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Thursday, February 5, 2015

The Indie Anthology 56: essential songs

After last week's riot grrrl incursion we go back to jangle pop in this new chapter of our Anthology, with another very dear one, criminally underrated imo, guitar pop band of the 80s.

Song: My Favorite Wet Wednesday Afternoon
Artist: The Siddeleys
Year: 1987

For an incurable music addict, there are few pleasures that can compare with what I call "the completist hunt". For that I mean the time, sometimes never-ending, you start digging into "a scene", a genre-style, and/or a specific period of time, looking out name after name, creating connections (agreed, in many occasions its just you making the links), building up a music "family tree" and, every little while, finding that long, forgotten gem (remember I'm Spanish and born in the 80s so much harder to have heard about many of these bands) that keeps you smiling for the whole month you discovered them. In my case, as you probably guess, it's all about jangle pop. One of these lovely discoveries were the short-lived The Siddeleys, sort of a pop cult group formed in London in the spring of 1986 after singer/guitarist Johnny Johnson gave a tape of her home-recorded songs to guitarist Allan Kingdom. The combination of irresistible, tuneful and chiming guitar-pop with sweet yet powerful and somewhat incisive girl vocals and terribly dark lyrics were a shock for me, leaded by the perfect 'My Favorite Wet Wednesday Afternoon', frenzy and evocative, nostalgic but rebellious. If that chorus ("there's no earthly reason...") and the eternal lead guitar doesn't get you, there's something wrong with you, I'm afraid.

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