kleph
14-02-2006, 02:18 PM
This album is proof that "pop" is not a four letter word; that rock and roll can save your soul and that Lou Reed was right when he said the best thing in the world was the sound of two guitars, one bass and one drummer.
It's really hard to imagine a more perfect album than this one-shot produced by The La's in the early 1990s. It has everything one could ask out of a record - exquisitely crafted songs, thoughtful musicianship, and a heaping helping of charisma to top it all off. Throw in a dose of jangly guitars and there isn't much more I can ask of the world.
Sure, the cover of "There She Goes" has become an "adult rock" staple but this is one of the few times that's OK simply because it's that fucking good. I've got a soft spot in my heart for records that have that subtle ability to sneak up on you and this is the most extreme example I know of.
I actually didn't buy it originally way back in the halcyon days of 1990. I instead it was a gift from a girl who was not-quite a girlfriend. I played it once or twice and moved on, leaving the jewel case to gather dust and the girl as nothing more than entry in an old list of addresses I kept in a box in the garage.
I took a road trip to Louisiana and this was one of three CDs I had so I stuck it on from Mansfield to Alexandria . By the end of that trip I was a La's addict. There is not a single song I hadn't fallen in love with at some point in time and the whole album had become a part of my life.
There is the striving rock sensibility of "I can't Sleep," the chattery business in "I.O.U," and the catastrophic whirlwind of sound that overtakes "Looking Glass" and brings the album to its astonishing conclusion. It left you hungry for more.
But instead of reveling in new releases that built on the promise of this gem there was. . . nothing. Nada. Ziltch. (Well, that wasn't until the digital re-release in 2001 that had three glorious new tracks.)
The obsessive perfectionism of leadman Lee Mavers eventually caused the band to implode and this record to be left as the singular testament to its glory - but that's a hell of a lot more than what 99.999 percent of the music industry can boast.
It like what Joey "the Lips" Fagan says at the end of the movie The Commitments after the beautiful promise of the band has disintegrated around them: "this way," he says. "Its poetry."
And it surely is.
It's really hard to imagine a more perfect album than this one-shot produced by The La's in the early 1990s. It has everything one could ask out of a record - exquisitely crafted songs, thoughtful musicianship, and a heaping helping of charisma to top it all off. Throw in a dose of jangly guitars and there isn't much more I can ask of the world.
Sure, the cover of "There She Goes" has become an "adult rock" staple but this is one of the few times that's OK simply because it's that fucking good. I've got a soft spot in my heart for records that have that subtle ability to sneak up on you and this is the most extreme example I know of.
I actually didn't buy it originally way back in the halcyon days of 1990. I instead it was a gift from a girl who was not-quite a girlfriend. I played it once or twice and moved on, leaving the jewel case to gather dust and the girl as nothing more than entry in an old list of addresses I kept in a box in the garage.
I took a road trip to Louisiana and this was one of three CDs I had so I stuck it on from Mansfield to Alexandria . By the end of that trip I was a La's addict. There is not a single song I hadn't fallen in love with at some point in time and the whole album had become a part of my life.
There is the striving rock sensibility of "I can't Sleep," the chattery business in "I.O.U," and the catastrophic whirlwind of sound that overtakes "Looking Glass" and brings the album to its astonishing conclusion. It left you hungry for more.
But instead of reveling in new releases that built on the promise of this gem there was. . . nothing. Nada. Ziltch. (Well, that wasn't until the digital re-release in 2001 that had three glorious new tracks.)
The obsessive perfectionism of leadman Lee Mavers eventually caused the band to implode and this record to be left as the singular testament to its glory - but that's a hell of a lot more than what 99.999 percent of the music industry can boast.
It like what Joey "the Lips" Fagan says at the end of the movie The Commitments after the beautiful promise of the band has disintegrated around them: "this way," he says. "Its poetry."
And it surely is.