When it comes to making it big in music, there's no logic or justice. That's the premise of this Louder article in which Paul Brannigan profiles ten 90s bands that (he argues) were primed for or deserved far better than the modest success they enjoyed.
In some cases, Brannigan definitely has a point. The clean, chunky riffage of Kerbdog's 'Sally', for instance, suggests that they should surely have found serious fame among fans of Foo Fighters, especially of their post-The Colour And The Shape albums, and Handsome's 'Needles' is a solid slab of Helmet-lite.
But in other cases, he seems way off the mark. I'd never heard of Into Another and on the strength of 'Mutate Me' have little inclination to know more, while it's a measure of the mad feeding frenzy that ensued after Nevermind that a band as odd as Shudder To Think - outliers even on Dischord - could ever find themselves with a major label record deal.
Elsewhere, the evidence of 'Painless' makes something of a mockery of Brannigan's mouthwatering description of The God Machine as "occupying the hinterlands between Nick Cave, Jane's Addiction and Nine Inch Nails at their bleakest and most downbeat" (I did enjoy Robin Proper-Sheppard's later band Sophia when they supported Mogwai in 2001, though). One listen to the verse of Whipping Boy's 'Twinkle' and you could guess that Fontaines DC were fans even if Brannigan hadn't spelled it out.
I loved The Future Is Medium by Compulsion, the band that spawned uber-producer Jacknife Lee, so it was good to know that 'Juvenile Scene Detective' still holds up - as it was to be reminded of another band I saw at my first festival, Reading in 1996: Girls Against Boys.
Speaking of which, the very male-dominated list - a sorry sign of the times, arguably - does at least include two female-fronted bands. Drugstore largely passed me by, but 'Fader' - sounding for all the world like a bonus track from The Jesus And Mary Chain's Stoned & Dethroned - is a charmer. Cay, by contrast, I knew, loved, saw live and indeed interviewed. Brannigan mentions the trio's dislike of the Hole comparison, but the cap does fit - though revisiting their one and only album, Nature Creates Freaks, for the first time in years does bring home how much of a quirky Kim Gordon Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star vibe they had going on, all too briefly.
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