains one of Mould's best collection of songs.

7. Felt – Forever Breathes the Lonely Word (1986)

Led by the decidedly eccentric but frequently brilliant Lawrence Hayward who was prone to 2 AM vacuuming and still only goes by his first name, Felt set out to release 10 albums and 10 singles in 10 years -- "In and out in a decade," he put it. He accomplished his goal, making crystalline guitar pop that owed much to Tom Verlaine (and just a little to Bob Dylan) with two sharply defined eras of the band. Felt's first four albums were on Cherry Red and featured guitarist Maurice Deebank's distinctive arpeggiated guitar style; the second began with the group's move to Creation, with Deebank out and keyboardist Martin Duffy in, adding wonderful, rich organ to the band's sound. Forever Breathes the Lonely Word was Felt's first album for Creation and is Felt's masterwork, with shimmering production, Lawrence at his most lyrically romantic, and Duffy's brilliant playing all over it. It's just great song after great song, including "Rain of Crystal Spires," "Down But Not Out," "All The People I Like And Those That Are Dead," and "A Wave Crashed on the Rocks," being particular highlights. Creation's first great album.

6. Ride – Nowhere (1990)

Oxford's Ride released their debut album in 1990 and perfectly split Creation Records' two decades in existence down the middle. The band were clearly a product of the student indie scene that Creation was at the center of, owing much to House of Love, My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus & Mary Chain and early Primal Scream, but they were a half step generation younger, savvy, and ambitious. You could easily imagine songs like "Seagull" and "Kaleidoscope" being released with thinner production by the label just a couple years earlier, but Ride were not a group who just wanted to play to 150 people the rest of their lives. While undeniably part of the psychedelic shoegaze scene -- they remain of the genre's most iconic bands -- Andy Bell and Mark Gardner were great songwriters, too, and underneath Nowhere's beautiful murk, haze and feedback is some serious musicianship and craft. Nowhere owes as much to The Byrds as it does MBV and is loaded with great tunes, as can be heard on the undeniable classic "Vapour Trail" -- perhaps the greatest song to come out on Creation Records and not get released as a single. Ride would get more ambitious (and pop-savvy) on 1992's excellent Going Blank Again, and would make a grab for the Britpop ring on 1994's Carnival of Light, but Nowhere is the sound of a scene and a label at the dawn of the '90s.

5. House of Love – House of Love (1988)

While The Jesus & Mary Chain's "Upside Down" put Creation Records on the map, The House of Love's debut album was the first album released by the label that really registered shockwaves beyond the indie charts. Led by Guy Chadwick, whose deep voice matched his high cheekbones, House of Love had some of JAMC's squall but fed it through Chadwick's graceful songwriting and guitarist Terry Bickers' inventive playing. Opening salvo "Christine" is such a stunner, from the roaring guitars to the "Bah bah be dah dah" hook, if the rest of the album had been a dud it still might've made this list. But House of Love is all hits, from the dark, sexy cool of "Road" and "Hope" to the riff-heavy "Sulfur" and "Salome" to the ethereal grandeur of "Man to Child," and the album's second best song, "Love in a Car." The album was also as big an influence on the burgeoning shoegaze scene as My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything, and it's hard to imagine groups like Ride and Catherine Wheel existing without House of Love.

4. Oasis – (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)

As Andy Bell of Ride, who would end up joining Oasis by the end of the '90s, told us, Oasis "were the band Creation had been waiting for, and I think the label was also exactly what the band needed." Oasis fit Creation head Alan McGee's rock n' roll ethos, ticking every box possible with a cup-runneth-over mix of attitude, razor-sharp wit, hedonistic joie-de-vivre and arrogance. It might've all been too much if Noel Gallagher wasn't a one-man hit factory, losing songs in the couch that were better than many bands wrote in their whole career. They were definitely the guitar band McGee had always wanted, turning out singles like his '60s and '70s heroes, but putting a fresh face on them just in time to lead in the new Britpop movement that pushed grunge out of the country much like the USA had done to the King's army some 200+ years before. While 1994's Definitely Maybe was a fantastic debut, Oasis managed to follow it up just a year later with an even better album, one of the best of 1995 and without a doubt the peak of Gallaghers' powers. (What's the Story) Morning Glory? even managed to be a hit in America, something a British rock band hadn't done in years. The album is filthy with classics, from singles like "Wonderwall," "Don't Look Back in Anger," "Champagne Supernova," and "Roll With It" to deep cuts like "Cast No Shadow," and "She's Electric." While Oasis stayed popular throughout their existence, creatively, it was diminishing returns after this -- but in 1995 the band could do no wrong.

3. My Bloody Valentine – Isn’t Anything (1988)

If Loveless was the sound of "how'd they do that?," Isn't Anything was the sound of "I wanna do that!" It's hard to imagine Ride, Swervedriver, The Boo Radleys or any of the rest of the soon-to-erupt shoegaze scene -- or half the indie rock of the '90s -- happening the way it did without the visceral impact of My Bloody Valentine's first album for Creation. Songs like "(When You Wake (You're Still in a Dream," "Feed Me With Your Kiss" and "Sueisfine" hit like a brick and sound like you've already been knocked senseless. Kevin Shield's glide guitar sound -- a unique mix of tuning and playing style -- was mysterious, instantly distinctive and deceptively attainable. The band used less effects pedals than most people thought. "The sound is purely physical," MBV Svengali Kevin Shields said at the time. "It's movement, a manual moving of the string: the short travel of he Jazzmaster and Jaguar tremolo that gives it that characteristic sort of upwards drone to the chord." My Bloody Valentine even managed to make acoustic guitars seem heavy ("Come Cupid") and the band's more ethereal tracks like "Lose My Breath" were aptly named. The album has a reputation for thin, tinny sonics, but Kevin Shields' all-analog 2018 remastered edition really shows what a gorgeous monster it is.

2. My Bloody Valentine – Loveless (1991)

A record so monumentally important to popular music it's all but impossible to overstate its importance, Loveless is a bonafide classic. It's also a record that took forever and somewhere around £250,000 to complete, that nearly bankrupted Creation, forcing the label to drop the band shortly after Loveless' release, and sell 49% of its stake to Sony Music. ("Overdue" and "over budget," meanwhile, are words associated with the band to this day.) Even though countless artists have stolen from Kevin Shields' signature "glide guitar" style, what the band get from their instruments on Loveless still sounds like nothing else. The four dry snare hits that open the album do not prepare you for the sludgy, white-dwarf heavy riff of opener "Only Shallow," or when the song shifts into pure beauty and back again. Moments like that happen throughout Loveless, from the ethereal slipstream of "To Here Knows When" to the poppy indie rock of "When You Sleep," to the dreamy, danceable perfection of "Soon." So many rock critic cliches and adjectives were created -- and wore out their welcome -- with folks trying to describe Loveless, yet you can't not be in awe 30 years on. It nearly destroyed the label but has always stood as one of its finest moments.

1. Primal Scream – Screamadelica (1991)

Led by gangly, cocksure Bobby Gillespie (who was The Jesus & Mary Chain's original drummer and grew up with Creation boss Alan McGee), Primal Scream were Creation Records' longest-running band, having released their debut single, "All Fall Down" on the label in 1985, and XTRMNTR in 2000, the last album released by the label before it dissolved. Like McGee, Gillespie seemed to live and breathe rock n' roll and he and his bandmates, including the invaluable Andrew Innes, at times managed to stay cool purely on attitude while releasing less-than-stellar early records. Things for them changed, though, when they gave their lackluster, Stonesy single "I'm Losing More Than I Ever Had" to DJ Andrew Weatherall to remix. He took out almost all the vocals, threw a beat under it and added a sample of Peter Fonda From The Wild Angels yelling "We wanna be free to do what we wanna do! We wanna get loaded and we wanna have a good time!" Released in February 1990, "Loaded" was one of the cornerstones of the acid house/Madchester scene and forever changed Primal Scream's trajectory. They spent nearly two years on one continuous party, working with Weatherall, Jah Wobble, Stones producer Jimmy Miller -- whatever suited their fancy and vibe -- and releasing singles along the way which would eventually be collected as the era-defining Screamadelica. It shouldn't have worked, but that sense of freedom made it come together beautifully. "Instead of having two guitars, bass, drums, vocals... we destroyed that," Gillespie said in The Creation Records Story. "It was anything goes - synth, tabla, drum machine, no vocals, instrumentals, gospel singers, sitars. The whole range of anything goes noises and suddenly the band were freed. It was a much looser approach to making music. And then getting people like Andy and Hugo, and Alex Patterson and Thrash from The Orb, Jimmy Miller, Wobble, you know – these people, Messing with our music, taking it somewhere else, making it more interstellar, as far out as… It was incredible. The greatest time." You still feel that listening to Screamadelica, too.