About this item

Back in May/June 1986, the New Musical Express released one of their regular mail-order cassettes. Reflecting the latest trends in Indie music, C86 was a 22-track cassette which was inspired by the NME’s C81 tape from half a decade earlier. Aside from a few name bands (The Pastels, Primal Scream, the Wedding Present, the Mighty Lemon Drops), most acts were relatively unknown beyond the back pages and gig listings of the weekly music press. A few hadn’t even issued a record!

C86 slowly but surely became the NME’s best-selling ever compilation, selling an estimated 40,000 copies and eventually being reissued on LP and cassette by Rough Trade the following year. C86 prompted a week of shows at the ICA and would come to embody a whole musical style and era.

This deluxe expanded edition of the original C86 cassette adds some 50 bonus tracks. The box set is curated by original compiler Neil Taylor and has the endorsement of the NME. Neil has chosen tracks which could conceivably have been on the original C86 package: all the recordings were made between mid-1985 and mid-1986. Neil wrote about many of the bands at the time.

TRACK LISTING

Disc: 1
1. Primal Scream - Velocity Girl
2. The Mighty Lemon Drops - Happy Head
3. The Soup Dragons - Pleasantly Surprised
4. The Wolfhounds - Feeling So Strange Again
5. The Bodines - Therese
6. Mighty Mighty - Law
7. Stump - Buffalo
8. Bogshed - Run To The Temple
9. A Witness - Sharpened Sticks
10. The Pastels - Breaking Lines
11. Age Of Chance - From Now On,This Will Be Your God
12. Shop Assistants - It's Up To You
13. Close Lobsters - Firestation Towers
14. Miaow - Sport Most Royal
15. Half Man Half Biscuit - I Hate Nerys Hughes (From The Heart)
16. The Servants - Transparent
17. Mackenzies - Big Jim (There's No Pubs In Heaven)
18. Big Flame - New Way (Quick Wash And Brush Up With Liberation Theology)
19. We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It - Console Me
20. Mccarthy - Celestial City
21. The Shrubs - Bullfighters Bones
22. The Wedding Present - This Boy Can Wait(A Bit Longer)

Disc: 2
1. The June Brides - Just The Same
2. Yeah Yeah Noh - Another Side To Mrs Quill
3. The Primitives - Lazy
4. Jesse Garon & The Desperadoes - Splashing Along
5. The Band Of Holy Joy - Rosemary Smith
6. The Mctells - Virginia M.C.
7. B.M.X. Bandits - E102
8. One Thousand Violins - Like One Thousand Violins
9. The Dentists - Peppermint Dreams
10. The Membranes - Everything's Brilliant
11. The Weather Prophets - Worm In My Brain
12. The Brilliant Corners - Meet Me On Tuesdays
13. Talulah Gosh - I Told You So
14. Pigbros - Hedonist Hat
15. 14 Iced Bars - Inside
16. St. Christopher - Go Ahead, Cry
17. The Groove Farm - Captain Fantastic (Demo)
18. Kilgore Trout - The Peacock Nose
19. The Jesus And Mary Chain - Inside Me
20. The Hit Parade - You Didn't Love Me Then
21. That Petrol Emotion - Mine
22. The Turncoats - One Breath
23. A Riot Of Colour - Skink (Flexi Version)
24. Paul Groovy & The Pop Art Experience - Tune In. Turn On, Trip Out
25. The Railway Children - Darkness And Colour

Disc: 3
1. The Chesterfields - Sweet Revenge
2. The Jasmine Minks - World's No Place
3. Stitched - Why
4. Razorcuts - Sad Kaleidoscope
5. Treebound Story - I Remember
6. The Nightingales - Part Time Moral England
7. Episode Four - Strike Up Matches
8. The Avons - Everything's Going Right
9. Meat Whiplash - Here It Comes
10. King Of The Slums - Spider Psychiatry
11. Happy Mondays - Freaky Dancin'
12. Biff Bang Pow - Love's Going Out Of Fashion
13. Blue Areoplanes - Outback Jazz
14. Lawrence & The Comfortable Society - Heartache
15. Laugh - Take Your Time, Yeah (Flexi Version)
16. North Of Cornwallis - Billy Liar
17. Pop Will Eat Itself - Mesmerized
18. Benny Profane - Hang Fire
19. Go! Service - Real Life
20. Janitors - Good To Be King
21. The Claim - Gullible's Travels
22. The Auctioneers - Scoop
23. On - Perfect Cockney Hard
24. The Love Act - Hep Clothes
25. The Enormous Room - I Don't Need You