I saw a couple of weeks ago that Maxïmo Park’s excellent debut album had turned 18; another reminder of how old I’m getting. Anyway, that got me on a bit of a nostalgia trip with other tunes I associate with that era. So I’m basically gonna do my version of a Peter Kay “who remembers…” bit.
This isn’t intended as a best of 2005, I realise there was better music that’s not included here. Just scanning a list of 2005 albums; there’s The National’s Alligator, debuts from Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsytem, rap from Common, The Game, and Kanye, etc. But they either came later for me or were on a slightly different vibe. To me, this represents a very British scene of boys with guitars as imagined through the pages of the NME, in probably its last era of real influence; the emergence of Arctic Monkeys that year signifying it’s impending decline.
This was kind of my formative year of realising there was a whole world of “real” music beyond the mainstream. While I forgot about a lot of these bands beyond a particular album or single, they’ll always evoke a specific brand of nostalgia associated with a world of new possibilities. So, rather than reviews as such, this is more a collection of ramblings about some of the tunes included on the playlist and memories of discovering them through the pages of the NME (and torrents, to be fair).
I’m not gonna pretend this has got any particularly obscure or interesting stuff on it. There’s a good chance that this playlist was already the track-list of a CD compilation called something like THE INDIE ALBUM. But, I don’t care cos they’re all bangers. OK, maybe not all them. I hadn’t listened to a couple of these in years, and they don’t really stand up. But still…nostalgia.
BTW, I looked it up and THE INDIE ALBUM doesn’t seem to exist. But THE BANDS 05 does. Disappointingly, only contains five of the same bands included here. And bizarrely, still available to purchase on Amazon for £9.55. I’m sort of fascinated to know who might still be buying this sort of CD in 2023.
You have to appreciate the apparent lack of effort that’s went into that cover art. I reckon I probably spent longer putting together that NME mock-up at the top. I used their 2005 Cool List issue as the template. Remember the Cool List? Undeniably cringey looking back, but I sort of loved that shit. I mean, it’s basically just that generation’s equivalent of a click-bait listicle. I used to hate read and disagree with nearly everyone in it, far too many sad indie/emo bois standing with their winkle-pickers turned inwards. I can’t find a picture of this, do people remember what I mean? Seriously, what the fuck was that stance all about?
Speaking of cringe, I’ll start with NME’s poster boy of the era, Pete Doherty, who was in full-blown tabloid smackhead mode at that point. Doherty has never been a great vocalist anyway, but this is possibly him at his worst on Fuck Forever by Babyshambles (dreadful band name BTW). Also, the “they’ll never play this on the radio” bit is embarrassingly try-hard. It’s punk without any of the substance; nothing actually interesting or controversial, the song just says fuck. But also, I love that stupid song. From the twang of those opening guitars to the chorus sounding absolutely massive; I don’t care how stupid it is.
From Doherty to probably the most obscure tracks on here from a couple of the era’s also-rans in The Others and The Paddingtons. These bands both got a bit of NME buzz behind them, and felt like attempts to create Libertines/Doherty substitutes. They all gave off that vibe of middle class boys playing as gritty working class rascals. I’ve got no idea on their actual backgrounds BTW, but that’s just how they came off. Like doing a song called “This Is For The Poor” is pretentious; very “I wanna live like common people”, I’m pretty sure actual poor people wouldn’t really want to identify as such.
They also had that same heroin chic vibe as Doherty. You know the look; scruffy ‘white’ vest, ill-fitting blazer, trilby, etc. Again, no idea whether they were actually into smack BTW, but you know. It was another thing that just came off a bit middle class and inauthentic. Like I get the underlying societal issues and all that stuff, and addiction probably isn’t something I should be joking about. But, at the same time, being addicted to heroin AND owning a guitar is just pretentious, fuck those dudes.
Sticking with the Doherty links, there’s Yeti, the post-Libertines band of bassist, John Hassall. This is the song that I was most disappointed with, having not listened to it in years. I remember it as a summery, Beatles-esque psych-pop tune. But listening now, it just sounds a bit crap. Not crap like it’s a bad song; it’s still decent enough, it literally just sounds a bit crap. Like an amateur recording or half-arsed early demo. There’s a couple of different versions I’ve found online and neither are listed as from 2005, so I’m wondering if the version I remember isn’t online for some reason. Does anyone remember if there was another version of this song, or I’m I just having a false memory of it being better than it actually is?
I’m not gonna cover every song, but the majority really do still stand up, so I’ll just quickly touch on a couple. The band that got me started on this nostalgia trip, Maxïmo Park; what a belter of a tune Graffiti is. Those opening guitars, man; that shit just sounds vital. And all of it’s great, like the chorus is probably the worst bit and the chorus is perfectly good.
Similarly the opening to Helicopter by Bloc Party. Now, I think they’ve been pretty shite ever since. And, the signs were there on their debut; Kele’s vocals were always borderline annoying and the way he pronounced it ‘Glaarse’ on Like Eating Glass was a red flag. But what an album that was, and what a tune this is. Again, those opening guitars just sound great; like you’ve walked in on a duelling chainsaw fight.
And a quick shout to Oasis’ Mucky Fingers, which I think is one of their latter day standouts. I mean, it pretty much rips off The Velvet Underground’s I’m Waiting For The Man. But, I hadn’t discovered Velvet Underground in 2005, and I reckon this stands up, if you’re willing to excuse the plagiarism.
The rest of the bands included range from those that never reached the same heights and quickly faded, those who built up respectably solid catalogues, to those that went onto even better things. I’ll let you decide who fits where.
So that’s it for my 2005 indie nostalgia trip. Did this spark similar nostalgia? Are any of these actually new discoveries for anyone? Or have I made any egregious omissions?
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