5. Ultimate Alternative Wavers (1993)

The cover of Ultimate Alternative Wavers depicts Built To Spill in an awkward family photo, the kind of ironic gesture that would come to define the idea of indie rock for those on the outside looking in. It’s appropriate, then, that the music inside is a passable blueprint for a genre that was still narrow enough to be defined. Ultimate Alternative Wavers is not a watershed moment like Pavement’s Slanted And Enchanted, but it’s definitely a passable artifact for anybody seeking to understand the insular realm of indie rock circa 1993, a world of slipshod guitar songs sung by whimsical weirdos. The record is very much a product of its influences: slicing, post-Mascis guitar solos; Malkmus-style vocal tomfoolery (“La la la la la”); Sonic Youth-informed noise swashes; the childlike affectation of K Records, the label founded by Martsch’s Halo Benders bandmate Calvin Johnson. Sometimes it’s almost a caricature of an indie rock album; the underachieving “slacker” archetype gets his tribute on “Nowhere Nothin’ Fuckup,” while the shoddy songwriting and even shoddier production of “Revolution” is fodder for anyone arguing the case that bands signed to indie labels because they couldn’t cut it in the big leagues. Yet for all its flaws, Wavers never wavers in its vision. It presents a songwriter stepping into a distinct identity that would survive through many moods, collaborators and production styles.