From The Daily Gamecock
Hoboken, N.J.-based Yo La Tengo is a difficult band to categorize.
With 12 studio albums, four compilation albums and one film score under its belt, the group is difficult, if not arduous, for new listeners to enjoy. Each successive album appears to jump from genre to genre like some chaotic game of musical hopscotch. From folk to noise pop to pure indie rock, husband and wife duo of guitarist Ira Kaplan and drummer Georgia Hubley, along with bassist James McNew, have a love for the new and different in their songs.
However, it isn’t about consistency; it’s about keeping the art fresh and surprising as a whole.
For instance, the members recently convened for a garage band side project under the alias “Condo F**ks” and released a collection of garage covers on an album titled “F**kbook.” They even created a convoluted back story for the fictional band to add to the illusion. In a way, Yo La Tengo’s mantra as a band should be “conventionality be damned” because it seems that they just don’t care what anyone thinks. Essentially, it’s their music and they are going to make it how they want.
But while Yo La Tengo has never been known for uniformity of style, it has been consistent with professionalism and aptitude when it comes to the music as a whole.
With that in mind, the group’s 12th studio album, “Popular Songs,” continues the trend of changing the sound in each song, but it displays itself as a good inlet to the band and its 25-year career.
The garage sounds of “F**kbook” have bled into this collection and combined with the standard eclectic nature of the group. On the opener, “Here To Fall,” a fuzzed-out bass drones over a string composition reminiscent of a seventies pop opus.
There is a sensed sloppiness to the songs, such as the upbeat “Nothing To Hide” with its scratch guitars and organ lead, and the noise pop closer “And The Glitter Is Gone.” But you can tell the love and care that Kaplan and Hubley have for the songs.
Like their relationship, they have bonded over a collective eccentricity. It’s this strangeness that permeates their songs and makes something beautiful out of them. The band is able to shift from song to song in seamless fashion.
As genres combine into a sublime concoction, the soft Latin jazz sounds of “I’m On My Way” appear to congeal with the countrified chords of the follower “When It’s Dark.”
In another point on “Popular Songs,” the crunchiness and pop grit of “Nothing To Hide” glides into the dreamy funk influenced “Periodically Triple or Double.” Kaplan’s voice has a soft reluctance to it as if he’s almost afraid to sing the lyrics. It’s these combinations, empty of shock or care, which marks the band and its discography.
But there is nothing reluctant about Yo La Tengo as a whole. They are not afraid of testing their abilities as musicians and the conventional wisdom about music as a whole.
As long as Yo La Tengo continues to create music, it will be this stubbornness and disregard of definition that will keep it ahead in terms of creativity and risk.
