The Top 50 Greatest Landfill Indie Songs of All-Time (Vice)

[Miguel Sanchez]

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/bv8a8w/the-top-50-greatest-landfill-indie-songs-of-all-time

Quote

Somewhere between the “indie rock revival” of the early-2000s and the emergence of “poptimism” in the early-2010s, the UK charts were dominated by a procession of homogenous bands making a type of music that has come to be referred to as: “Landfill Indie”.

The mass-produced nature of Landfill meant there was a surplus of artists but a dearth of originality, which in turn bred contempt. In 2008, Andrew Harrison of The Word magazine coined the term “Landfill Indie”, essentially turning the entire sub-genre into a critical punching bag. In a 2009 essay partly attributing the appetite for electro-pop icons like Lady Gaga, Little Boots and La Roux to Winklepicker fatigue, Peter Robinson recalls the time he visited the Sony HQ off Kensington High Street and wrote “SCOUTING FOR GIRLS = SHIT” on a chalkboard. “All these bands!” Simon Reynolds similarly reflected in The Guardian in 2010. “Where did they come from? Why did they bother? Couldn't they tell they were shit?”

For those of us who started listening to music in 2005, here's a list of things to trigger some nostalgia. I'm not having the Guillemots vote early on though.

[Klanky]

 “SCOUTING FOR GIRLS = SHIT” 
 

Reminds me of Borders in Glasgow A-Z had a section “Bawbag” in which they kept the Peter Andre CDs.

[SweeperDee]

Just shite really; no need to label it as anything else. 

[tongue_tied_danny]

I was in my 30s when these tracks were released and most of them just passed me by. Judging by that list it seems I didn't miss much.

I'm kinda grateful that my teenage years coincided with Madchester, Rave and Britpop. 

[GNU_Linux]

Nae idea why Kaisers Chiefs aren't on that list. First band that springs to when I think of jack the lad indie.

[tongue_tied_danny]

49 minutes ago, GNU_Linux said:

Nae idea why Kaisers Chiefs aren't on that list. First band that springs to when I think of jack the lad indie.

Yeah, I was thinking that. I didn't notice Kasabian on the list either, or The Twang.

[paranoid android]

The Ordinary Boys - where do they get these crazy names?

 

[bluearmyfaction]

How can there be a top 50 of landfill indie?  The very point of calling it landfill is because they're all pretty much the same.  The ones that stand out from the morass are The Kooks, because they somehow plummeted to even greater depths, there may never have been a worse band on the planet.

The only ones worth noting are The Pigeon Detectives, because they worked out pretty quickly that the fad had a short shelf-life and they had an even shorter talent load, so released a huge amount of stuff to cash in while they were hot.

[NotThePars]

I was thinking the other day of what it was that killed this whole scene dead and there are loads of explanations but one that clicked into place for me yesterday while I watched E4 was The Inbetweeners having a lot of these tunes on the show just made it synonymous with uncool teens.

[Miguel Sanchez]

1 minute ago, NotThePars said:

I was thinking the other day of what it was that killed this whole scene dead and there are loads of explanations but one that clicked into place for me yesterday while I watched E4 was The Inbetweeners having a lot of these tunes on the show just made it synonymous with uncool teens.

I was working my way through the list earlier and the amount of times I went "that's what that was called" was uncanny

I'd never actually heard a song by The Cribs in full until now, what utter shite.

[NotThePars]

19 minutes ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

I was working my way through the list earlier and the amount of times I went "that's what that was called" was uncanny

I'd never actually heard a song by The Cribs in full until now, what utter shite.

I remember they got slagged off by Pitchfork a lot before they released the most Pitchfork song of all time: Be Safe.

The Cribs were a lot of fun live and Ryan Jarman seemed like a good lad. His Buzzcocks episodes were great, he insisted he created Live 8.

[Miguel Sanchez]

Just now, NotThePars said:

I remember they got slagged off by Pitchfork a lot before they released the most Pitchfork song of all time: Be Safe.

The Cribs were a lot of fun live and Ryan Jarman seemed like a good lad. His Buzzcocks episodes were great, he insisted he created Live 8.

All I remember from his Buzzcocks appearance was wondering how he was going out with Kate Nash

[NotThePars]

Just now, Miguel Sanchez said:

All I remember from his Buzzcocks appearance was wondering how he was going out with Kate Nash

Patter and self assuredness. He was the king of indie back in the day.

[NotThePars]

3 minutes ago, ThatBoyRonaldo said:

Was waiting for someone to start a thread on this. I really liked this scene as it was what I listened to growing up. My theory is that given it took place juuuust before the full on rise of social media and everyone disappearing off into their own wee niches, this is probably the last great youth subculture in British culture that had mass appeal?

Little Man Tate still give me an instant thousand yard stare right enough. 

I think the last subculture I can remember were scene kids but I don't think any band got any traction outside of Bring Me The Horizon so I think you're right, aye. Emos and indie kids. Everyone (including me) just wears streetwear now.

 

1 minute ago, ThatBoyRonaldo said:

Also, if we're talking about these guys punching above their weight - Johnny Borrell from Razorlight went out with Kirsten Dunst ffs!

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/rmjdvp/landfill-indie-johnny-borrell-razorlight-the-strokes-kooks-definitive-history this interview alone led me to reappraise Borrell. He actually comes across as really thoughtful and funny here.

 

Pete Doherty shagging Kate Moss is the worst one. He is irredeemable.

Edited September 4, 2020 by NotThePars

[paranoid android]

For some listeners, The Maccabees are year-zero rock - The Maccabees are ok, but that's a concern for an (admittedly) auld codger like me. 

[Boostin' Kev]

This thread has given me a genuinely heartwarming feeling knowing I spent my formative years growing up with the evolution of hip hop, house, techno, lo fi/art rock indie, grunge and Madchester.

[Jimi Shandrix]

A genuinely awful time for British guitar based music. So bad in fact that it has never recovered. 

[Savage Henry]

1 hour ago, Jimi Shandrix said:

A genuinely awful time for British guitar based music. So bad in fact that it has never recovered. 

Oasis, Blur and Pulp, while exceptional for a while (And Pulp for decades), really did inspire some of the most insipid and bland music by pasty white men with floppy hair and a permanent Jesus pose.  The 1975 seem to be carrying the flag nicely in those terms, but you could add the Courteeners, Biffy Cliro, Gerry Cinnamon, The Dunts, Rascalton and any number of others, all of whom offer precisely zero originality or charm. In fact, there’s hundreds of them.  That being said, I think “landfill” just means boring and beige, and you could really go to any era and any genre and make a list of 50 boring songs. This list just happens to be targeted at the Vice reading demographic.   
 

Top 50 incompetent DJs would be equally dismal.

Edit: this reminds me of going to see the BBC Presents... day show at SXSW with Saint PHNX, Orchards, and The Dunts. The UK Embassy day show is famous for having free food, and it only just dampened my sense of everlasting doom.

Edited September 5, 2020 by Savage Henry

[Gaz]

My mates listened to all this shite. Utter vapid bands with a "The" at the start of their name who made absolutely pish music.

The Kooks being the worst.

[capt_oats]

2 hours ago, Savage Henry said:

That being said, I think “landfill” just means boring and beige, and you could really go to any era and any genre and make a list of 50 boring songs. This list just happens to be targeted at the Vice reading demographic.   

Edit: this reminds me of going to see the BBC Presents... day show at SXSW with Saint PHNX, Orchards, and The Dunts. The UK Embassy day show is famous for having free food, and it only just dampened my sense of everlasting doom.

That was my interpretation as well. The weird thing is that "landfill" isn't necessarily being used pejoratively here - even though it sounds like it should be.

If you look at the 'Britpop' era you've obviously got Oasis, Blur, Pulp and Suede but equally there was a bandwagon filled with the likes of Shed Seven, Echobelly, The Bluetones, Sleeper, Dodgy or Menswe@r all bands who had one or two big songs but largely existed in that slipstream of averageness of Shine compilations.

You can make exactly the same sort of comparisons with Grunge.

I suppose the thing with the bands in that Vice list is that their defining characteristic is their blandness.

Even the "big" bands like Arctic Monkeys were/are pretty dull. I've never really understood how folk could have strong opinions on bands like The Rifles or The Enemy or whoever but some do it seems. It's an era of music that completely passed me by and I don't feel I've missed out tbh.

Fwiw, 2012 was my last trip to SxSW. The Twilight Sad and Three Blind Wolves were doing the Scottish Showcase IIRC.

Edited September 5, 2020 by capt_oats