The Phantoms & the Archetypes is the debut studio album by Scottish band Paul Quinn and the Independent Group, released by Postcard Records in 1992.

Once resolved, Quinn returned to the music scene by forming the Independent Group and recording the album The Phantoms & the Archetypes, with Edwyn Collins as producer.

"[1] Upon its release, John Mulvey of NME described The Phantoms & the Archetypes as "the album Quinn always threatened to make" and continued, "[It's] a cool, moody collection of torch and twanging, of songs that aren't quite the classics they brazenly aspire to be, and with an acute understanding of soul that puts the final nail in the coffin of all the style charlatans and arch-wankers like Hue and Cry.

Reviewer Damien Love praised Quinn as "one of the most extraordinary singers out of Scotland" and noted that, on this "film noir of a record", his voice "wander[s] through dark shadows of soul, pop and country on ballads like 'Punk Rock Hotel' and exquisitely desolate covers including the Carpenters' 'Superstar'".

[5] Love, writing in a 2003 issue of Uncut, had also called the album "a haunted masterpiece where bone-weary echoes of soul, pop and country comforted each other as Quinn's voice described regret".