premature mini-reviews of three albums I should have bought in the 90s but actually only bought this past Saturday
Last weekend I stopped at Rasputin and picked up, among other things, three albums from the 90s that I probably should have had already. Two of them would probably be called “seminal” by most critics. In my mini-reviews I’m going to try to ignore all that though.
- Loveless (buy at insound) The sound on this record is amazing. It’s so distinctive. (Undoubtedly many people wonder what Kevin Shields uses.) A few years ago I called the distortion on “Sometimes” “perfect” and I stand by that. Another classic sound is the guitar hook on “I Only Said.” I like the album, but I’m not sure it’ll be a frequent listen, simply because it’d be hard to do much else while listening to this.
(Yes, it’s purchase was influenced in part by this.) - the Three E.P.s (buy at insound) This is really enjoyable proto-drone pop. I’d put them as peers with some of Stereolab’s stuff and musical parents of bands like American Analog Set and Pinback. This is more a collection of songs than an album. It’s an enjoyable one at that, but I haven’t been listening all the way through—it sort of drags on a bit after a while, so I’ll leave and come back to it.
(Yes, it’s purchase was influenced in part by this.) - Perfect from Now On (buy insound) I already had the albums on either side of this one, their first major label album. This one seems to be trying to toe the line between pop and experimentation, sometimes to good effect. I know the general option is that There’s Nothing Wrong with Love is the album to get, but I’d actually start with Keep it Like a Secret. This is a good third BtS album.
(Yes, it’s purchase was influenced in part by this.)
Yup. There it is.
