C86 (album)

C86 (album)

C86 is a cassette compilation released by the British music magazine NME in 1986, featuring new bands licensed from British independent record labels of the time. As a term, C86 quickly evolved into shorthand for a guitar-based musical genre characterized by jangling guitars and melodic power pop song structures, although other musical styles were represented on the tape. In its time, it became a pejorative term for its associations with so-called "shambling" (a John Peel-coined description celebrating the self-conscious primitive approach of some of the music) and underachievement. The C86 scene is now recognized as a pivotal moment for independent music in the UK, as is recognized in the subtitle of the compilation's 2006 extended reissue: CD86: 48 Tracks from the Birth of Indie Pop.

The C86 name was a play on the labelling and length of blank compact cassettes - commonly C60, C90 and C120 - combined with 1986.