The Clean - Anthology
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Free Music Notes for Anthology
Free Music Review: Go for it, G....
Hit: 5 Stars
You're getting all this wonderful, ingenious music for $17.00? This makes you lucky, my friend. Do not question the curiosity that took you to this particular album as you search Amazon.
If you are curious about this band, you will surely see, and come to realize, that your curiosity was well warranted. This is a cournucopia of a band that makes you all warm. No matter what. Makes you happy and warm. That's really about it.
Free Music Review: So very very Clean
Hit: 5 Stars
The Clean is a powerful but nebulous presence in the world of indie rock -- the New Zealand band is known to music critics and die-hard indie fans, but sadly not to the masses. The fact that they are still little-known after two and a half decades is just proof that fame doesn't always come to those who deserve it.
The simply-named two-disc "Anthology" gives a suitably good retrospective of the Clean's career, in pretty much chronological order. One disc is devoted to their early work: the fun organ-laced garage-rock "Tally Ho," which was the song that propelled them to New Zealand's musical top, as well as the rough "Billy Two."
The rough, lo-fi pop continues changing in the second, which has the later music and some rarities. Starting with the Clean's reunion, it has such excellent (and eclectic) styles as jangly guitar rock, keyboard pop, and the Britpoppish flavors of "Secret Place" and "Diamond Shine." Surprisingly, the smoother production doesn't at all take away from the enjoyment of the music.
It's a pity that bands from New Zealand don't get the recognition that British or American bands do. If they did, the Clean would probably adored with Pavement and Radiohead. Sadly, they have not gotten that recognition, but that in no way reflects on their music -- this edgy, quirky rock is similar to the best of today's top indierock bands, but conceived years before those bands existed.
"Anthology" serves more than one function. It's two hours of fun, gloriously inventive rock'n'roll, but it also serves to illustrate how their sound expanded over time. The Clean started off with very little, which gave their music a fun, rough sound, but with new production and more money, they polished their sound up. Their music lost the innocent edge, in favor of musical maturity.
The songwriting is more than a little insane -- not that that's a bad thing. The Clean's music has a lovably unhinged edge, lovably jagged instrumentation and edgy sensibilities. There isn't a musical dull moment, with leader David Kilgour and his brother Hamish playing, respectively, guitar and drums. Bassist Robert Scott (later of the Bats) rounded off the group.
The Clean is practically guaranteed to capture an indie-rock-lover's heart, since it was an influence on bands like Yo La Tengo, Pavement and Sonic Youth. As a good overview of the band's two-decade-plus career, "Anthology" is good Clean fun.
Free Music Review: The Cleans best work
Hit: 5 Stars
The Clean kick-started the illustrious New Zealand label Flying Nun in 1981, providing a key blueprint for indie-rockers from Australia (the Chills) to California (Pavement). Over this two-disc, 46-track set of rarities and essentials, the trio takes the chugga-chugga racket of the Velvet Underground and stretches it into an entire garage aesthetic of excited, rudimentary playing, shaky, Kiwi-accented vocals and endearing melodies. Disc one, as influential for the lo-fi sonics as for the songs, ends with the Clean's 1983 breakup. Disc two spans their 1988 reunion and 1996's Unknown Country, mining similar material with even more exciting (and even better-sounding) results. But by then, lots of bands were doing what the mighty Clean had helped pioneer.
Free Music Review: These are big fish
Hit: 4 Stars
Jangly guitar pop that adeptly crosses the (often) very broad line between Punk and Psychedelia. A few misfires, sure, but such is evolution. Well worth the ducats.Free Music Review: the clean cleansed my musical soul, it did
Hit: 5 Stars
thank goodness for merge, the label who has given this legendary new zealand post-punk/spacy twee pop group a well-deserved wider audience. so far this year my most valuable musical discovery. this 2-disc collection is essential, 46 songs, all of them delightful and effervescent, for 13 bucks. simply unbeatable. kudos to the clean for being the band that kickstarted my favorite musical genre of last year, kiwi-pop (chills, bats, verlaines, straitjacket fits, etc...these are good places to turn if you like what you hear with the clean).
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