Yo La Tengo
Popular Songs

4.0
excellent

Review

by thebhoy USER (96 Reviews)
September 4th, 2009 | 23 replies

Release Date: 2009 | Tracklist

Indie stalwarts Yo La Tengo have been creating a plethora of albums since the late 80's and early 90's. While the trio of Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew have always leant towards altering their sound slightly in recent albums, the band has generally stayed within the parameters of shoegaze, dream-pop and indie rock. Perhaps the most significant aspect of the band is their consistency, as they continuously turn record after record of great material. Some of these, such as And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out or I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One are masterpieces, others fall a little shorter; but none of them are bad. On Popular Songs, the band’s umpteenth album, the listener is treated to another solid set of songs. And the title seems apt, especially in the front half of the album, which trades in the noise and fuzzed out experimentations, in favour of a collection of accessible slices of indie-pop glory. More than anything, this is Yo La Tengo on cruise control and as it turns out, that ain’t a bad thing at all.

From the get go, “Here to Fall” sets the tone that is continued throughout the majority of Popular Songs. The brooding psychedelic keyboards and lush string orchestration goes down smooth and shows of the cohesiveness of the band itself. Overall, that sentiment will be the biggest summarization of the album. It showcases a trio of musicians that have been together for so long that making good music seems effortless. From the dreamy-ambient pulse of “By Two’s” to the country tinged ballad, “When It’s Dark”, the majority of the records tracks just seem to click in place so easily. Like a good classic Hollywood film, the general easiness and accessibility of the music sutures the audience into its world. Even diametrically opposed songs like the slow-burn waltz of “I’m On My Way” and the fuzzy indie-rock anthem of “Nothing to Hide” don’t feel out of place being on the same album.

The fault in the album comes in its last three tracks; well last two tracks at least. The three pieces all seem like ideas for epic album finales that the band couldn’t choose between– so they put all of them in. The first of these 9+ minute tunes, is perhaps the best and most fitting of the album closers. “More Stars Than Are In Heaven” is a pretty ambient drift through wispy vocals, a steadily strummed distorted guitar and a heck of a lot of atmosphere. As the drums and clean guitars slowly rise out of the mix the song feels like it is bringing the album to a lovely end. But alas we continue onto the 11 minute instrumental, “The Fireside” which is little more then an acoustic guitar and some ambient backing. If cut down to have its length, the piece could’ve worked perfectly fine as a sort of epilogue, but dragged out to over ten minutes is unnecessary especially given the economical approach to the rest of the album. Even more out of place is the final, 16 minute noise jam, “And the Glitter Is Gone”. While the title is compliments of the music, the rough jam session doesn’t make sense at the end of the otherwise tightly knit album. Not necessarily bad on its own merit, it just simply doesn’t work on here.

Hiccoughs aside, Popular Songs marks the reason why Yo La Tengo have built such a large following in the indie community and elsewhere. They’re good at what they do, and allow enough experimentation to their core sound to be consistently interesting without the tedious attempts at “reinventing their sound”. Because the band don’t really need to do anything to change their sound at all. If the music continues to be vibrant and enjoyable, then why tinker with the formula? As they say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

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