Right, fuck it, if a Midget album can be nominated a "classic" then so can this. "And The Rest Is History" means an awful lot to an awfully small amount of people. Released in 1997 it came about as a result of the teenage drinking den club known as Dynamite. Dynamite made being a musically inept teenager in a band cool again after the traditionalism movement of Britpop insisted on everyone who even picked up a guitar to have a working knowledge of The Beatles, The Kinks, and (god help us) Paul Weller. Dynamite shut down at the end of 97 and became the somewhat less sexy Rampage, which then eventually mutated in Melody Maker’s favourite - PornSt*r.

The remarkable thing about "..History" is just how many then unsigned acts on it went on to get big record deals. What’s even more remarkable is that without exception they all lost their respective labels a shitload of cash. The tracklisting reads like one big taxloss statement. Dweeb, Midget, Kenickie, The Pin Ups, Bellatrix, Symposium, Tampasm…Nevermind the never-quite-made-its, Disco Pistol, The Period Pains, and Pink Kross.

This album is awesome in it’s simple two finger salute to adulthood and traditional teen angst. It’s also gloriously tongue in cheek in many places. The Period Pains, all 14 at the time, presented their ode to being the little rich girl in "Daddy, I Want A Pony". The Pin Ups declared that they really really really wanted to kiss a (then non-dead) Princess Diana. Xerox Girls completed the cd with "Keep Your Mouth Shut", a fantastically nasty rant against a best friend going goth with a bridge that went,

"you turned up at the party, without your 501s, and in their place, you wore a black leather miniskirt, you thought you looked like and industrial goth, well fuck off, fuck off back to the Slimelight, with your stupid ugly lanky streak of piss boyfriend, you poxy little cunt…".

Maybe it was just a London thing. Or a fanzine thing. Or a London fanzine thing for that matter. Whatever, it’s a cd that defined you if you were in that crowd. And no matter how many "Snakebite City" or "Abuse Your Friends" compilation cds come out it will always be the definitive soundtrack for teen punk.