Teenage Fan Club: Bandwagonesque (DGC)

AS A BRIT who spends a lot of time in the U.S., I could hardly fail to notice the scathing scepticism of American hipsters when it comes to my country's rock exports. According to the fanzine-led, Anglo phobic consensus, British bands are either videogenic art-school clothes horses, or conceptually overdetermined, stillborn music press offspring. Joe Carducci's Rock and the Pop Narcotic is the Mein Kampf of this nativist sensibility; the Archie Bunker-esque vituperation of his "there's not a goddamn thing going on in the rhythm section!" could be the clarion call for all of those who'd like to drive haircut nonrock from these shores.