Summer Sun

Yo La Tengo - Summer Sun

Summer Sun
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Artist: Yo La Tengo
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2003-04-08
Music Label: Matador Records
Soundtracks:
  1. Beach Party Tonight
  2. Little Eyes
  3. Nothing But You and Me
  4. Season of the Shark
  5. Today Is the Day
  6. Tiny Birds
  7. How to Make a Baby Elephant Float
  8. Georgia Vs. Yo la Tengo
  9. Don't Have to Be So Sad
  10. Winter A-Go-Go
  11. Moonrock Mambo
  12. Let's Be Still
  13. Take Care - Yo La Tengo, Chilton, Alex

Free Music Notes for Summer Sun

Free Music Review: Cooled off.
Hit: 2 Stars

"Summer Sun" was the second album by Yo La Tengo finding them exploring a much more cooled off direction, trading the noise and feedback that decorated their previous records for quiet riffs, gentle vocals, and swirling sounds. And like its predecessor, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out, there's little on "Summer Sun" to dislike, but again like its predecessor, there's little that catches my attention.

The album pretty much moves from one downtempo, quiet number ("Today is the Day") to another ("Don't Have to Be So Sad") and while there's the occasional standout (the absolutely lovely "Little Eyes" comes to mind), by and large there's a bit too much of a sameness for me. There's a few exceptions (funky piano and wah guitar workout "Georgia vs. Yo La Tengo"), but by and large, "Summer Sun" doesn't do much to catch my attention.

Truth to be told, if I didn't know what came next when I wrote this, I'd be talking about how Yo La Tengo had gotten old. A lot of folks really like this stuff, but I find "Summer Sun" to be missing the fire of their earlier records.

Summer Sun Poster

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.
Any album with Summer Sun as its title and "Beach Party Tonight" as the opening track has to be the soundtrack of tanned flesh, cold beer, and killer waves, right? Not if it's the product of three New Jersey bohos who know, from personal experience or their record collections, that summer is also the place to find surfers afraid of the water and sun-poisoned girls afraid of going home alone, again. Although not quite as cohesive or instantly captivating as the band's 2000 breakthrough, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out, Summer Sun is crafted from a similar hushed and hypnotic mold. Most of the 13 songs are built on a simple foundation of lo-fi guitar, bass, and brushed drums, then finished off with swirling horns, insistent piano figures, or organ. Especially good are the Pet Sounds-like pocket symphony "Tiny Birds," the beat-groove-powered "Moonrock Mambo," and the album-closing cover of Big Star's "Take Care." This last song is re-imagined as a country lament with pleading pedal-steel guitar and singer Georgia Hubley sounding like Nico fronting a lounge band on the boardwalk of a beach town headed toward post-Labor Day oblivion. Ah, summer. --Keith Moerer

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