Come To My World (A Brief History Of Indie Pop 1985-2023)

Another on-the-money Two-Piers selection! Start in the 80s and take a DIY dive into the underground of the past 40 years through the anti-club culture of 7” B-sides, handmade record sleeves, fanzines and button badges of the largely press-ignored, underrated brilliance of these indie-pop flag flyers.

 
Indie Pop – how best to describe it? A kind of Anti-Club, an underground scene where people discuss 7” B-sides and handmade record sleeves, swap fanzines, share hand-written gig flyers and collect button badges of their favourite bands. Ridiculed at times by the music press in the early years and the uninformed calling it ‘cardigan wearing’, ‘twee’ or ‘bed wetting’ music, but to its fans it has almost cult-like status and its DIY attitude continues to shine. Go back to beginnings in the mid 1980s seeking out cool 7” singles in hand made sleeves, by bands with unusual names, taking them home and falling in love with this music and all these exciting new bands. Hanging out in tiny basement clubs like The Sunshine Playroom and The Apple Orchard in Brighton, and many other similar club nights around the country, with like-minded souls, watching these DIY bands just pick up some instruments and get out there playing live. Who needed the Music Press anyway?

Fast forward to 2024 and there are still so many great bands coming through in the scene, such has indie Pop’s legacy stood the test of time, and when so many other press-driven ‘scenes’ have come and gone. This compilation just scratches at the surface, there is simply so much incredible music. From the 138-track starting point we couldn’t clear everything we wanted of course, but the final track listing we hope gives a beautiful glimpse into our world of Indie Pop. Is it perfect? Definitely not but what is perfection anyway? It’s a great starting point to go and discover this ever-evolving scene, so go digging and see what you can find but for now we invite you to Come to my World
 
‘Come to My World’ starts at the beginning with cool bands like Talulah Gosh, The Flatmates, Blueboy, Primal Scream, McCarthy, 14 Iced Bears and The Springfields, releasing on trailblazing DIY labels such as Sarah Records, The Subway Organization and Creation. We go through the influential C86 cassette years, to the more commercial late 1980’s sounds of The Primitives, The Soup Dragons and The Darling Buds. Navigating through the 1990’s with the underrated brilliance of Heavenly, the flourishing Scottish scene including amongst others BMX Bandits and The Vaselines, plus Stateside the Indie Pop sounds of Velocity Girl and Blake Babies breaking through.

Into the 2000’s and the US scene was producing brilliant bands in the shape of Dum Dum Girls and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, alongside from the side of the pond Underground bands like Joanna Gruesome, The Spook School and Veronica Falls. The compilation ends with a glimpse into the bright future of Indie Pop with the likes of The Goon Sax, The Lost Days and Ribbon Stage – Indie Pop Ain’t Noise Pollution!