Scott Plagenhoef is the managing editor at Pitchforkmedia.com.

The Flatmates– Heaven Knows, [Love and Death]

One of the most pleasant surprises to land in the Pitchfork mailbox in recent weeks was a career-spanning compilation from C-86′ers the Flatmates. In part, the Love and Death comp was so welcome because despite making a lengthy search for the band’s final two singles, I’d not listened to them in years. The other surprise is that some of the songs hold up so well, none more than their final Subway Organization A-side “Heaven Knows”. It’s crisp and jangly indie pop, but the track is more girl group than pale boys—and it’s self-deprecating where forerunners like the Shangri-La’s and Ronnettes were bruised and melodramatic. “Don’t say if when you mean when” they insisted on the b-side.

[visit The Flatmates website here, buy Love and Death here]

The Razorcuts– I’ll Still Be There, [R is for Razorcuts]

Another member of the “anorak brigade”, and one of the better lost pop singles of its era. Yeah, yeah, so it’s guitar pop rather than the “why isn’t Girls Aloud/M.I.A./Annie/Rachel Stevens/etc.” in the U.S. charts, but it’s pop nonetheless, a celebration of small moments and simple gestures, expressing oneself through action and experience rather than words, and embracing life with your heart and letting your intellect sort out it later—and what’s more pop than that?

[visit an unofficial Razorcuts website here, buy R is for Razorcuts here]

Blueboy– Clearer, [Clearer 12”]

Except for the stray Field Mice single, I was a Sarah-Come-Lately, engaging with that label near the end of its lifetime. So by the time my head was cocked, Blueboy was one of Sarah’s key bands. But this is their first single, so for me this wistful little track is the sound of nostalgia for unremembered times. Unlike the jangle indie pop above, this is a slice of the bedsit kind; about midway through, however, the track seems to leave the should-be comforts of home in search of human contact—only to have its sense of loneliness echoed and magnified.

[visit an unofficial Blueboy website here, buy Blueboy material here]