C86

C86
Compilation album by various artists
Released	May 1986
Recorded	1985/86
Genre	Indie pop, post-punk, indie rock, jangle pop, alternative rock
Label	Rough Trade, NME
Compiler	Neil Taylor, Adrian Thrills, Roy Carr
Various artists chronology
Pogo A Go Go! (1986) C86 (1986) Holiday Romance (1986)

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.^[1] As a term, C86 quickly evolved into shorthand for a guitar-based music 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^[2]) and underachievement. The C86 scene is now recognized as a pivotal moment for independent music in the UK,^[3] as was recognized in the subtitle of the compilation's 2006 CD issue: CD86: 48 Tracks from the Birth of Indie Pop. 2014 saw the original compilation reissued in a 3CD expanded edition from Cherry Red Records;^[4] the 2014 box-set came with an 11,500-word book of sleevenotes by one of the tape's original curators, former NME journalist Neil Taylor.

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