Not to sound all “it used to be all fields round here, it was lovely” but if there’s one thing to be mourned about music in the digital age, it’s the loss of the B-side. As a 90s kid, the era of the maxi-single and two-disc single releases, you were constantly bombarded with brilliant B-sides. It's an artform without equivalent in the modern age – bonus tracks tagged onto the end of a record on streaming platforms doesn't cut it. Whereas they feel like some sort of shruggy, ‘added content’ after-thought, the best B-sides had something irrepressibly special about them. They were the perfect vehicle for artists in the midst of a purple patch to keep delivering, where some acts even produced work to match their main stream of output. You will never see a world-beating collection of Bonus Tracks in the way that the B-side has left us with a marvel of excellent B-side compilations. Here’s 10 top-grade B-sides albums that are up there with some of these bands’ best records…
