The Dentists

Although the Dentists were arguably the first Brit-pop band, they never were able to capitalize when the style they'd perfected over the course of a decade suddenly became the Next Big Thing around 1994. Their signature sound, a combination of Mick Murphy's veddy British voice and Bob Collins' hyperactively jangly guitar, has been duplicated many times over, but it's never quite been equaled. The Dentists formed in their native Medway, a small town in rural Kent, in 1983; the original lineup comprised Murphy, Collins, bassist Mark Matthews, and drummer Ian Smith. Their first single, "Strawberries Are Growing in My Garden (And It's Wintertime)," was released on the tiny indie Spruck Records in 1985. A neo-freakbeat masterpiece that sounds like it could have been recorded in 1967, "Strawberries" remained the Dentists' best-known and most beloved song for the rest of their career. That early peak was quickly followed by the album Some People Are on the Pitch, They Think It's All Over But It's Not (title taken from the snippet of an overexcited football announcer that opens the album) and the six-song EP You and Your Bloody Oranges, which have no overlapping tracks. The album titles, matched with songs like "One of Our Psychedelic Beakers is Missing" and "Where's My Chicken, You Bastard," made the group out to be a bunch of paisley-clad goofballs in some reviewers' eyes, a mistaken first impression that never entirely went away. Smith left the group in early 1986, replaced by the equally anonymously named Alun Jones. In contrast to their exceptionally busy first year of recordings, the quartet only managed two EPs in 1986 and 1987, Down and Out in Paris and Chatham and Writhing on the Shagpile. In 1988, the Belgian label Antler released a CD compiling the best parts of all...