Diminished Men

Poster Children, “0 For 1”

There was a decent sized indie rock scene in Champaign-Urbana in the late 80s/early 90s, with Hum, the excellent and forgotten Steakdaddy Six, Honcho Overload, and the Poster Children all emerging to varying levels of success. Of that group, the Poster Children had the most success at the time, signing to Sire and producing a string of well-received albums. Hum is probably the one with the best enduring reputation (especially given a comeback), but the Poster Children still hold up today as well-executed indie rock.

Some titans of the rock underground today! I really like this set a lot. Shame it didn’t go one more song, Einstürzende Neubauten popped up next with “Vanadium-I-Ching”, which would have been a fun addition to the list. Oh well, can’t go changing the rules any time I like!

Pixies, “Alec Eiffel”

Here, we’re getting a track from the last pre-breakup Pixies album, Trompe Le Monde. At the time, I was pretty disappointed in Bossanova, for whatever reason, but really liked this one. At this remove, it’s not clear what my beef was with Bossanova and it’s pretty similar to Trompe. While both records are off from the peak of their first records, they’re still both excellent and well worth having.