From 1987 to 1995, Bristol, England's Sarah Records was a modest underground suc
cess and, for the most part, a critical laughingstock in its native country-snee
ringly dismissed as the sad, final repository for a fringe style of music (vario
usly referred to as "indie-pop," "C86," "cutie" and "twee") whose moment had pas
sed. Yet now, more than 20 years after its founders symbolically "destroyed" it,
Sarah is among the most passionately fetishized record labels of all time. Its
rare releases command hundreds of dollars, devotees around the world hungrily se
ek out any information they can find about its poorly documented history, and yo
ung musicians-some of them not yet born when Sarah shut down-claim its bands (su
ch as Blueboy, the Field Mice, Heavenly, and the Wake) as major influences.
