20 Indie Classics by Artists Under 20

Year: 1983

Stephen Patrick Morrissey was already entering his mid-twenties malaise when Johnny Marr approached him with a cassette demo of this early Smiths track. Morissey's histrionic self-deprecation was in full-swing by the time this cut stormed the UK pop charts, but Marr was a mere 19 years of age, something often overlooked in the history of this revered downer-pop monolith. Extra points go to the 7" version, which was closer to the simplicity and directness Marr's original vision, sans Harmonica solo. Even at a young age, Marr had that tasteful knack for catchy guitar parts, jangling away, free of the sticky, hairspray coated indulgences that marked the US charts at the time.

Year: 1984

To put it simply, there were a lot of kids in hardcore punk. Both at the time and in the intervening years, the genre has functioned as a magnet for adolescents as they make the (often disillusioning) trudge toward adulthood. Whether it’s the angst and anger, or frankly the simplicity of the genre, the kiddies have always glommed onto power chord heavy, vocally barked, sub-2 minute punk tracks. Minor Threat has to at least be partially to blame. Straightedge godhead Ian Mackaye was a mere 18 years old at the formation of Minor Threat, and "I Don't Wanna Hear It," drawn from their self-titled EP, channels all of his pent up energy into a minute and a half. It's not exactly the most elegant expression of adolescent frustration, but he's a punk, not a poet. Whether at 18 or 50, aggression suits him just fine.

Year: 1985

During Dinosaur Jr.'s 25th anniversary celebration of You're Living All Over Me at Terminal 5 in December, Lou Barlow and J Mascis performed "Trailing Ground" (accompanied by Dale Crover of The Melvins), a cut that dated back to their teenage days as two-thirds of the Western Massachusetts hardcore band Deep Wound. Mascis and Barlow were each in their mid-teens at the time, and when that band dissolved, rather than sit on their laurels, they decided to start a little band called Dinosaur. Prior to accusations of copyright infringement by a group of stoner rock, well, dinosaurs, the 18-year-old Lou Barlow and 19-year-old J Mascis dropped a self-titled album of twangy fuzz.

Though Dinosaur hadn't quite evolved into the band that they'd eventually become famous as (Barlow still sang on about half of the tracks), "Forget the Swan" still features Dinosaur at their best, playing out like a reunion-era Barlow-penned cut, reliant on heavy basslines and emotive lyricism. This was before Mascis got all megalomaniacal and cut Barlow out of the songwriting process, and it has the best bits of the melodramatic songwriting that Barlow would eventually channel into his Sebadoh project–not to mention some of the first recorded evidence of Mascis' trademark melodic guitar chops.

Year: 1989

Depending on who you ask, Slowdive's high water mark came in either 1993 or 1996, with the indelible, Brian Eno-aided churn of Souvlaki, or the patient ambient ooze of Pygmalion respectively. But the prototype for all Slowdive material to come was set as early as their 1989 debut EP. Slowdive first posited their swirly thesis on "Avalyn I", a grand haze of narcotized Isn't Anything guitars and breathy Cocteau Twins vocals courtesy of 19 year old co-vocalist/guitarist Rachel Goswell.

It's a formula they'd repeat ad infinitum over the three albums that followed, but even from the outset they established themselves as cautiously realized, emotive purveyors of a shoegaze sound that was on the verge of absolutely exploding. Goswell would beckon you again later in higher fidelity, but "Avalyn I" was a portentous moment, a sign of things to come, a soupy, monochromatic whorl that manages to best some of its quite obvious influences.

Year: 1989

With a couple of notable exceptions, Ride included, the first wave of shoegaze wasn't exactly a child's game. Kevin Shields was 25 when My Bloody Valentine unleashed their first fuzzy guitar blusters upon the world, and the proto-Shoegazing Reid brothers didn't put out the in-the-red stylings of the "Upside Down"/"Never Understand" 7" until they were 24 and 27 respectively. But swift on the heels of Isn't Anything, Creation Records snatched up a couple of bands trading in similar sonics, including Ride, a quartet of youngsters led by Andy Bell and Mark Gardener.

Their debut EP came out in 1990 when Bell was 20 and Gardener was 21. "Chelsea Girl," the leadoff track from that EP, sourced back to a demo from several years earlier, written and recorded while Bell and Gardener were still at art school. "Chelsea Girl’s" drive draws on the tweeness surrounding the UK underground of the time, but Ride subverts the whimsical jangle in favor of close harmonies and guitar pedal fireworks. It's not quite the gauzy salt bath that Slowdive would conjure, or the skin peeling fuzz that Jesus and Mary Chain put forth, but some strange middle ground - a middle ground that would prove fertile for the remainder of Ride's career.

Year: 1992

Julie Doiron would go onto further notability as a maker of plaintive folk songs under her own name, and in collaboration with Mount Eerie, but as an 18 year old she joined Canadian indie rockers (and Sonic Youth superfans) Eric's Trip. At the insistence of her then-boyfriend Rick White, she initially came into the band on guitar, before settling into her eventual roll as mistress of the fuzzy bass and delirious vocals.

White was in his very early 20s at the time, but at the release of Warm Girl, an early cassette from this seminal indie rock troupe, Doiron was still in her late teens. The EP as a whole hints at Eric's Trip's future fuzz rock genius, cribbing Mascis-ian guitar parts and charming lo-fi sonics, but "Warm Girl" is something special. After the count in, White and Doiron trade anesthetic vocals over a bedrock of narcoleptic punk guitars. It edges on the shoegazing that was going down across the pond, but between White's ripping outro solo and this first hint of Doiron's syrupy vocals, it represents a unique blend that Eric's Trip would continue to trade in for the rest of their storied career.

Year: 1992

The bong-ripping bleariness of Sleep's Holy Mountain has surely been beloved by legions of late teenagers since its 1992 release, but even by this, their third full length, the San Jose-based doom metallers had figured out a tact and tightness that belied their dorm room origins. On "Holy Mountain," bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros' caustic bark certainly doesn't sound the product of a gangly teenage body, though at the time of Sleep's Holy Mountain release he was barely pushing 19 years old. Bearing a lyrical maturity beyond what Cisneros had developed to date, the punishing riffs of "Holy Mountain" seem to exist entirely in space, removed from temporal considerations. Given Sleep's predilection towards a cannabis induced haze, that might have been what they meant all along.

Year: 1993

Even at his young age, Sunny Day Real Estate singer/guitarist Jeremy Enigk had some heavy musical clout. Sleater-Kinney and Wild Flag guitarist Carrie Brownstein picked up some of her early chops from lessons with Enigk, which would be enough for him to stop right there, but the then 19-year-old had more in mind. With the second wave emo inclinations of his band's 1994 debut Diary, he launched a renaissance of post-hardcore alt-rock bliss. The "In Circles" chorus sports Enigk's breaking vocals and a series of serpentine guitar riffs that explain that aforementioned instrumental clout. Though his was the band that spawned a legion of fey imitators, "In Circles" was a taut statement of tattered vocal chords and frayed emotional nerves.

Year: 1995-1997

Before Bright Eyes morphed into the institution of indie folk rock that it would eventually become, it functioned first and foremost as the creative dumping ground for a hyperactive teenager. In the years that led up to the recording of his clumsily titled debut compilation, Conor Oberst spent his early adolescence playing various roles in a series of Nebraska-based emo bands.

On this early Bright Eyes curio, recorded at some point between Oberst's 15th and 17th birthday, he utilizes cheap drum machines, synths, and the brittle fuzz of a bargain basement electric guitar to tie that post-hardcore background to the roots-y inclinations he'd later explore, ending somewhere in the realm of a long lost cassette demo for an early Wilco album. Oberst is notorious for his productivity. Even now, he's only 33 and has released something like 20 studio records across his various projects, but "Falling Out Of Love At This Volume" is probably the clearest and earliest distillation of his great emotive talent and a delightfully buzzy sonic departure from his work before and after.

Year: 1998

There's something about those kids from the Pacific Northwest. Those lush woods seem ripe ground for wise-beyond-their-years songwriters, and Phil Elverum of The Microphones and Mount Eerie is no exception. Though his sound would take a turn for the dramatic a short three years later on The Glow Part 2, Elverum's debut in proper on The Microphones’ Tests functioned as an apt preview of the weighty songwriting that would mark his masterworks to come. "Anacortes Has A Secret Love" was the first of Elverum's odes to the small Washington town of his birth, and in both the simple, evocative lyrics and the impeccably produced acoustic guitars, he established himself as a songwriter to be reckoned with–all before he hit 19 and added that second E to his name.

Year: 1999

Before his death in January 2010, Jimmy Lee Lindsey made a career out of blisteringly bratty punk music. He didn't launch his Matador-signed, critically-acclaimed solo era until he was 26 in 2006, but he'd already sparked a legion of musical projects. After impressing Oblivians member Eric Friedl at 15 with a home-recorded demo, Lindsey signed with Friedl's label Goner Records and just three years later put out his debut album as The Reatards.

The newly dubbed Jay Reatard paired up with bassist Steve Albundy and Elvis Wong for The Reatards first full length Teenage Hate. The title track outlined the M.O. that Lindsey would exploit for years to come. It's sloppy, southern-fried garage punk and Lindsey's timeless, snotty vocals keep the whole thing from veering into total collapse. It's such a shame that he'd be taken away only 12 years later.

Year: 2000

Though the band wouldn't ascend to the peak of their melted pop notability for nearly another decade, August of 2000 saw the first release of the Animal Collective canon proper. Issued by Dave Portner and Noah Lennox under their newly wrought pseudonyms Avey Tare and Panda Bear, the record is a scattershot piece of emphatic action painting, functioning as the bedrock for a career of tribal drumming and characteristic yelps. They'd yet to hit their stride as purveyors of the Animal Collective aesthetic, but Spirit They've Gone, Spirit They've Vanished and "Penny Dreadfuls" (penned when Tare was a mere 16 years of age), set up Animal Collective as the aesthetic force that they'd both pare down and beef up in the years to come.

"Penny Dreadfuls" coasts through its 8 minute runtime, allowing Tare to weave impressionistic lyrical fancy over Panda Bear's casual drum patter. It's a moment of uncharacteristic restraint–emphasis on feeling rather than honed and focused pop hooks–a labyrinthine piano ballad in a career of more emphatic electronic endeavors. They might've gone on to write more immediate pop songs, but Lennox and Tare are always at their best when they reach back to the sincerity that "Penny Dreadfuls" hints at.

Year: 2001

Adrian Orange, the songwriter behind the moniker Thanksgiving, famously began working the door at a Portland DIY venue called 17 Nautical Miles at the ripe age of 12. That musical upbringing translated into his first run of solo records as Thanksgiving within a few short years. 2001's We Could Be Each Other's Evidence saw it's release when Orange was 16, a fresh high school dropout ready to take his often-improvised singer-songwriter tunes on the road.

"Feel Like You" is Orange at his most personal, world-weary, and coherent. A simple electric guitar strum ties down Orange's mumbled ramblings before it builds to a Silver Jews-y climax of a chorus. Both because of his voice, which had already settled into a low rumble, and the sincerity Orange imbues into the lyrics, this track was one of many that settled Orange into a perceived agelessness. Though he's become something of a recluse, Orange is still discussed about as an indie rock wunderkind. Perhaps that's the curse for coming out of the gate so fully formed and mature.

Year: 2004

The Clavin sisters (Jessica and Jennifer) have made a bit of noise, both literal and metaphorical, as the core of the LA-based lo-fi beach-poppers Bleached. But their musical roots extend nearly 10 years to a garagey punk band called Mika Miko that they formed in their teens. As part of the mid 2000s punk scene that centered around a grunge-y, all ages club called the Smell, Mika Miko channeled metallic sheen that fit in with their contemporaries in No Age, Abe Vigoda, and Health, though their music was distinctly human in a way that blown out sonics very rarely convey.

"Forensic Scientist," culled from a self-titled 7" put out on the No Age-affiliated Post Present Medium label, shows Mika Miko in their earliest incarnation. Phlegmatic guitars and cheap keyboards compete for space with barely tonal shrieks, courtesy of the younger Clavin and fellow Mika Miko vocalist Jenna Thornhill. But after six years and the derailing of some member's post high school plans, the band dissolved in 2009, leaving the Clavins ready to move on to Bleached. It's going to take a lot for Bleached, however, or any of their other projects, to eclipse the overwhelming ecstatic joy that Mika Miko was able to conjure from rote punk formats.

Year: 2008

As a reluctant star at the forefront of the then-burgeoning London scene of neo-folk artists (including Mumford & Sons, Johnny Flynn, and Noah and the Whale, a band that she was once a part of), Laura Marling's age likely had little bearing on her studio material, though it wormed its way into her live performance. Marling fell victim to bouts of stage fright when she managed to make it there, but the *ahem* folk tale surrounding early Marling tours suggests that she once performed on the street outside the venue after she was kept from entrance into her own show due to age restrictions.

Though you can keep youngsters out of bars, fortunately you can't keep them from recording music. Marling saw her solo debut nominated for a Mercury Prize, and with tracks like "My Manic and I", it's no small wonder. It's easily digestible, sure, but Marling manages to avoid the fragile female folk song trope by turning the track into a confrontation. The arrangement is sparse, just an acoustic guitar waltz, but Marling's verbose lyricism packs an emotional wallop. Not bad for a kid who could barely bring herself to perform the same song on stage.

Year: 2010

When Brad Oberhofer unleashed his debut EP o0Oo0Oo in the summer of 2010, he was just a 19-year-old student enrolled at NYU. But on the back of tracks as catchy and immediate as "Away Frm U," he quickly turned this EP into a deal with NY indie institution Glassnote Records (home to Phoenix, Two Door Cinema Club, and Mumford & Sons).

Oberhofer's early tracks had a homespun sincerity that reflected their home-recorded nature. Even on his 2012 debut full-length, "Away Frm U" keeps its bleeding sonic heart, pressure-washing away some of the fuzzier bits, but still maintaining the ramshackle guitar blasts and glockenspiel innocence that lent pathos to his tale of romantic dependence. Oberhofer was just 21 when that album dropped, and it seems hard to believe that such an observant and mature sentiment was birthed when the author was just a sophomore in college.

Year: 2010

A continuing theme amongst these baby-faced purveyors of indie rock bliss has been their ability to convey distinctly youthful, but unmistakably relatable sentiments in the midst of their childhood ramblings. Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg manages just that on this number from his Sub Pop debut.

Even aside from the spiraling Nels Cline-tinted guitar solo that sends the song out (likely aided by his 12 hour days cutting class and practicing guitar), Zahner-Isenberg conveys a maturation atypical of most 18 year old songwriters. His idiosyncratic yelp lies somewhere on the spectrum between Lou Barlow's nasally moan and Andrew Van Wyngarden's bratty yowl, but his lyrics lie decidedly toward Barlow's oft-nostalgic emotion. As he opens with the title phrase it's evident that despite Zahner-Isenberg's adolescent howl, he has something important to say.

Year: 2010

Suburban Philadelphian Alex Giannascoli has only just recently broken the two-decade mark himself, but if his string of albums over the past several years is any indication, he possesses a melodic sensibility akin to the 20 years of indie rock before him. "Gnaw," drawn from Giannascoli's 2010 effort Race, marries a wandering nasally vocal take to a bed of acoustic guitars and Doug Martsch indebted leads. It teeters off the rails in the final minute, falling entirely out of sync before coalescing once again for a bouncing full band run through the chorus.

Giannascoli is still fully delving into the trappings of home-recordings - as recently as last year's Trick, he was still mimicking bass sounds on his guitar rather than splurging on a new instrument. The DIY culture of years past certainly broke down many of the barriers to youth music making its way out of the garage, but the strides that the Internet has made in this realm have been much greater. A kid can make an accomplished, thoughtful record in his room at 16 with nothing more than a computer and a couple of microphones and put it up on Bandcamp, not really assuming that anyone will hear it. Giannascoli's tunes are perhaps the best evidence for why this list might be a lot longer in 20 years time.

Year: 2010

The novelty of Archy Marshall's (then known as Zoo Kid) age was not lost on the Youtube commenters who made "Out Getting Ribs" one of the more sneakily popular indie rock songs of 2010, although it probably helped that his voice sounded like a product of tobacco and hard liquor from the off. Centered around Marshall's tortured croak (which bears the hallmarks of his South London upbringing) and his wiry, reverb laden guitar lines, and paired with a similarly sparse clip of Marshall lip synching the song in front of a white background, "Out Getting Ribs" was pure sincerity pouring from the lips of an unexpected source.

He's still exploiting the same sort of raspy melodies under his King Krule moniker, but his material in the intervening years has certainly echoed the gravity he conjured with his first utterings of that overwrought opening line. It's unmistakably the work of a 16-year-old's pen, but universally relatable in a way that songwriters double his age struggle to mimic.

Year: 2011

The Copenhagen-born art punks of Iceage made a lot of noise this year with the release of their sophomore album You're Nothing, with a lot of the discourse around that record centered on the formerly nihilist punks catching feelings. But even before the music critics caught on to Elias Bender Rønnenfelt's impressionistic lyricism, Iceage released a much buzzed about collection of blackened post-punk on New Age, before the large majority of the band had hit their 20th birthday.

Featuring Rønnenfelt's largely unintelligible lyrics and an uncharacteristically melodic vocal take, "Broken Bone" takes a two and a half minute tear through Wire-tinged punk conventions. On You're Nothing, Iceage beefed up their sound with that Matador Records money, but "Broken Bone" exists as a testament to the powers of a young songwriter transcending genre trappings in the midst of a technically talented band steeped in those same conventions.