10 Catchiest Indie Rock Songs

Football shirts. Bucket hats. Belligerent festival behaviour. Certain brands of fruity cider. All of these come to mind when one dares to utter the word ‘Courteeners’, especially when it’s not in reference to Ford’s car of phonetically identical name. However, if you disregard all of the connotations that go with the name, you’ll come to one conclusion – Liam Fray knows his way around an earworm. Case in point, ‘Not Nineteen Forever’.

This ham-fisted tussle with growing up draws your attention from the off with a few block chords on a vintage organ. Just as you’re lulled into a false sense of security, you get blindsided, socked in the jaw by a flurry of rapid-fire snare drum strokes, sounding not unlike a machine gun. This gives way to a sequence of chords hammered with fervour seldom seen by the eyes of the world, backed by the classic ‘boots-and-cats’ pattern on the drums. The melodic direction of those chords is hard to ignore, and it leaves this hook easy to sing and bounce along to, as many a British festival crowd has done. In addition, Fray’s penchant for the more predictable rhymes (forever/together, strange/change, etc.) leads a chorus melody just begging to be screamed at the top of one’s lungs. So don’t feel bad about listening to the Courteeners. Just make sure you make that verbal disclaimer before you admit it.