One of the clearest examples of an album that crafts a strange and beautiful world not quite like any other is Rocketship’s 1996 full-length debut A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness. Even upon arrival, this was an experience unto itself, and 30 years later, these eight songs of bittersweet bliss still feel new. Rocketship spiked their deliciously melodic indiepop with buzzing organs, spacey interstitials and motorik repetition, aligning them with mid-90s peers like Stereolab and Unrest. A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness is an album of unrepentantly vulnerable melodies, unusual seventh chords, lingering ambient interludes, and soft sentiments released at a time when unfriendly, self-conscious punk rock was the order of the day, a bold move indeed. Returning to A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness with fresh ears, it becomes more obvious how quietly influential the album was. After several different waves of shoegaze revivalism, grunge distillation, and new bands perfecting the ‘90s slacker pop aesthetic yet again, elements of Rocketship’s intricate creative world have begun to surface in the sounds of subsequent generations.