Album Recommendations | mari@macintosh.garden
Artist: Sebadoh
Albums are graded on a five-point scale of "Awful-Eh-Good-Great-Classic". I'm highly biased, so don't take it too seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.
Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable. Read the review.
Harmacy (1996)
Did this really need to be nineteen tracks long?
Well, I can say this much: you know a Sebadoh song when you hear one. Part of the reason the band and especially Bakesale follow-up Harmacy has always been neglected in the indie rock canon is their tendency towards long-winded self-satisfying experimentation. Let's put it in plain terms: Harmacy's gravest sin is repeating itself. There'a a fine-to-great ten song bipolar indie rock record in the frustrating stew of its nineteen tracks. Lou Barlow brings some of his prettiest ballads, and Jason Loewenstein is always good for a weirdly-tuned thrash or a minor key mope. Even drummer Bob Fay's strange, perky instrumental contribution "Sforzando!" is a nice touch. The good in Harmacy is absolutely in there; it's just muddled in Sebadoh not knowing when to call it a day.
On the bright side, "On Fire" is perhaps the quintessential Sebadoh song, Lou's acoustic answer to hardcore's self-lacerating tendencies, and "Willing to Wait" is gorgeously soppy like only he's capable of. Jason provides a downer sequel to the optimistic new love of Bakesale's "Got It" with the loping "Nothing Like You", and his peppering the tracklist with the angular rage of songs like "Mind Reader" and "Zone Doubt" keeps the mood from getting too sedate. It's when Lou turns in "On Fire Part Two" with the even more self-absorbed "Too Pure" or when 55 entire seconds are devoted to thrash trash on "Love to Fight" that you start to consider Sebadoh their own worst, grossest enemies. Take Lou at his word on "Perfect Way": "Ankle deep in your personal concern/Love it or leave it, it's all the same".
| Essential: | Quintessential: | Non-Essential: | Rating: |
|---|---|---|---|
| "On Fire", "Nothing Like You", "Zone Doubt" | "Prince-S" | "Too Pure" | Good |
Bakesale (1994)
Love, anxiety, and drugs in a blender.
Lou Barlow was never a very happy man. Early Sebadoh records have been defined in the indie rock canon by his very public hatred of former bandmate J Mascis (amusing, seeing as J ran the boards for the Breeders' cover of Sebadoh's grandest fuck you, "The Freed Pig"), while just about everything else the band has done sounds like one lo-fi "it's not you, it's me" speech after another. Surprise, then, that 1994's Bakesale almost sounds okay with you getting close to it; I've heard plenty of messy breakup albums, but messy currently-in-a-relationship albums less so. A welcome change.
Having finally boiled down the twists and turns of Bubble and Scrape into an catchy and consistent mix of chime-stroke-grind guitars, angular bass parts, Lou's sighs and Jason Loewenstein's cries, only five tracks on Bakesale reach the three minute mark. Some would give the album to Barlow (given the nervy "Magnet's Coil" or the Weezer-y "Together or Alone", they'd be justified), but I find Loewenstein the more interesting of the songwriters here, bringing to mind some of Sunny Day Real Estate's better moments on emo-tinged cuts like "Got It" or "Dramamine". In fact, it's on his "Careful" that he about sums up the entire record: "I just want to do right by you/Sitting safe beside the truth/Beside you".
| Essential: | Quintessential: | Non-Essential: | Rating: |
|---|---|---|---|
| "License to Confuse", "Got It", "Dramamine" | "Skull" | "Temptation Tide" | Great |