Welcome to Dissected, where we disassemble a band’s catalogue in the abstract. It’s exact science by way of a few beers.
On April 30, 1982, Lester Bangs overdosed and died, and took the ‘70s with him. The next day, in Hoboken, New Jersey, an obscure music writer named Ira Kaplan and a former child voiceover actress named Georgia Hubley performed together before an audience for the first time. Eventually, the pair became a band. They adopted a name after the Spanish phrase for “I have it.” Mets fans might recognize as the phrase outfielder Richie Ashburn learned to yell so as not to collide with teammate Elio Chacon when they chased a fly ball: “Yo La Tengo.”
Could Kaplan and Hubley have known that very night, on the first day of May, a new musical paradigm was percolating? That a major shift was under way? Would they have cared? In the ‘70s, rock bands often approached music as Miniature Machiavelli’s usurping each other one power chord at a time. This tradition would inspire the hedonistic styles of ‘80s and ‘90s metal bands; the backlash of the chord brandishing, is where indie rock began.
Basically every one of the above details, as with most other things Yo La Tengo would come to be known for, contradicted everything everyone assumed stood for the Great American Rock Band. Yo La Tengo had no solitary identity. They dressed like carpenters and espoused healthy lifestyles. Their song titles smirked at society and their music could move tectonic plates, or it could lull an earthquake depending on their mood. Maybe they were just a little bit selfish.
Next week, the band will release their 13th formal LP, Fade. We’re celebrating these unlikely veterans by over-indulging the other 12 with our latest Dissected feature. We hope that you enjoy it, and listen along to our Essential Yo La Tengo mix on Rdio below.
[Ed. I would be remiss not to mention Yo La Tengo's live show, for which a yearly Dissected could be published. Just take a listen to the band's Hanukkah shows over at NYCTaper for a start.]
Photo by Carlie Armstrong
Ride the Tiger (1986)
Tracks, Total Length, Average: 11, 37:16, 3:23
Best “sprawl”: “The Pain of Pain”
Best “small”: “Living in the Country”
Hardest chair yank-out: The exaggerated drawl on “The Way Some People Die”, a country cut six tracks into an album that sounds nothing like country up to that point.
Number of bassists Yo La Tengo had already gone through by this point: Five
Number of songs tacked onto the CD reissue: Four
Hubley’s voice: Nowhere to be found.
How Kaplan and Hubley celebrated their debut LP shortly afterwards: Getting married.
New Wave Hot Dogs (1987)
Tracks, Total Length, Average: 12, 34:35, 2:53
Best “sprawl”: “The Asparagus Song” (included only at the end of a later release combining New Wave Hot Dogs, President Yo La Tengo, and the “Asparagus” single; otherwise, there’s not really any.)
Best “small”: “Lost in Bessemer”
Hardest chair yank-out: Ending on “The Story of Jazz” even though the track before it, “No Water”, is totally the closer.
Producer: Yo La Tengo
Other formal LPs the band would produce entirely by themselves: None.
An ‘80’s Hoboken hot dog truck called “New Wave Hot Dogs”: Not fake.
Moustache on the cover art: Too perfect not to be fake, probably.
President Yo La Tengo (1989)
Tracks, Total Length, Average: 7, 31:16, 4:28
Best “sprawl”: “The Evil That Men Do – Pablo’s Version”
Best “small”: “The Evil That Men Do – Craig’s Version”
Hardest chair yank-out: Following up 15 minutes of well-composed and well-rehearsed songs with a ten-minute, overtly improvised, and ear-splittingly noisy jam (“Pablo”) that claims to be an alternate version of the second track but definitely isn’t.
Kaplan’s voice on the Bob Dylan cover “I Threw it All Away”: Almost a whisper, but still better than Dylan’s.
Kaplan’s voice at the end of “Orange Song”: Immediate post-castration shriek.
First Yo La Tengo song featuring Hubley’s voice out in front unaccompanied, even if it’s just a few moments of “Ahhh”: “Alyda”
Yo La Tengo for president?: Yo La Tengo for president.
Fakebook (1990)
Tracks, Total Length, Average: 16, 39:30, 2:28
Best “sprawl”: Not on this one.
Best “small”: All of them.
Hardest chair yank-out: The transition between the sleepy opener, the YLT original “Can’t Forget”, and the square-danceable cover of The Holy Modal Rounders’ “Griselda”.
Percentage of tracks that are cover songs: 68.75%
Percentage of tracks originally intended to be cover songs: 100%
First Yo La Tengo song where Hubley legitimately sings lead: “What Comes Next”
Best original song on the album: “Barnaby, Hardly Working”
Best cover on the album: Daniel Johnston’s “Speeding Motorcycle”
Best song covered on the album: John Cale’s “Andalucia”
A Fakebook sequel called Fuckbook recorded under the pseudonym Condo Fucks 19 years later?: Why not.
May I Sing with Me (1992)
Tracks, Total Length, Average: 11, 53:03, 4:49
Best “sprawl”: “Five-Cornered Drone (Crispy Duck)”
Best “small”: “Satellite”
Hardest chair yank-out: More of a chair yank-out in reverse, but definitely the transition between their blitzkrieg head-banger “Out the Window” and the aptly titled “Sleeping Pill”.
Number of bassists who had played in Yo La Tengo prior to this album: Who knows.
Number of bassists who would play in Yo La Tengo on and after this album: One
Number of cover songs: Zero, their first formal LP without any.
Origin of the album title: Something a fan who spoke poor English asked Phil Morrison, a friend of the band tagging along on tour, in a Japan karaoke bar a few years prior.
Origin of the song title “Mushroom Cloud of Hiss”: A phrase that Kaplan, then also a freelance copy editor, came across while editing that was supposed to read “the mushroom cloud of his [redacted]”.
Painful (1993)
Tracks, Total Length, Average: 11, 48:36, 4:25
Best “sprawl”: Instrumental closer “I Heard You Looking”, also probably the best sprawl of their career.
Best “small”: “A Worrying Thing”, although they went for a predominantly ginormous sound on Painful.
Hardest chair yank-out: None (?!) Painful, the band’s first release on Matador Records, has the undeniable sound of a “now or never” record, and it’s pretty much the only one where they don’t spare a second for goofiness.
Hello: Organ.
Song title most likely to have been their mantra while writing the album: “Big Day Coming”
Song title most likely to have been any Yo La Tengo fan’s mantra while trying to achieve anything ambitious: “Big Day Coming”
Title of their recent biography: “Big Day Coming”
Only Yo La Tengo song to have two separate versions on a formal LP not called President Yo La Tengo: “Big Day Coming”
Both versions really necessary here?: …There’s the door, buddy.
Electr-O-Pura (1995)
Tracks, Total Length, Average: 14, 58:23 (contrary to what’s listed on the CD case), 4:10
Best “sprawl”: “Blue Line Swinger”
Best “small”: “The Hour Grows Late”
Hardest chair yank-out: Deliberately listing incorrect runtimes for every song on the CD case.
Alright, now they’re just trolling: Including alternate titles for every song on the CD case, each chosen arbitrarily out of a book about The Blues Project.
May or may not be a deliberate rip off of Sonic Youth’s “Theresa’s Sound World” from their 1992 classic Dirty: “Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1)”
But it’s cool: They’re longtime friends.
Guitar solo on “Pablo and Andrea”: Yessir.
I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One (1997)
Tracks, Total Length, Average: 16, 68:10, 4:16
Best “sprawl”: “Spec Bebop” is its longest by far at 10:41, but this goes to the song that follows, the penultimate track “We’re an American Band” (not a cover of the Grand Funk Railroad song), which explodes into a glorious extended guitar coda over an overexposed McNew bass line after a subdued first half. Combined, they’re 18 minutes of grade-A YLT.
Best “small”: “Stockholm Syndrome”, an obvious nomination for the best of the band’s few McNew-led cuts.
Hardest chair yank-out: The transition between their pretty good heavy-hearted hit “Autumn Sweater” and their sunshiny cover of The Beach Boys’ “Little Honda”.
A few publications that included it on their “Best Albums of the 1990s” list: Rolling Stone (86), Spin (78), and Pitchfork (25).
Why: Because it is.
Extremely funny: The music video for “Sugarcube”.
“Is it so hard to be / free and easy? / We’ll disappear completely / hardly as alone as glad” (“Stockholm Syndrome”): Perfect.
And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out (2000)
Tracks, Total Length, Average: 13, 77:15, 5:57 (4:58 if you exclude the 17:42 closing track “Night Falls on Hoboken”)
Best “sprawl”: “Hoboken” is a brilliant sprawl in a minimalist sense, but it’s gotta be runaway album highlight “Cherry Chapstick”, the only cut that begs speakers be turned all the way up and arguably the most infectious of their career.
Best “small”: “Madeline” beats out an especially wide field of contenders.
Hardest chair yank-out: The gorgeously soft and atmospheric fourth track. The one with the mostly inaudible lyrics sung angelically by Hubley that actually narrate a hilarious fictitious story about Frankie Valli burning down Tony Orlando’s house in a fit of rage, called “Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House,” after a fake telethon “you may remember” the character Troy McClure of “The Simpsons” from.
Best album title of their catalogue: This.
Best album title of all time: This.
Jazz legend whose lyrics the album title is actually lifted from: Sun Ra.
The cover art as it relates to the album’s general sound: Spot-friggin-on.
Summer Sun (2003)
Tracks, Total Length, Average: 13, 59:43, 4:36
Best “sprawl”: There’s not really any here, much to the disappointment of some fans and critics, inciting no shortage of “setting sun” non-quips.
Best “small”: “Little Eyes”
Hardest chair yank-out: Naming a song “How to Make a Baby Elephant Float” on quite possibly their most serious and pensive LP.
Upbeat songs from the writing session they ultimately decided to scrap: All of them.
What they’re wearing on the cover art: Winter coats.
What they thought they’d be wearing on the cover art, but discovered they weren’t upon the album’s release: Bathing suits.
The cover art’s ranking amongst all others from their catalogue: Dead last.
I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass (2006)
Tracks, Total Length, Average: 15, 77:41, 5:11
Best “sprawl”: 10:47 opener “Pass the Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind”, a hands-down essential.
Best “small”: Second track “Beanbag Chair”, the transition into which sets the tone for this excellent, expansive, White Album-esque spark of late-career inspiration, a toolbox-spanning collection of songs devoid of aesthetic cohesion but individually rich in perfectionism, including this bouncy pop gem.
Hardest chair yank-out: The transition between the slow-mo “I Feel Like Going Home”, which ends with those exact loner-tastic words, and the slaphappy “Mr. Tough”, beginning, “Hey Mr. Tough, don’t you think we’ve suffered enough? / Why don’t you meet me on the dance floor when it’s Tiny Tom time?”
Is the title another reference to a quote from a star New York athlete?: Probably.
“The Story of Yo La Tango”: Just another 10-minute-plus epic to close an LP.
The Story of “Yo La Tango”: One of many misspellings and mispronunciations the band has endured on show bills, especially early in their career, along with “Wo La Tengo”, “Yo Le Tengo”, “Ya Lo Tango”, and, courtesy of Conan O’Brien introducing them for their network television debut, “Yo Lo Tengo”.
YOLO joke?: I’m all set, thanks.
Popular Songs (2009)
Tracks, Total Length, Average: 12, 72:49, 6:04
Best “sprawl”: Closer “And the Glitter Is Gone” (re: “The Glitter”; read: “Any Remaining Doubt These Now-50-Somethings Could Pull Off Another Colossal 15-minute Guitar Triumph”).
Best “small”: “Avalon or Someone Very Similar” is lovely, but take your pick here.
Hardest chair yank-out: Sequencing the album by starting with nine tracks of reasonable length, then closing with three running 9:39, 11:25, and 15:54.
Violins: All over “Here to Fall” and “If It’s True”, first time they’ve featured them.
Violins: So good.
Artists that they actually let remix “Here to Fall” for a 2010 EP: De La Soul, Pete Rock, and RJD2.
Song blatantly named after its preferred listening setting: “The Fireside” and also probably “When it’s Dark”.
True to its title?: Yep – it’s their highest charting LP by eight positions over “Not Afraid”.
