Weekly Release Spotlight: Yo La Tengo

Posted on 10/11/2009

Yo La Tengo

Popular Songs

[Matador]

Yo La Tengo has been humbly cranking out experimental noise rock for nearly as long as Sonic Youth has. Both bands feature highly-respected guitarists and a married couple. Both have had a huge influence on the bands of today. So why is Sonic Youth a widely-recognized cultural fixture and a touchstone of adolescence for anyone born after 1965, while Yo La Tengo is relegated to "critics' darling" status and a cult following? Honestly, it's probably because they're from Hoboken.

Toiling away in near obscurity for 25 years, Yo La Tengo has always been the (literal and figurative) New Jersey to Sonic Youth's New York City. The NYC no-wavers have spent much of their career on a major label while their bridge-and-tunnel brethren have spent the last 16 years on small, yet dependable Matador. You won't catch the members of Yo La Tengo hobnobbing with fashion designers or naming their child Coco. Georgia Hubley probably won't ever show up to a gig wearing a miniskirt. Sonic Youth has Thurston and Yo La Tengo has, well, Ira.

Popular Songs might seem like a tongue-in-cheek album title for a band of underdogs, but the fact is that it's really hard to find a reason not to like Yo La Tengo and if they weren't so humble, maybe they would be more popular. Their 12th album (as well as their more garage-leaning covers project Condo Fucks) makes it clear that age has not diminished the trio's ability to rock while remaining simultaneously catchy and avant-garde. Strings add a layer of complexity to Popular Songs, which ventures into dream-like territory with the 11-minute 'The Fireside" and the nine-minute "More Stars Than There Are in Heaven." But as far out as the band may wander, it always comes home to the textbook Yo La Tengo method, as heard on "Avalon or Someone Very Similar" and “"othing to Hide" - simple rhythms, three unassuming chords and sweet harmonies.

As uncool as it may seem to live in the suburbs, truly cool people know hipness is in the eye of the beholder. You don't necessarily need a scene to surround you or to even pay attention to what everyone else is doing. True artists stay true to their art and wait for others to inevitably follow. So maybe it's not such a coincidence that Sonic Youth recently signed to Matador and Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore now live in Massachusetts. Just saying.

Written by Dana Raidt, Radio K volunteer.