Search - Yo La Tengo :: Painful

Painful
Yo La Tengo
Painful
Genres: Alternative Rock, Pop, Rock
 
  •  Track Listings (11) - Disc #1

The long-running Hoboken, New Jersey, trio's favorite devices are neatly evidenced on this 1993 disc: barbed guitar freakouts by Ira Kaplan, breathily exquisite Georgia Hubley vocals ("Nowhere Near"), an obscure but excel...  more »

     

CD Details

All Artists: Yo La Tengo
Title: Painful
Members Wishing: 1
Total Copies: 0
Label: Atlantic / Wea
Original Release Date: 1/1/1993
Re-Release Date: 10/5/1993
Genres: Alternative Rock, Pop, Rock
Styles: Indie & Lo-Fi, American Alternative
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 075679229823

Synopsis

Amazon.com essential recording
The long-running Hoboken, New Jersey, trio's favorite devices are neatly evidenced on this 1993 disc: barbed guitar freakouts by Ira Kaplan, breathily exquisite Georgia Hubley vocals ("Nowhere Near"), an obscure but excellent cover choice (the Only Ones' "The Whole Of The Law"), and a love for sonic texture that's backed up by first-rate songwriting. Subtle at its loudest and vital at its most subdued, Painful is built around a series of hovering, dreamy bass and organ drones matched by the singers' purr, but propelled by Hubley's insistent rhythms and Kaplan's prickly guitar leads. --Douglas Wolk

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CD Reviews

Yo La Tengo's Second Best
Brian | California | 05/31/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)

"Painful is actually a quietly brooding melodrama. Despite it's dreamy sound, Yo La Tengo's music is anything but apathetic or detached: it is drenched in reverb that sounds like pathos, distortion that sounds like anger, vocal harmonies that sound like love. In essence, Yo La Tengo found the perfect formula to paint love songs and heartbrake songs behind impressionistic soundscapes that only the skillful instrumentation of the band members could convey. Painful is probably the first complete Yo La Tengo album in this vein, and surely the first great Yo La Tengo album. The eclecticism is present - but not jarring - the compositions piece together like a ride on gently, swelling waves.

I must admit, almost everything you see in "Painful" can be found to an ever greater measure on "I Can Hear the Heart Beating As one". This later album, made in 1997, is Yo La Tengo's masterpiece. And while it doesn't radically shift the aesthetic established on "Painful", it is entirely essential - while Painful is by no means made obsolete.



To complete the YLT experience, also buy "I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One" and "And Then Nothing turned Itself Inside Out"



Rating: 9.3/10"