Product description


The latest in the hugely successful ‘C’ series, riffing on the original C86 cassette. 59 tracks charting the ongoing rise to dominance of the independent music scene, as once shoestring artists and labels began to find themselves embraced by the mainstream.

Packed with well-known favourites – the Charlatans, Manic Street Preachers, Dodgy, Saint Etienne, the Cranberries, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Northside, etc – alongside underground and cult independent heroes – Sultans of Ping FC, Chapterhouse, Kingmaker, the Stairs, Flowered Up, Levitation and many, many more.

Having successfully crossed over from the bedsit to the mainstream throughout 1989 and 1990, independent artists quickly began to dominate the British musical landscape, bringing an authentic new energy to a stagnant, Thatcherite pop scene. 1991 saw countless indie artists score hit singles and albums as the scene continued to mutate and adapt regionally, politically and aesthetically – from Manic Street Preachers’ urgent, punk-infused anthems and the outer edges of shoegaze and psychedelic songcraft offered by Chapterhouse and Levitation, through to the dancefloor friendly adventures of Flowered Up and St Etienne, the art-school informed Kingmaker and established baggy favourites The Charlatans, 1991 offered up the broadest and richest smorgasbord of accessible, street-level artists the UK’s youth had known in a decade.

C91 is a snapshot of that time and place, bringing together the cream of the 1991 independent landscape and offering a rollercoaster of hits, near-misses and curiosities along the way. With thoughtful sleevenotes from Lois Wilson (Record Collector and Mojo) and fantastic mood- capturing artwork we’ve come to associate with the ‘C’ series, this set – the sixth in the series – continues a journey begun with ‘C86’, charting an essential, alternative view of the British music scene as it moved towards the inevitability of the 21st Century.

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Carefully packaged in recycled packaging

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Released01/21/2022Catalog NumberCRCDBOX119Learn more

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