YO la tengo is the consummate DIY band. They make shaggy, dreamy, cuddly, explosive indie rock. If you haven’t been already, it’s time for you to be seduced by their considerable charms.
Most of us fans have a silly tendency to look at our favorite musicians as being the smartest people in the world. Within their lyrics we know we’ll find the answers to everything, if we just look hard enough. In truth, most musicians are no smarter than any of us—often much less so. You can find many books on this subject.
Georgia, Ira and James of Yo La Tengo are exceptions to this rule, and Popular Songs, their 12th (or 14th, depending on what and how you count) album is the proof. Because when this new and dramatically unimproved world puts the hard questions to Yo La Tengo, they go Socratic as hell, swaggeringly, reassuringly, honestly telling us that all they know is they know nothing. They do not know why that sunbeam comes through the window when you are determined to sulk; they do not know just how are we going to make it, anyway?
Still, Yo La Tengo are nothing if not attentive: They do know that, if you are hearing this record and reading these words (preferably both), you are still here, and they are too, and so—Popular Songs, to resanctify us and all our foibles and goodnesses. They might’ve called it Manual for the People, or perhaps even Carry On, Oy! But it’s good they didn’t.
Popular Songs demonstrates that everything said about Yo La Tengo in the past is still true, only more so. Now, almost any song can sound like Yo La Tengo, provided it’s Yo La Tengo playing it:
The strings-and-keyboards orchestrations of the opener, “Here to Fall,” on which Ira offers the new best articulation of what it means to love; the Clean-feeling pop of “Avalon or Someone Very Similar,” unburdened by gravity or friction; Georgia’s aching “By Two’s,” a dream.
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