M2 R1 NOLAMIKE WIN

A little Sneelock appears on each shoulder. the one with a monocle sipping at his teacup tells me that Al Jones seems like a nice enough guy. He's probably good to his mum. He sings okay. It's a nice enough song. the arrangement is nice and tasteful. very encouraging.

the Sneelock on the other shoulder goes full-on Bluartsky, grabs away Al's guitar and smashes it on the stairs.
I try to be a reasonable guy - honest. sometimes it's just out of my hands.

A is no great shakes but the Sneelock on each shoulder just shrugs. Music BY Music Critics FOR Music critics. it has a little texture and sounds like it might be important if it doesn't put you to sleep.

Yo La Tengo

Another YLT un-adherent here. Fairly reasonable yet pointless indie. They really took The Who’s idea of a group reflecting the image of their audience a little too literally.

Al Jones 

Featherlight wyrd that’s over before it starts. Ok, again.

B

.

Yo La Tengo are of course the best US band of the last 40 years, with about 40 albums of extraordinarily diverse, tuneful and weird tracks, covers of Sun Ra, soundtrack music, ambient instrumental, sunshine pop, twelve minute guitar workouts, lots of playing with tension and release and the only VU-influenced band to do a reasonable pastiche of the styles of all four studio albums. Bit strange then to choose one of their more ordinary tracks, and to present it in a youtube clip that has what sounds like red-line distortion to me - I can't check it out because the album it comes from is the only one I don't have. So 5/10

When I see the word Orchestra, I reach for the off button. What a horribole noise a flute makes, like a pig dying in slow motion. It's a pretty enough tune, but the flute ruins it. 3/10

a