THE CURE - LOVESONG (1989)

The Cure’s eighth album Disintegration marked a return to goth territory following their mid-80s pop crossover, but it also includes one of Robert Smith’s most tender and earnest songs. Smith wrote Lovesong as a wedding gift for his then-fiancée Mary Poole, setting a bar no groom-to-be has met since. Over gliding keyboards and a propulsive bass riff, he sings about their enduring love as if he’s gazing longingly out the tour bus window. In 1989, Lovesong reached No.2 in the US charts. This year, Smith and Poole celebrated 38 years of marriage.

MI AMI - HARD UP (2011)

A kaleidoscopic floor-filler crafted by shrieking art rockers who’d barely set foot in a proper club. With their 2011 EP Dolphins, San Francisco band Mi Ami made the jump from dubby-post punk to outsider club music, ditching their guitars for a cheap keyboard, a drum machine and a sampler which apparently ran on floppy disks. The band’s vocalist Daniel Martin-McCormick later legitimised his dance music career under the name Ital, dismissing Mi Ami’s musical transition as “an attempt to make some kinda disco and that failed.” But 15 years later, Hard Up sounds like an underloved classic.

BLOODY SHIELD - SKEV3 (2026)

Growing up in Fife on the east coast of Scotland, Bloody Shield would hang out amongst the rugged beauty of the nearby cliffsides. Maybe those profound sea views influenced the epic mood which occasionally emerges from the underground rapper’s new album Year of the Horse. On SkeV3, the 23-year-old spits like he’s trying to outrun the beat, merging grime’s ferocity with rage rap scuzz and the kind of angelic sonics popularised by Drain Gang.

HELEN SUN - SHINY KINDNESS (2025)

If you’re a sucker for satisfyingly melancholic dreampop, you should probably be listening to Helen Sun. On Shiny Kindness, the London-via-Massachusetts songwriter pairs punchy breakbeats with a guitar riff which sounds like it was recorded under water. Behind all the reverb you’ll find caustic lyrics about romantic resentment and dissociation.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE - (WHEN YOU WAKE) YOU'RE STILL IN A DREAM (1988)

The general consensus is that MBV’s second album Loveless is their masterpiece, the moment the Irish band finally established the platonic form of shoegaze hiss. The Irish band’s debut album Isn’t Anything feels closer to the slacker punk experiments of plaid-shirted Americans like Sonic Youth and Husker Du - but it’s arguably just as great. On (When You Wake)... Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher sound almost shy singing amongst explosive sounds coming from their amplifiers. And therein lies the reason MBV are so eternally cool.