Yo La Tengo are legends. You should know this. Plus they got their name from a great baseball story, so that elevates them even higher in the canon. But after 1997's masterpiece, “I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One,” they seemed to be resting on their laurels. “And Then Nothing Turned Itself Out” came out three years later and just seemed sleepy. It’s aged remarkably well, but at the time I was massively disappointed. The only song I really liked was the vocal rhythmic exercise “You Can Have It All” (which is especially entertaining live with choreographed dancing from James McNew and Ira Kaplan). Three years later, “Summer Sun” came out and seemed to be a statement that they were just pretty much done. The title and overall mood suggested sunset, and my mind immediately made the jump to “twilight of their careers.” I only listened to it once or twice and nothing grabbed me. People have told me since that it’s worth revisiting, but I’ve never felt compelled to, because...
In 2006, word came that they were coming back with a new full-length, ingeniously and unexpectedly titled “I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass” -- especially amusing coming from the soft-spoken trio. Sure, they have moments of guitar violence and freakouts, but even these seem somehow restrained and proper compared to, say, Sonic Youth or Trail of Dead. So off I went to the record store, and suffice to say, I was floored. It’s my favorite record of theirs start-to-finish, showing off their incredible range even more than “Heart” and displaying a mastery of elegant walls of noise as much as pop concision. And it has a whole lot of horns. A whole lot of horns can be a scary proposition, but not in the hands of these pros.
I’ve been on a “listen the whole record” kick lately (we have to let shuffle go for a while so we can begin to appreciate shuffle when we let it back in) so after I got through “Odd Blood” by Yeasayer, I scrolled down and saw good ol’ YLT sitting there, neglected and aching for a listen. I don’t think I’d ever listened to it on headphones, either, so the time seemed nigh. I love every song on there, but this time “Black Flowers” really stood out. I’d never noticed the chimerical vibraphone (or keyboard?) hovering in the background behind the delicate, R.E.M.-y piano chords, but they grabbed my attention this time and I felt like I was listening to the song in a bright white tunnel. It’s a James McNew tune, pretty and poppy, and the horns absolutely make it. There's even a tuba playing a part that's downright peppy; it’ll glue itself to your brain and you won’t mind at all. I whistled and smiled all the way through doing the dishes with the tuba melody popping through the ol’ mindgrapes, and I hate doing the dishes.
I could go on about the effortless vocal melody resolving to an instantly memorable "laaa-la-la la-la", about the harmonies that soar in on the bridge, about the celebratory horn blasts that come in just as the song's fading out, but at this point I'd rather just listen to it again. Mild-mannered Yo La Tengo, blowing minds since '84. The best song this week is “Black Flowers”, off "I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass" (I just wanted to type that again). It’s been way too long since I’ve seen them play.
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