Greatest indie rock label from the 80's-early 90s.

[Beware the Beast Man]

There was a ton of great underground music in the 80's and 90's. I'll have to go with Sub Pop, because I was a hige fan of the whole Pacific Northwest thing before it blew up. I tried to get my hands on as many 45s as my local record shop could stock. Alas, I never joined the Singles Club, because the $40 a month or whatever it was seemed a bit steep on my meager Long John Silver's salary in high school.

[mark414]

1. i went with Dischord

but then again, Fugazi is one of my favorite bands, so...

[vi5]

2. Two different decades, 2 different answers....

SST in the 80's.
Dischord or Touch and Go in the 90's.

[tigereye]

3. yeah!

that's a good answer. I have to go and ponder, because there were other cool labels then.

How about K records in Seattle... Beat Happening, Calvin and all those folks....

[vi5]

6. K records was always too twee and cutesy for me...

I liked some of their stuff but I think they were far too niche to have any major impact.

I might have also included Lookout! Even their stuff that I wasn't nuts about had a pretty huge impact on the underground scene as well as the mainstream.

[swag]

18. Excellent use of the word "twee."

[tuvor]

4. I kinda liked Slash, Rough Trade and Stiff Records

Violent Femmes, Jonathan Richman, Lene Lovich...

Yes, we need more than ten choices.

Be Stiff!

[Beware the Beast Man]

7. Damn. I mean to put Rough Trade as it's own entry.

Thanks!

[tigereye]

26. sigh

Rough Trade!

[Magrittes Pipe]

5. SST in the mid-'80s (honorable mention to Homestead)...

Sup Pop in the late-'80s, Estrus in the early '90s.

Since about '95, indie rock has sucked. :P

[vi5]

9. I don't know if it's sucked as much as...

There's just so much more to weed through. Prior to the mid-90's you could conceivably keep up with at least 75% of the releases on indie labels. But since the mid 90's you'd go insane trying to do that so it's next to impossible to weed through the garbage to get to the good stuff.

Is Estrus still in business?

[Magrittes Pipe]

13. Yeah, they're still around.

Dave hasn't signed a top-tier band in a while, though.

[Beware the Beast Man]

14. The advent of affordable home recording has made indies obsolete.

Someone with Pro Tools can now make a complete CD of material, plus create their own graphics and press their own CDs in the comfort of their own home. An era definitely has passed, that's for sure.

[tigereye]

27. yeah but that's not as cool!

says the old fogie... ;)

[bbernardini]

8. FUCK SST.

After what they did to Negativland and Husker Du (among others), they get no respect from me.

[Beware the Beast Man]

10. Agreed. Ginn did have a knack for screwing people over.

Still- beyond questionable business practices, SST had a=n excellent catalog of artists.

[vi5]

11. Yeah, but the question wasn't business practices...

at least I assume that's not what he meant. And as far as sheer quality of the band roster and the works released by those bands under that label's banner, there is no doubt that despite all their other crap involved that SST put out some of the best records in underground rock in the 80's. Bar none.

[bbernardini]

16. Okay, you've got me there.

I'll give them credit for actually releasing Negativland's stuff in the first place. But fuck 'em anyway. :)

[dhinojosa]

12. WAXTRAX ALL THE WAY!!!!!!

Ministry


My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult



Revolting Cocks


Front 242


KMFDM


Front Line Assembly


Sister Machine Gun

and more and more and more

[Strawman]

15. 4AD

Pixies, Breeders, Throwing Muses

[tuvor]

17. Oh, yeah!

Cocteau Twins, Wolfgang Press, and Colourbox!

[Beware the Beast Man]

19. Don't forget Bauhaus!

[Dukkha]

33. They were on Beggars Banquet

Now also on Metropolis

http://www.metropolis-records.com

[Beware the Beast Man]

34. D'oh!

Ok, well here's a nom for Beggar's Banquet.

I could have sworn they did some stuff on 4AD, though...

[tigereye]

28. yes! Bands with actual women in them!!

:)

[Susang]

31. Outrageous!

They can't possibly be real rockers then, could they? :P

[tigereye]

37. snort

well, as you know, there is only allowed to be one all - female popular rock band at a time... ;) every 10 years or so...

[Susang]

43. Token bass player chicks are okay

As long as the rest of the band have penises and write all of the music. ;-)

[tigereye]

45. yup!

I remember that well!

every other band in my punk days had a female bass player. They were usually really attractive too. None had women drummers... well, one or two or women quitar players.

Dumb.

[malmapus]

20. Being from Georgia..I gotta say IRS

For early REM

[underpants]

46. Yeah leaving IRS off this is a big oversight

[shugh514]

21. Twin Tone

The Replacements, Soul Asylum

[Strawman]

24. Didn't Robyn Hitchcock do some stuff on Twin Tone also?

Twin Tone is a good one.

[no name no slogan]

40. Can't forget Twin-Tone

Hüsker Dü also did some stuff for them, back in the day. In the early 90s, I lived a couple blocks from their world HQ in south Minneapolis (22nd and Nicollet for those who know Mpls).

Also, IIRC, the Suburbs were on Twin Tone for awhile, too. Eleanor Mondale's new husband, Chan Poling, was a member of the 'Burbs, who were a big local group in the 80s.

[XNASA]

22. My choice is Wax Trax!

:eyes:

[mac56]

23. Enigma

nm

[chickenscratching]

25. sorry can't answer that, I was still in the fetile stages

[asthmaticeog]

29. Amphetamine. Fucking. Reptile.

That is all.

[Beware the Beast Man]

35. The Dope, Guns & Fucking in the Streets collections were gold.

[Squeech]

30. Cuneiform

And they're still active too, releasing unbelievably awesome math-rock and non-danceable electronic noise.

[Magrittes Pipe]

32. Of course, the REAL answer is Old Age/No Age.

[Beware the Beast Man]

36. My list of honorable mentions:

1. Combat- I believe they were Relativity's metal offshoot. Lots of great underground metal and punk bands on there.

2. Megaforce- launched the careers of Metallica, Anthrax, Testament, and Overkill, to name a few.

3. Plan 9- Glenn Danzig's vehicle for the Misfits and Samhain.

4. Revelation- good if you liked "hawd caw"

5. C/Z- the "other" Seattle label.

6. Boner- home to the Melvins

7. Man's Ruin- came out much later, but damn did they have a good roster.

[MissMillie]

38. Other: United Musicians

Aimee Mann, Michael Penn, Julian Coryell, Acoustic Vaudville, etc.

[Lannes]

39. They werent the best but I liked Bettie Serveert

[dean_dem]

41. I'm with 4AD.

Does Rough Trade count?

[Magrittes Pipe]

42. Can't forget OKra, either.

[RandomKoolzip]

44. Some others worth mentioning:

Revelation: I know straightedge hardcore wasn't most people's bag, but these guys released most of the best of it, and still have a lock on a lot of the better stuff in that genre.

Silkheart: Released some nutty/cool free jazz from the likes of Charles Gayle.

PSF: Japanese noise/psychedelic label. In the early 90's, was home to White Heaven, Fujitsusha, Marble Sheep, and other notables.

Cuneiform: Great post-Canterbury, post-prog...still home to aggregations like Djam Karet, Art Bears, Thinking Plague, etc.

RRRRecords: Boston noise/experimental label. Released some of the most out-there noise I can remember, by the likes of Due Process, etc.

Boner Records: put out some of the early Melvins records when they were still honing their unique sound.

Pravda: Chicago-based, home to Cheer-Accident, Material Issue, a few good power-pop bands like Green.

Spalax: More recent, but still important label...re-issued a lot of the more bizarre free jazz/noise records made in the early 70's by Europeans. Also put out the only recordings by Mahogany Brain (a French band whose 1972 debut predates the sound of early Half-Japanese by almost a decade), Ame Son, Musica Electronica Viva, and others.

[DinahMoeHum]

47. Stiff Records 1976 - 1987

They gave us:
Elvis Costello
Madness
Ian Drury and the Blockheads
Lene Lovich
Plasmatics


Slogan: "If It Ain't Stiff, It Ain't Worth A F**k"


http://www.buythehour.se/stiff/

[vikegirl]

48. Is Mute considered indie?

:shrug: