C or D : Yo La Tengo

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.

Lovely 1959 melody there

I hadn't noticed valued poster CerebralCaustic's other great contributions today or else I wouldn't have bothered to feed the troll.

cerebral and caustic!

anyhooooo — good podcast w/ McNew over here! https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2023/01/25/transmissions-james-mcnew-yo-la-tengo-dump/

Who was Goodkind again? All this time I thought they were band but Google doesn't turn up anything definitive?

I assumed it was for fantasy writer Terry Goodkind, but I'm not sure.

Presumably also a nod to the Black Randy album title "Pass the dust, I think I'm Bowie."

or perhaps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgy4A7O6rQE

^^ yeah that was my take on it

YLT are kind of like GBV now where you probably can't doubt the quality of their output, it's going to sound very much like you expect it to, there are a lot of albums, they are all good, and you can be forgiven for getting slightly bored with them.

I saw YLT for the first time in 25 years a few months back and they were so great, still. But now I feel like I could go another 5 years before seeing them again.

I remembered Tom Goodkind's name popping up in New York Rocker back in the day. I still don't understand the song title.

Tom Goodkind, a longtime fixture on the New York City music scene, best known as the co-founder of The Washington Squares folk revival group, died Feb. 28, 2019, in the city after a long battle with a chronic degenerative illness. He was 65.

In recent years, Goodkind served as the conductor of the Lower Manhattan-based all-volunteer group TriBattery Pops, described as something of a contemporary spin on the traditional marching band. Earlier in his career Goodkind was instrumental in creating and/or managing such popular New York music venues as Irving Plaza, the Peppermint Lounge and Roseland.

Yeah that New York Rocker connection certainly makes more sense than my Terry Goodkind reading.

I realized I haven't seen them since Pitchfork 2006, so I'm really excited to see them again in March.

idk ylt definitely have more stylistic variety than gbv

i'm buying that? no la tengo

Love the idea of a seven plus minute album opener from these guys, but since my preorder shipped I’m gonna save it for the first spin.

i'm buying that? no la tengo

― CerebralCaustic, Thursday, January 26, 2023 4:17 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

They’ll have the last laugh in 2-5 years, when they title an LP that

It’s like the YLT version of “Schmilco”

I started to listen to the new song but when I realized the new album is coming out Friday I stopped, so I could just take the whole thing in at once. I liked what I heard though!

Well I listened to the whole track and NO SPOILERS or anything but it's good. This album might be exactly what I'm in the mood for this year.

I’ve heard the promo of the full thing, it’s the most Classic YLT album in forever

Well I listened to the whole track and NO SPOILERS or anything but it's good.

Lol I can’t wait to hear how the song ends

I’ve heard the promo of the full thing, it’s the most Classic YLT album in forever

best YLT album since Fade (which is somehow already a decade old) and the most YLT album since I Am Not Afraid of You, at least. it's a good one.

I don't think YLT have released anything less than a very good record since James joined, at least, but hearing those two particular records cited really makes me excited for this one.

Can't wait to listen to this.

starting to think crazy things like 'the new album is better than i can hear the heart beating as one'

I can hear that heart beating as one a weird album as the years go by. A fantastic collection of songs, but it doesn't have that cohesive "great album" feel that "and then nothingess" or "electr-o-pura" has. Maybe sum this up to me inadvertently listening to it 10-times through in alphabetical order rather than its canonical track listing (when I first learnt not to pirate music). Some amazing highs in "the heart beating" (maybe the best high's they ever hit? re: we're an american band), but a few slogs in the middle section which are instant-skips.

Loving this new one so far.

Also co-sign stuff like that there being one of their best. The originals on that album are some of the best they've ever done and the covers replace the normal "yeah it's good but not great" tracks with some very fun blasts from the past.

yeah i can hear the heart has a lot of their very best material but the sprawl doesn't really work in its favour, so that's the caveat

is "Brain Capers" a Mott cover?

this is excellent! i thought 'there's a riot going on' was pretty boring so i'm glad this is hitting me the right way

I’ve never liked YLT but I figured I’d give the new one a fair shot given the hype…the verse of Sinatra Drive Breakdown sounds like another song and it’s been driving me nuts…I got a brief flash of Vitalogy in my head just now and I think it’s the verse of Not For You

the first track is more explicitly VU-indebted than I've heard from'em in years: the unchanging beat, the feedback peel at 4:35, they remind me of "Sister Ray."

I had "Sinatra Drive Breakdown" on in the car yesterday, and my son — unfamiliar with YLT — said offhandedly, "Sounds like they listen to a lot of krautrock." Proud parenting moment.

aw

Your son OTM

It's going to be hard to patient for this one with all the glowing reviews. Turns out my shipping notice was just the label being printed and it hasn't been shipped yet. :/

Seeing them in a week and a half, and it will be the first time ever I'm actually seeing them headline on their own (the show with Robyn Hitchcock pre-pandemic doing Black Snake Diamond Role was top notch but again, a Robyn H show). But keep in mind the last time before that was them opening for MBV...in 1992. (The subsequent music crit uber-worship of them over here for the rest of that decade often had a sense of 'we have an AMERICAN band doing REAL underground music the right way unlike all those shoegaze trendoids here or there' as I sensed it and it honestly put me off the band even casually until the mid-late 2000s, so while I may have some baggage, weirdly it actually means I'm coming in fairly fresh.)

Hard for me to say this is better than any particular album… nor could I say it’s worse. There’s nothing shockingly different—it’s YLT! But the quality level is, as usual, high. (It’s YLT!)

Lol

I feel you

I've only seen them once, on the And Then Nothing ... tour, and thought they were great. After hearing the pre-release tracks from this, I checked the tour schedule and grabbed a ticket to see them next month in Asheville, should be fun.

And Ned, thanks for sharing that early media perspective on YLT, which I (for one) hadn’t been aware of.

That's my impression too. There's a Riot Going On was no drop-off either.

xxxpost