It was in the last box I looked in. I reached in and there was the treasure I sought: a cassette tape, battered and scratched, but its gold cover nonetheless shining through the murk of the attic. The cassette – called C86 – was one of three dozen compiled by NME during the 1980s, sold to eager readers in exchange for a £2.95 postal order to cover post and packing. It was money well spent. Several of the bands included on C86 would subsequently gallop forward in their careers – the likes of Primal Scream, the Soup Dragons, the Wedding Present and Half Man Half Biscuit.
But, by including tracks by shorter-lived lesser lights such as Miaow, the Servants and the Mackenzies, it became a reliable barometer reading of the bands in NME’s orbit in the spring of 1986. These groups laid the foundations for later outfits such as the Stone Roses, Oasis and Arctic Monkeys who took indie “overground”, swapping upstairs rooms in pubs for headline slots at the biggest festivals.
