“Velocity Girl” by Primal Scream

"Velocity Girl" first slipped out in 1986 as the B-side to "Crystal Crescent", Primal Scream's second single on Creation Records, and it lasts barely longer than it takes to fall for it. Bobby Gillespie wrote it with Jim Beattie and the band produced it themselves, cut shortly after Gillespie quit drumming for the Jesus and Mary Chain earlier that year, having played on their 1985 album Psychocandy.

It's jangle pop boiled down to a sugar rush, with the Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick among its inspirations. The band recorded a longer take with a second verse for Janice Long that July, and the NME made it the opening track of its C86 cassette, a roundup of indie bands on British independent labels. Pitchfork later credited it with shrinking the pop song to its tiniest, most perfect form, and indie pop has echoed it ever since.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.