Review of The Best of The Lemonheads - The Atlantic Years
by Ryan Schreiber
From Pitchfork Media 1998
Remember the early 1990s when
alternative rock still had a soul? Juliana Hatfield, the Pixies, Dinosaur
Jr, Jane's Addiction, Pavement, and naturally, the Lemonheads were the bands
of the moment, and you were goddamned cool if you listened to 'em. They were
days when your local modern rock station (if you had one at all) possessed
actual credibility and played stuff you were genuinely interested in. Of course,
nothing lasts forever; that lovable, indefinable genre was quickly transformed
into "grunge," and its twangy, chorused life force was sucked dry
by the corporate behemoth. That's when we came up with "indie cred."
And at the time, the Lemonheads had scads of it.
The band's first few albums, released on seminal alternative label Taang!
Records, were closer to hard- edged pop- punk (a la Hüsker Dü and
the Replacements), but once the band signed to Atlantic, they started to soften
up considerably. That was fine by us alternative rock fans, though-- they
were merely trading lo-fi guitars for beautiful, shimmering pop. Their Atlantic
debut, Lovey, proved decent enough; it spawned their classic "Ride With
Me" and the unforgettable "Stove." But the album was a serious
period of transistion for Dando & Co, and thus, a bit lackluster. The
big payoff, of course, came with 1992's blissful It's A Shame About Ray.
Ray had it all: good looks, great melodies, terrific songs, consistency, and
"alternativeness." The critics and fans loved it, it got lots of
radio play on weekly alt-rock radio shows, it got rotation on MTV, and it
sold lots of copies. Ray, along with Jane's Addiction's Ritual De Lo Habitual
and Nirvana's Nevermind, broke alternative music into the mainstream.
The band found more commercial success with Ray's follow-up, Come On Feel
The Lemonheads, whose hit singles "Into Your Arms" and "It's
About Time" were virtually unavoidable during the fall of 1993. But the
next few years proved alt-rock's days were numbered, and by the release of
1996's Car Button Cloth, the Lemonheads were as tapped out as Seattle's music
scene.
So, it's Autumn again, which means that Christmastime is near, and that we're
ready to tackle this year's slew of greatest hits collections. The Best of
the Lemonheads: The Atlantic Years does exactly what it's supposed to do by
tossing all the band's classics together on one disc. You've got "It's
A Shame About Ray," "Confetti," "Mrs. Robinson,"
"My Drug Buddy," "The Great Big No," "Big Gay Heart,"
and every other Lemonheads track that ever got airplay.
The album's biggest flaw is that it collects only The Atlantic Years, avoiding
all the great songs from the Taang! days. Also, The Atlantic Years only gave
us two truly memorable albums, and if you subtract the songs on The Best of
the Lemonheads that are pulled off those two records, it leaves you with...
three tracks: an acoustic version of Lovey's "Ride With Me," and
"If I Could Talk I'd Tell You," and "It's All True" from
Car Button Cloth.
Ultimately, The Best of the Lemonheads: The Atlantic Years is an album for
twenty- something factory workers looking to reminisce about their glory days
as the captains of America's high school football teams. Real music fans might
wanna get with it and just pick up Hate Your Friends, It's A Shame About Ray
and Come On Feel The Lemonheads.