3. Liz Phair: Fuck And Run

Although this wasn't the single from Phair's debut and best album, Exile In Guyville, it is the one that turned the most heads, and now stands as the embematic cut. While the title is an attention grabber, suggesting an in-your-face-independence, in fact it and most of the album conveys a lonely, abandoned feel; Phair is a vulnerable tough girl, and is frank about it in her lyrics. She sings in an offhand voice, while the song has a muted, fuzzy jangle to it. Phair had a performing style that was essentially that of the classic singer/songwriter; a style she fused with an underground pop aesthetic. The album barely nudged the charts at #196; her subsequent albums would all chart in the top-40, making her one of the best selling lo-fi artists.

4. Guided By Voices: Gold Star For Robot Boy

Guided By Voices are in the running for lowest-fi band of them all, particularly on their 1986-1994 output. "Gold Star For Robot Boy" is a key cut from their breakthough, Bee Thousand, released in 1994. Tinny and trebly, with considerable tape hiss, the song is an intricate piece of British-flavored uptempo pop/rock. Led by former schoolteacher Robert Pollard, with an ever-changing lineup, the band was essentially a hobby; all of the band's early albums came out on local Cleveland labels and were not distributed widely. The band didn't tour in earnest until 1994 when they appeared at some Lollapalooza dates. At times amateur sounding, and at times restlessly ambitious, Guided By Voices epitomized D.I.Y. and lo-fi aesthetic. After this, they started drifting towards a clearer better defined sound, until they had evolved into something else altogether. They announced their final dissolution in 2004.

5. Elliott Smith: Speed Trials

Like Liz Phair, Elliott Smith was a singer/songwriter with a punkish D.I.Y. lo-fi approach to recording. After several years in obscurity, he was rocketed to fame with "Miss Misery", which appeared in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting. "Speed Trials" is the leadoff cut from his third album, Either/Or, on which he played all the instruments and came up with a collection of smart, catchy, intelligent pop tunes, cut on lo-fi 4-track equipment. Ethereal, odd, creepy, and obsessive, the album is almost a 90's version of Brian Wilson's earlier obsessions. Sadly, Smith commited suicide in 2003.

6. Sebadoh: On Fire

Formed by Dinosaur Jr. bassist Lou Barlow as a side-project in the late 1980's, before developing a life of its own when Barlow was kicked out of the former band in 1989, Sebadoh ranged far and wide afield for influences; jangle-pop to experimental noise-pop representing the opposing ends of the spectrum they worked in. The lineup changed many times, but Barlow doggedly stuck at it, recording at home on a four-track. He also worked on other projects and sidelines, including the low-fi Folk Implosion, which scored a fluke hit with the semi-trip-hop gem "Natural One" in 1995. "On Fire" is from Harmacy, and sports a great twangy rock 'n' roll guitar bed altered with an atmospheric echo. While this recording is cleaner than their earlier stuff, the songwriting is more inventive here, making Harmacy a good example of progressive lo-fi.