Search - Yo La Tengo :: Summer Sun

Summer Sun
Yo La Tengo
Summer Sun
Genres: Alternative Rock, Special Interest, Pop, Rock
 
  •  Track Listings (13) - Disc #1

A subtle stylistic shift from its predecessor (And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out). Upbeat, swinging, and sweet, but no less haunting. 'An ethereal wonder' - US News And World Report. 'Yo La Tengo has divided its ...  more »

     
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CD Details

All Artists: Yo La Tengo
Title: Summer Sun
Members Wishing: 6
Total Copies: 0
Label: Matador Records
Original Release Date: 1/1/2000
Re-Release Date: 4/8/2003
Genres: Alternative Rock, Special Interest, Pop, Rock
Styles: Indie & Lo-Fi, American Alternative, Experimental Music
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 744861054825

Synopsis

Album Description
A subtle stylistic shift from its predecessor (And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out). Upbeat, swinging, and sweet, but no less haunting. 'An ethereal wonder' - US News And World Report. 'Yo La Tengo has divided its devotion to the extremes of popular music, playing sweetly melodic pop songs and feedback-driven noise-rock with equally mesmerizing results'. 13 tracks packaged in a Digipak. Matador. 2003.

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CD Reviews

Nothing formulatic about it
Nathan Phillips | Wilmington, NC United States | 09/17/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)

"I gotta confess that it doesn't surprise me people have decided this is The Decline of Yo La Tengo since it rolls back the guitars and the lyrics are more direct. I saw the same exact thing happen with the last two R.E.M. albums. The common logic seems to be that neither band is being true to its original eclectic vision (not that R.E.M. was ever half as eclectic as YLT, wonderful as both bands may be).My answer is -- what vision? If we're going to hurl these accusations, what is it exactly that we're expecting? If "Let's Be Still" and "Today is the Day" and "Nothing But You and Me" are being seen as steps backward, and a return to feedback-laden pop bliss wouldn't be, then I'd better just give up on understanding popular music right now.By the way, this album IS pop bliss, start to finish. I loved the band's older records too, every one of 'em, although May I Sing with Me is my least favorite by quite a margin, but if you want to hear that stuff, it's not like they're confiscating your copies. I wouldn't necessarily recommend "Summer Sun" as a first purchase - go with "Fakebook," "I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One," or their masterpiece IMO, "And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out" - but it does show off the fact that intricate, warm pop music didn't die with the Beach Boys.In a sense, of course, whether or not you may like this could have something to do with your usual taste in music. It really does lack any rock & roll intensity, making it unique in that regard aside from "Fakebook," and the reason "May I Sing with Me" didn't appeal to me was the fact that it was basically one raveup after another. So if you don't run off in terror at the notion of quiet music, "Summer Sun" may well be the best album since... well, the last Yo La Tengo record.n."
My Summer Sun
Jellybones | On Tour | 03/18/2004
(4 out of 5 stars)

"While labeled by most as a mediocre follow-up to an also mediocre release by a once-great, I was not to be turned away. I placed my order and patiently waited. I'll admit, I hadn't been following every Yo La Tengo release, and while I had their previous album my teeth were cut on oldies such as "New Wave Hot Dogs" and "May I Sing With Me". This album quickly embedded itself into the dark crevices of my hippocampus, sitting alongside other summer releases of that year ( somehow I'll always hear the beginning of "Radical Adults Lick Godhead Style" by Sonic Youth begin right after "Summer of the Shark" in the asylum of my mind ). But the months passed, the newness wore, and I would probably have rated this album as good, if slightly forgettable.
Then we were lucky enough in Jacksonville to have Yo La come through and play for the first time in like 10 years. The show was interesting, in an all seated theatre. But they performed nearly every song on this album, regardless of demand for nostalgic classics. Powerful, that show has stayed with me. It made songs like "Today is the Day", "Lets Be Still" and the magnificent "Take Care" take corporeal form, and now I listen to the CD with new ears, understanding new depths. The personalities of the players shine through, like Ira's lyrical novocain on "Little Eyes" and Georgia's smarmy keyboarding on "Georga vs. Yo La Tengo". Maybe its just my perception but this album is astounding, and a step forward for the `Tengo if you ask me, not some run of the mill release from an inert has been as others might lead you to believe."
Junkmedia.org Review - It it's too quiet, you're too young!
junkmedia | Los Angeles, CA | 04/15/2003
(4 out of 5 stars)

"Yo La Tengo were forced to rush the sequencing and mixing of this record in order to make a production deadline. Although the rush job shows, the strengths of Summer Sun's songs work hard to overcome what's missing otherwise.This is a band that would have a hard time making a bad album. Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew have always made music with an intuitive sense that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. 1997's I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One summed up the band's approach perfectly.The band's instrumental score to the nature films by Jean Painleve, collected on last year's The Sounds of the Sounds of Science filled the gap between 2000's And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out and this new album. And Then Nothing... was mellow compared to prior outings, yet anything but easy-going, with the calmness of the songs crossed with emotionally frank lyrics about the ups and downs of marriage, personal anxieties and depression. The less-is-more approach looms large in Yo La Tengo's legend. Referencing an old KISS t-shirt that reads "If it's too loud, you're too old," Kaplan once chastised a raucous, inattentive audience: "If it's too quiet, you're too young."YLT's best music is often in its longer numbers, in which the band takes time to stretch out and let simple sounds establish great power. "Let's Be Still" is Summer Sun's best track, and its longest, at over ten minutes. The song is based on a beautiful groove built from a piano sample and Hubley's magnificently understated drumming. A cover of Big Star's "Take Care" -- a melancholy Alex Chilton ballad that YLT has played live for years -- rounds out the album.Summer Sun doesn't have the collective impact of its predecessors, a problem typically attributable to song selection, sequencing and mixing. The songs here are good, but even when the heart beats as one, it's a bit too faint to hear.Ric Dube
Junkmedia.org Review"