This week’s band of the week has been around since the 90’s, but they’re still great, and they’ve still got some dedicated fans who love them, and that’s all you need to know. But not really. The rest is down below and the band of the week is…

TEENAGE FANCLUB!!!

So, this Scottish, 90’s power-pop band will likely go down in the history books for one shitty reason, which is that their 1991 album Bandwagonesque beat out Nirvana‘s Nevermind, My Bloody Valentine‘s Loveless, and REM‘s Out Of Time for Spin‘s 1991 album of the year. Talk about pulling a Kwarka (oh, snap!). Yeah, all of those other bands have since gone on to cement their legendary status, while last week Teenage Fanclub played…The Horseshoe.

Alright, I’m being a little harsh. Greatness is clearly not defined by popularity or popular opinion otherwise Lady Gaga would be about ten billion times greater than Big Star, and hopefully, if you’re reading this, you know that’s not the case. And to TF’s credit, a lot of people were psyched about that Horseshoe show, as my twitter wall proved.

Fact is, Bandwagonesque is a very solid album, though it’s no Loveless (not by a long shot). And it’s not like Teenage Fanclub just made that and one or two other albums then disappeared, lost their frontman due to his committing suicide, or sucked for ten years like some bands. Their 1993 follow-up, Thirteen, is probably just as good if not a little better than Bandwagonesque, and 1997’s Songs From Northern Britain is also very legit. Sometimes they’re a legit too cozy and cushiony for me to really get into hardcore, but it’s never hard to enjoy their songwriting.

Also cool, Teenage Fanclub‘s post-millenial stuff has the added benefit of not sounding like it was made in the 90’s, which is probably also why recent albums by Dinosaur Jr. and Robert Pollard are in many ways their best work; 90’s production was just really, really lame. TF’s latest album, Shadows, in particular, really does sound like a band continuing to move forward rather than just juicing the past for all it’s worth. So yeah, that’s really good. Check it out.

The History of Apple Pie‘s sound hovers over the line between early 90’s shoegaze and mid 90’s indie-rock. Check out the song “Mallory” below. It’s pretty…

The History Of Apple Pie – Mallory

New Orleans “post-gospel” band Sun Hotel recently sent me their album Coast and it’s pretty awesome stuff. Don’t let the weird genre label scare you off, this really just sounds like 90’s leaning, good, old scrappy indie rock. But done well.

Sun Hotel – Suburb