C or D : Yo La Tengo

ooh this is classic ylt, how long has it been since they've sounded like that?

Riot was my fav YLT album in 15+ years but I am also ready for them to get loud again, bring it on

Aaaah, that hits the spot.

Tix on sale today. Glad to be seeing them again finally.

And another new song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J9fV29AuOQ

It's great, of course.

new album is very good

Lately I've been listening to We Have Amnesia Sometimes and I like it a lot more than I expected. It feels like hanging out in their practice space while they zone out. Very satisfying.

They Shoot, We Score has been in regular rotation in the minivan as I drive around Savannah. It has some nice variations of Green Arrow.

Yeah both are great! Zoned out experiments are great indeed.

it's not like they ever really fell off that much but the new one is maybe their best since and then nothing turned itself inside out?

If there's an unfair criticism of the band to be made, it's that they have been firmly in the "best album since ..." cycle for what feels like several albums now.

it's true though!

idk i wouldn't really say that about any of the others from the past decade? we have amnesia sometimes was all drones, quite the stylistic diversion. there's a riot going on was just 'yet another decent ylt album' with a focus on ambience. stuff like that there was a very inessential covers album. fade was pretty solid and comes the closest to that but only really represented a step above popular songs (which is one of their weaker albums).

this one's also stylistically the closest to their 90s peak since then

xpost And yet, while I enjoy each of their new albums, I really never go back to them. Again, it's unfair, and not the band's fault for being consistent, just not often anything that really jumps out at me. Certainly nothing as much as " ... And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out" did. For example, I'm listening to "There's a Riot Going On," prompted by this thread, and it's lovely. But if someone told me this *was* the new album, I would have totally believed them.

this one's also stylistically the closest to their 90s peak since then

Then I'm psyched!

Fade rules, I Am Not Afraid Of You rules, There's a Riot rules, wtf u jaded cynics

"this band keeps being good, it's so boring"

tbh Stuff Like That There is top 5 for me...a superfan :D

i am not afraid of you is quite good! but after a few listens i think i like the new one more

"this band keeps being good, it's so boring"

lol it's not that any of it is bad or sub par or even boring, it's just that there never seems to be anything drawing me back. Maybe that's really a "me" problem...

I felt pretty much the same way; thought for a few years I’d had my fill of Yo La Tengo albums, but these 2 new songs have piqued my interest again — they’re pretty much exactly what I want from them.

Summer Sun is extremely underrated

Which sort of underscores my point, as I honestly haven't listened to it since it came out; at the time, following "And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out," it felt something like a disappointment. So is it underrated? Maybe! At this stage I'd call half their catalog underrated (to me, at least), because scanning the album titles there's not a single one I recall disliking, but also not a single one that pops out as something I specifically return to. It's like the last half dozen albums have been one really long compilation.

I've been having my own moment with them as a listener these past few months. I loved them in the late '90s as a teen and have always given what they release a listen but hadn't really spent real time with their records for a while...then I grabbed some cheap copies of Stuff Like That There and I Am Not Afraid Of You... and now I'm all the way back in. SLTT is a good example of something I thought I wouldn't need (probably dismissed it unfairly when it came out as "just" quiet covers or something)--it's actually wonderful. And gentle, sure, but still demonstrating their range and taste to superb effect. Sleepless Nights is similar and achieves that weird feeling of like...this is minor work from them in the long run but I still am stunned it's so successful.

I'm someone who thinks Fade is a top 5 album of theirs so I don't feel like their best days are long behind them. (I know that album is now a decade old-wow.) But I'm really excited for this new one.

I wish I saved a screenshot of this, but around 2006, there was this bootleg forum I frequented where people traded CD-R's of various shows, and one day, this post comes up where a user calls out another user for sending him a threat with a package of bootlegs he sent him. It's a long, angry post, but also a little vague on the details, and the user it's addressed to actually responds with some bewilderment. Turns out, what sparked the angry post was something like a ribbon or poster promoting Yo La Tengo's upcoming album, but it's designed to look like someone scrawled on a piece of paper "I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass." The other guy had included it as a surprise gift.

It was a hilarious misunderstanding, and searching for it now, I found the item in question.

amazing

haha that's classic

I love that record title so much because YLT has to be a contender for the least threatening band in all of indie rock's history.

Agree. And yet, you put that record on without any context and it drops right into the intensity of Pass the Hatchet, it totally feels like it fits the title

Good point, it was around that album when I last saw them live, killer shows (god, it's been so long! glad I'll see them in March).

I think it’s actually quite a feat that YLT have remained so consistently good without ever turning that quality into a knock against them. Yes some albums are better than others but personally, aside from the ones that caught me at just the right personal moments of my life, I don’t even have any desire to rank them. Just let ‘em play and may keep playing for a long long time

Yeah, to be honest that is a different but good way of looking at it. I have a couple of favorite records that also happen to be a couple of my favorite records, period. Do I think any of the many others hold up to those? No, not really. But from the band's formative works to their most recent stuff, I know I can always just throw on any random yo la tango album and enjoy it.

I've sat down multiple times over the past few years to try to rank the YLT albums and it's damn near impossible for me, the level of consistent quality is so great that I end up just frustrated by not being able to rank like nine of them in my top 5.

Grade 4/5 class working on some art as we listen to Fade. The best.

Fade is such a great album, particularly with the second disc on the deluxe version.

I really need to catch up on the last few albums since Fade.

I think they're overrated. Its like they're always playing that safe 60' pop melodies through an alt ock filter. Its like pavement post s&e.

"I want to see you put your hands together.
I want to cross my heart
I want to hope to die
I hear Kate Moss talk, she talks to me
She's looking for a new beginning everyday."

Embarrasing lyrics

You can boil down literally any band to an unfair oversimplification, and then fans will counter with tons of examples that don't adhere to it. What do we accomplish in the end?

I think they're overrated. Its like they're always playing that safe 60' pop melodies through an alt ock filter. Its like pavement post s&e.

Even if one were to grant this as absolutely true, this would only be one of the many threads they wind through their albums. They have a lot more going on than that.

I don't understand what "safe" has to do with a melody.

xps In this case even the song cited as having embarrassing lyrics is a counterexample to the reason given for thinking they're overrated!

Just because I've been listening to a lot of I Am Not Afraid of You..., don't hear any "safe 60' pop melodies" on, say, "Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind".

I'd suggest to accept "no lo tengo" and move on

I don't understand what "safe" has to do with a melody.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, January 26, 2023 9:48 AM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Melodies should only be composed by cats running across pianos all other melodies are safe spaces for snowflakes

I've heard both of those things on WFMU in one day

In the same song, I'm willing to bet.

On paper an Ira Kaplan guitar solo may appear composed by frightened piano cats, and if the rest of the song is a safe 60s pop melody then we're checking all the boxes. No wonder they're WFMU's darlings

In other news, I just saw this yesterday, really lovely, apologies if posted already

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcxiSRg41-M

I miss them being a neighbor in town. I currently live on the same street they were on for all those years.