lux

But look, I don't think the Pixies would have less to say than the Dinosauri today (assuming both are now essentially ghost bands), as I've said before, if all the band members don't agree on releasing new material, it doesn't get released. In fact, Kim, thinking that the new material would overshadow the old or believing that the name Pixies couldn’t be carried into today, stopped everything. Because there was new material, as far as I understood. Then, Beyond might have been conceptually more studied than Farm, but it sounds like an indie rock band should sound while it declines (and the members age): aware of its limits, devoted to a more mature and less reckless pop rock but with a style that’s still recognizable. Farm, on the other hand, seems to me to even mimic You're Living, with overpowering guitar volume trying desperately for the effect of adolescent ontological chaos, and it sounds like a parody of themselves. If I want certain emotions, I just go back to You're Living. From this point of view, it almost seems like they want to present themselves to those who don’t know them with Farm, rather than with Beyond.

Indeed, I think it is universally regarded as the least successful of their entire career :-)

If we make it a matter of innovation, Yo La Tengo wouldn't exactly rank among the top names of the '90s... In my view, what matters is a matter of attitude, so of how, not what. Summer Sun is the most complete crystallization of their sound, thus the flattest as I remember it. Perhaps you're referring to The Sounds Of The Sounds Of Science as a more ambitious but ultimately less successful experiment? As a sound, I still find May I Sing With Me even more accomplished than the nonetheless excellent, but different, I Can Hear.

Yo La Tengo... fantastic

Yo La Tengo have discovered the elixir of eternal life, because Ira Kaplan is streetwise, knows how to play, and above all knows how not to play in a certain way... and there are some original tracks in Popular Songs, it’s not a scandal of an album :-) I admit that I consider the Dinosaur Jr. boys overcooked (if I were to stop at Farm), already Beyond was a 3 for me (it was still the same old tune, but it seemed more sincere compared to that of Farm). Not that the guys are dishonest, when I talk about sincerity I’m only referring to how a certain album sounds.

Even Painful is really beautiful.

I wouldn’t know what might be in poor taste for you, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out isn’t even my favorite to tell you, this is an album packed with pop tracks (the title is quite clear), cleaned of excessive psychedelic expansions (apart from the three long final pieces). @ Franci: in my vocabulary, “citationist” is a negative term, Yo La Tengo reinterprets with such an essential style, homogeneous yet full of references, that it probably seems like the perfect rock attitude for some. It’s no surprise that Ira Kaplan was previously a music critic, and you can feel it. @ Psychopatha: try I can hear the heart beating as one and May I Sing with Me.

Paper Paper

Fantastic

"There are millions of people who literally think the Velvet Underground suck (and I’m not one of them, let me repeat that). Are they all idiots, ignorant and incompetent when it comes to music?" The fields of human knowledge are countless... one should not get stuck solely on rock.