The search for all killer, no filler

 It has suddenly struck me that all the albums that I class "All killer, no filler" (ie contain not a single duff track in their entire running order) are all male-fronted indie guitar bands from the early 1990s. See for yourself:

• Radiohead - The Bends
• Suede - Dog Man Star
• Blur - Parklife
• Ride - Going Blank Again
• Boo Radleys - Giant Steps

I've been told off about the lack of female-front bands in my collection, and this will be rectified in a small way when Belly 'Star' thuds onto my doormat later this week, a female-fronted indie guitar band from the early 1990s. But the truth remains, there was a blessed window in my late 20s when I Quite Liked Music With Guitars In.

All this musical perfection bursting forth from this period of time tells us one thing - you only get decent music under a Tory government. As soon as Tony Blair showed up in 1997, Britpop went down the shitter to be replaced by Steps and the Spice Girls, all the proof you need. My current favourites - Public Service Broadcasting - could only have emerged under Conservative rule, and they are a male-fronted indie banjo band from the early 2010s.

So, I'm going to wax lyrical about the best of these albums:

Teenage Fanclub - Grand Prix

I listened to it all the way through in the car the other day, waiting for the dip somewhere on side two when the duff tracks start. All albums have this - the moment where the band realise they've got an album to finish and they've already laid down their best material, but they've still got about fifteen minutes to fill. This doesn't happen in Grand Prix, because (as the crueller critics say) they used up all the duffers on their previous album Thirteen.

Instead, a tad over 42 minutes of superbly-constructed pop music from the very pinnacle of male-fronted indie guitar bands from the early 1990s, and the impossible task of nailing down a favourite.

So many great tracks to choose from. By the power of ip-dip-dog-shit, I choose Sparky's Dream, which *just* dented the top 40 in 1995, because the British public are a bunch of cloth-eared idiots.



Any more suggestions for all-killer albums I should know about? They don't have to be male-fronted indie guitar bands from the early 1990s, but it helps.