Cherry Red Records early next year will continue its series of imagined sequels to the NME’s famed C86 cassette compilation with the release of the three-disc, 63-track C90 box set, featuring U.K. indie artists such as The Charlatans, Spiritualized, Manic Street Preachers, Lush, Slowdive, The La’s, Saint Etienne, Chapterhouse and more.
The box set, due out Feb. 21, can be pre-ordered via Cherry Red, and follows Cherry Red’s expanded version of the original C86 compilation, released in 2014, and its follow-up multi-disc box sets C87 (which came out in 2016), C88 (which arrived in 2017) and C89 (released last year).
The label describes the new set:
Over a decade now since punk rocked the British musical scene to its foundations and caused an eruption of independently produced records, the scene and a new generation of figurehead artists began to let ambition in and head overground, playing to increasingly large crowds, working with bigger budgets and selling more copies, finding a footing in the UK’s Top Forty, venturing into the USA and, ultimately, creating a mainstream audience now primed for credible, guitar-tinged pop. Meanwhile, an underground revolution in clubland began to push towards the commercial same space, resulting in an inevitable fusion of songcraft and dancefloor aesthetics.
“C90” captures perfectly the moment these tribes began to coalesce. From the opening, club-friendly rendition of The Charlatans’ ‘Polar Bear’ to The La’s knowingly backward looking ‘Timeless Melody’ and all in-between, this is the sound of a scene dropping the raincoats, dropping acid and aiming for domination. 1990 was the start of a new decade when the Indie scene was dominated by Madchester and the arrival of Shoegaze and with nods towards grunge and what would become known as Britpop, plus hints of a proto-laddism peering out from between the cracks in a post-Smiths aesthetic, the sound of 1990, it could be argued, set the tone for the remainder of the decade.
“C90” is a snapshot of a unique moment in time. A piece of history. The sound of a country putting the hard-biting 1980s behind it, embracing the Daisy Age and looking to move forwards.
See the full tracklist below.
Various artists, C90
Disc 1
1. POLAR BEAR – The Charlatans
2. SWAY – Ocean Colour Scene
3. PERFUME – Paris Angels
4. THE STORM – World Of Twist
5. ONLY LOVE CAN BREAK YOUR HEART – Saint Etienne
6. IT’S ON – Flowered Up
7. GET HIGHER – Moonflowers
8. MY RISING STAR – Northside
9. WONDERMENT – Thousand Yard Stare
10. THOUGHTFORMS – Lush
11. ANYWAY THAT YOU WANT ME – Spiritualized
12. SWANSONG – Boo Radleys
13. JUGGERNAUT RIDES – Swervedriver
14. AVALYN I – Slowdive
15. HALF-LIFE, REMEMBERED – Pale Saints
16. SOMETHING MORE (AMBIENT VERSION) – Chapterhouse
17. CAN’T BE SURE – The Sundays
18. SHE SINGS ALONE – See See Rider
19. PLEASE LET ME GO – The Popinjays
Disc 2
1. NEW ART RIOT – Manic Street Preachers
2. AIM – Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
3. POP SONG – Th’ Faith Healers
4. BEAM ME UP – New Fast Automatic Daffodils
5. TO KILL A SLOW GIRL WALKING – The Telescopes
6. WELCOME TO DEAD TOWN – The Seers
7. LISTEN – Honey Smugglers
8. SEEMS TO ME – Milltown Brothers
9. BIG CITY (WAVES OF JOY) (DEMO) – Spacemen 3
10. I FELL IN LOVE LAST NIGHT – Heavenly
11. SEAN CONNERY – James Dean Driving Experience
12. TAKE – Raintree County
13. NOAH’S ARK – Brighter
14. AMNESIA – Something Pretty Beautiful
15. EARTHWHEEL – Sandkings
16. IF I COULD SHINE – The Sweetest Ache
17. MAD AS LOVE – Greenhouse
18. CRAZY MIXED UP KID – Mousefolk
19. THESE THINGS HAPPEN – Action Painting!
20. STRANGE – All Over The Place
21. I KNOW – Bark Psychosis
Disc 3
1. TIMELESS MELODY – The La’s
2. HIGHRISE LOVE – The Darkside
3. EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU – My Jealous God
4. SLEEP – Eternal
5. POTBOILER – Penelope’s Web
6. DEAD LIKE YOU – The Steamkings
7. TWENTY-FIFTEEN – The Sunflowers
8. BESIDE THE SEA – The Kennedy Pill
9. LITTLE VALLEY TOWN – Jane From Occupied Europe
10. SUNDAY NEVER COMES AROUND – Po!
11. GOOD MORNING – Jane Pow
12. LEARNING TO KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT – How Many Beans Make Five
13. LOVESVILLE USA – Montgomery Clifts
14. SHE MADE EVERYTHING GROOVY – The Ogdens
15. OUT OF MY MIND – Avo-8
16. DARKEST BLUE – Gentle Despite
17. MY HEART IS WHERE MY HOME IS – The Chrysalids
18. WHEN I FIND YOU – Little Red Schoolhouse
19. NOTHING IN YOUR HEART – Life With Patrick
20. WHAT IS MORE THAN LIFE – Horse Latitudes
21. I REALLY DO LOVE YOU PENELOPE – Hey Paulette
22. MISSING YOU – The Ammonites
23. CHEAT ON ME – The Emotionals
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS
- ‘C89’ box set to feature The Stone Roses, The La’s, Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine
- ‘C88’ box set to feature The Stone Roses, The House of Love, The Vaselines and more
- Deluxe reissue of legendary C86 cassette to feature 72 tracks across 3 CDs
