Various Artists
C86 — The Deluxe Edition
Cherry Red Records
Released by NME in 1986, this comp inspired a whole strain of lo-fi, ’60s-inflected pop with punk production and mopey attitude. What critics lazily called “indie” in the 2000s can more or less be traced back to this record. The original tape consisted of 22 tracks of mostly obscure artists (with Primal Scream among the most notable), and this three-disk reissue adds an additional 50 tracks from the era, including some never-before released. That’s a lot to wade through, but it’s interesting to note that much of the original songs aren’t as homogenized as what would become known as the “C86 sound.”
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2014.
