The 49 Americans - E Pluribus Unum (1980)

  

Today we have a wonderful little LP courtesy of the prolific David Toop along with, presumably, 48 others bright individuals. Coy, catchy pop with a marked intellectual slant. Think amateurism meets academia; progressive twee if you will. The first half of the album is composed of a dozen lovely vignettes while the latter half is, well, a pop-opera about a dragon terrorizing some faraway kingdom. If that doesn't convince you to give this album a shot nothing will.

We should be more ideal ideally
Oh yes we should of course should
We should be ideal ideally
So we wouldn't have to pretend

Various Artists - Corrupt Postman (1988)

 
Never before or since has twee amateur hour (and a half) been so brilliant. Here we have a criminally obscure compilation on a criminally obscure label of some criminally obscure musicians and the Field Mice. Charming, coy, catchy, congruous, cathartic, clarion, cataclysmic, and much more, I would strongly advise against passing this gem up.

It's clearly blurred

The 6ths - Wasps' Nest (1995)

Before he decided to abandon synthesizers, before he decided to spend an entire album trying to be the Jesus and Mary Chain, and before everyone fell in love with "69 Love Songs", Stephen Merritt was just content to write charming and witty synth-based pop songs. While the Magnetic Field's first five albums (from 1991's "Distant Plastic Trees" to 1995's "Get Lost") are almost unparalleled in terms 90's Indie Pop, Merritt was extremely prolific, not only working with the Magnetic Fields, but also with Future Bible Heroes, the Gothic Archies, and this project - the 6ths. While most of the Field's albums post-"The Wayward Bus" featured just Stephen singing, up until 1999's "69 Love Songs", the 6ths takes a markedly different turn, with Stephen still handling all the lyricism and songwriting, but recruiting some veritable indie greats to handle the singing - Mary Timony of Helium, Lou Barlow of Dinosaur Jr, Georgia Hubley of Yo La Tengo, and probably my favorite feature, Amelia Fletcher of Talulah Gosh and Heavenly!