Sebadoh
The godfathers of lo-fi pop rock. This trio, founded by ex-post-Dinosaur Jr. Lou Barlow, Eric Gaffney and jason Lowenstein, are an unavoidable musical entity. EVERY single person out there who enjoys music in the least bit owes it to him or herself to own at least one album by this band. I used to own pretty much everything they had released back in the nineties, but lost everything when came time to move to Sweden in 1999. I've promised myself to eventually get them back, but this hasn't gone quite as quickly as I had hoped. And seeing as each album is getting a deluxe re-issue, I decided to wait and get these instead of buying everything in one go (as I tend to do).
So what is so special about Sebadoh? The Dead C had already explored the whole lo-fi noise sound, but whereas The Dead C was practically exclusively noise rock, with only a semblance of structure, Sebadoh took this sound and applied it to a folk-pop-rock structure. The results sound like nothing else before them. The deeply honest and fragile nature of the music and lyrics are hidden behind a hostile surface. Like an angry cat, you want might want to think twice before approaching it if you don't want your eyes clawed out. Not since Sonic Youth has a band managed to convey the whole teen angst mentality through song. Some interesting comparisons could be drawn between the two (but I don't feel like writing a thesis right now - so I'll let the experts take care of it). It's no wonder this band became so popular at the time. Listening to them again today, I can assure you that Sebadoh were the sound of the alternative nineties, more so than Sonic Youth, more so than Jane's Addiction, more so than The Pixies and yes, even more so than Nirvana. They could hop from cheerful folkish tunes to uneasy bursts of rage from one song to the next, from one second to the next.
I'm not sure if anyone new to Sebadoh today could possibly hear them the same way I do. It's one of those cases where "you had to be there" to truly appreciate the feeling. But for those of you who were there, I'm quite certain this band holds as much weight in your hearts as they do for me. Unfortunately, I did lose contact with the band around the late nineties, when the quality of their work did drop a bit. They were starting to drop the lo-fi aesthetic which is impossible to disassociate from them. A sacrilege! Haven't heard much from them since the turn of the millennium, but then fully, they've left a powerful body of work behind them to confirm their legacy in the alternative music scene.
The Freed ManLabel: Domino Records Release: 1989 Format: CD Cat. no: DNO152 |
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