Inspiral Carpets are an indie rock band from Oldham in Greater Manchester, England formed by Graham Lambert and Stephen Holt in 1986. The band is named after a clothing shop on their Oldham estate. Their sound is based around psychedelic keyboards and guitars.

Schoolfriends Lambert and Holt recruited drummer Craig Gill, and after various other members had come and gone, they were joined by bassist David Swift and organist Clint Boon (whose Ashton-under-Lyne studio the band had been using for rehearsals).

They came to prominence, alongside bands like Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, in the 'Madchester' scene of the late 1980s. After a flexi-disc featuring Garage Full Of Flowers given free with Manchester's Debris magazine in 1987, their first release proper, the 1988 "Planecrash" EP on the Playtime label received much airplay from Radio 1 DJ John Peel, who asked the band to record a session for his show.

As their popularity grew, Playtime's distributor Red Rhino Records went bust, leading the band to form their own label, Cow Records in 1989. In the same year, Holt and Swift departed to form The Rainkings, with the band recruiting Too Much Texas singer Tom Hingley and Martin Walsh of The Next Step to replace them.

After a handful of singles on their own label, the last of which, Move, came close to the UK top 40, they signed a deal with Mute Records, and immediately had their first chart success in the UK with "This Is How It Feels", which is a song about unemployment and touches on themes of domestic violence. The single reached #14 in the singles chart, and debut album "Life" reached #2 in the album chart, both in 1990.

The following year's "The Beast Inside" was less well-received by critics,[2] but still achieved a top 5 album chart placing. Despite waning interest in the 'Madchester' scene, Inspiral Carpets enjoyed chart success for the next four years, before being dropped by Mute in late 1994, with the band splitting in 1995.

They re-formed with in 2001, releasing a new single "Come Back Tomorrow" (recorded in 1995), a couple of sold-out tours and a number of new compilation records, most notably the "Cool As" box set. They have toured sporadically since, reuniting yet again in 2007 to tour in support of an iTunes only compilation of their b-sides and rarities. They have already announced dates for 2008 and have announced that their own Cow Records label is to be revived.

At the time of their initial success, the band earned some notoriety for their squiggly-eyed cow 'Cool as Fuck' T-shirts; a student at Oxford Polytechnic was prosecuted on obscenity charges for wearing one. They reworked their single "Find Out Why" as the theme tune to the 8:15 from Manchester.