C85

• 3CD collection pre-queling NME’s huge selling C86 compilation.
• Featuring the best of the burgeoning indie scene from 1985.
• Including tracks from The Jesus And Mary Chain, The Stone Roses, That Petrol Emotion, The Woodentops, James, Del Amitri, The Housemartins and many more.

Following the success of the three-disc compilation, ‘The Sun Shines Here’ (which documented the roots of Indie Pop from 1980-84), the prequel to C86, C85 combines “name” bands with many obscurities making their debut on CD. Several acts on C85 would eventually feature on that NME’s C86 collection: Primal Scream, The Wedding Present, the Mighty Lemon Drops, etc, who all had singles released in 1985.

Back in 1986, the NME’s latest mail-order cassette, C86, captured the latest trends in Indie music, inspired by the C81 tape from half a decade earlier. C86 became the NME’s best-selling compilation, selling an estimated 40,000 copies and eventually being re-issued on LP and cassette by Rough Trade the following year. Fast forward to 2014, the triple-CD edition celebrated the cult status of C86, which had come to embody a whole style of indie guitar music with 50 extra tracks.

C85 bridges the gap between ‘The Sun Shines Here’ and ‘C86’, opening with undoubtedly the most vital British breakthrough band of that year in The Jesus & Mary Chain and closing with the debut from a band who’d have to wait several years for their chance, The Stone Roses. Along the way, we hear many key records by the likes of post-Undertones band That Petrol Emotion (their blistering debut ‘Keen’), The Woodentops, James, Del Amitri, The Housemartins (their debut ‘Flag Day’) and a then largely unknown Happy Mondays (again represented by their first single). Where discs one and two reflect the predominant indie pop sound with which C86 was most closely associated, disc 3 acknowledges the harder, more angular sounds of that era (encapsulated by the bands on the Ron Johnson label).

Alongside band biographies for every track is an introductory essay by one-time NME scribe Neil Taylor, the original co-compiler of C86 and author of the book C86 And All That. In short, C85 is essential for any fan of 80s independent music.

DISC ONE
1 THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN Never Understand
2 THAT PETROL EMOTION Keen
3 THE WOODENTOPS Move Me
4 THE MIGHTY LEMON DROPS Like An Angel
5 HURRAH! Funny Day
6 THE LOFT Your Door Shines Like Gold
7 JAMES Uprising
8 SHOP ASSISTANTS All Day Long
9 THE JUNE BRIDES Josef’s Gone
10 THE WEDDING PRESENT (The Moment Before) Everything’s Spoiled Again
11 THE DENTISTS Pallino
12 THE HOUSEMARTINS Flag Day (Single Version)
13 THE JASMINE MINKS What’s Happening
14 THE SOUP DRAGONS If You Were The Only Girl In The World (Would You Take Me?)
15 MIGHTY MIGHTY Throwaway (A Night At The Flicks version)
16 HAPPY MONDAYS Delightful
17 McCARTHY In Purgatory
18 BIFF BANG POW! Love And Hate
19 THE PRIMITIVES Across My Shoulder (Demo)
20 THE BODINES Paradise
21 PERFECT DISASTER New Beginning
22 THE HIT PARADE The Sun Shines In Gerrards Cross
23 MICRODISNEY Horse Overboard
24 MIAOW Fate
25 THE IMPOSSIBLE YEARS Attraction Gear

DISC TWO
1 PRIMAL SCREAM All Fall Down
2 SARAH GOES SHOPPING Summer Blues
3 DEL AMITRI Sticks And Stones, Girl
4 THE PASSMORE SISTERS Dance The House Down
5 THE CLAIM Through His Sunglasses
6 GRAB GRAB THE HADDOCK Last Fond Goodbye
7 THE CHESTERF!ELDS Nose Out Of Joint (Flexidisc Version)
8 THE SEDGEMORONS Drop Dead Darling
9 YEAH JAZZ Julie & The Sea Lions
10 THE WORD ASSOCIATION Mary Mary
11 THE KAMIKAZE PILOTS Sharon Signs To Cherry Red
12 ONE THOUSAND VIOLINS Halcyon Days
13 RONNIE CAN YOU HEAR ME? Vroom For Romance
14 GO! SERVICE It Makes Me Realise
15 HOUSEHUNTERS Shopping City
16 THE SNAKES OF SHAKE Southern Cross
17 ST CHRISTOPHER As Far As The Eye Can See
18 THE WORD Wide Awake
19 BENNY PROFANE Drop Dead (Demo) *
20 THE BRIDGE World Of Your Own
21 THE WAKE Of The Matter
22 ALWAYS Late Again
23 IN EMBRACE Shouting In Cafes
24 THE BAND OF HOLY JOY Consumption

DISC THREE
1 A WITNESS Lucky In London
2 YEAH YEAH NOH Prick Up Your Ears
3 BRILLIANT CORNERS My Baby In Black
4 STITCHED-BACK FOOT AIRMAN Granular Twilight
5 PIG BROS Excessive
6 THE MEMBRANES I Am Fish Eye
7 AGE OF CHANCE Bible Of The Beats
8 THE NOSE FLUTES Girth
9 THE FOLK DEVILS English Disease
10 BIG FLAME All The Irish (Must Go To Heaven)
11 MEAT WHIPLASH Losing Your Grip (Demo)
12 BOG-SHED Fat Lad Exam Failure
13 THE INCA BABIES Brother Rat
14 FIVE GO DOWN TO THE SEA Singing In Braille
15 THE JANITORS Chicken Stew
16 THE SINISTER CLEANERS The Gnomes Of Zurich
17 VEE VV Kindest Cut
18 SPLAT! Taxi
19 BOB HOPE TO DIE Honeymoon
20 THE BLUE AEROPLANES I Wanna Be Your Lover *
21 PALOOKAS Clear Day
22 SUDDEN AFTERNOON Acid Rain (Single Version)
23 THE STONE ROSES So Young