Everybody by now knows I love pop bands. And I really love Big
\nStar. So a pop band from Seattle that managed to escape the local
\ngrunge prerequisites, write killer pop songs
\n
\nand<\/i>
\n<\/b> play in a Big Star reunion has got to be pretty damn good in
\nmy book.<\/p>\n
Bandleaders Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow have been bouncing
\naround the Pacific Northwest music scene since the mid-eighties. I
\nfirst learned of them when a good friend gave me a cassette of
\ntheir early album
\nDear 23<\/i>, which included “Golden Blunders” , a song that to
\nme summarizes everybody’s worst nightmare with the lyrics “You’re
\ngonna have to watch what you say for a long time\/You’re gonna
\nsuffer the guilts forever.” GULP. All this wrapped into a pop-spun
\nharmonious confection of a song.<\/p>\n
The strength of this band has always been its ability to write
\ngreat ballads and catchy pop tunes. With
\nAmazing Disgrace<\/i>, it’s only about half successful.<\/p>\n
Part of the problem may be the turnover in certain band
\npersonnel, which with
\nAmazing Disgrace<\/i>, includes bassist Joe Skyward and Brian
\nYoung. Maybe the upcoming 1998 release
\nSuccess<\/i> (a pun off their debut
\nFailure<\/i> in 1988, no doubt!) will demonstrate a return to
\nform. While
\nAmazing Disgrace<\/i> blends the softer side of the Posies with
\nthe more rugged wall of guitar sound found on their
\nFrosting On The Beater<\/i> disc, it’s uneven at best. Like many
\nbands these days, an album full of great singles might be a bit
\nbetter than a half album of good stuff and the rest of it
\nhalf-hearted.<\/p>\n
Being co-writers on all songs, Auer and Stringfellow still excel
\non numbers like “Precious Moments” or “Please Return It”. Their
\nvocals belie the truly depressing overtone of such songs as
\n“Song#1” or “Self Mutilation” and prevent the whole disc from
\nfalling into a pit of narcissism and self pity. Overall, I’d say
\nthe boys weren’t in an especially happy mood as themes of
\ndisastrous romance, bitterness and scathing commentary such as
\n“Everybody is a Fucking Liar” predominate.<\/p>\n
The throwaway song “Broken Record” just made me wonder why they
\ndidn’t pick a stronger song selection as I loved nearly everything
\non
\nDear 23<\/i> and its follow-up,
\nFrosting On The Beater<\/i>. My favorite song off
\nAmazing Disgrace<\/i> is actually “Ontario”, which has some great
\nhooks and a balanced sense of irony within the pop structure of the
\nsong.<\/p>\n
I think the Posies are another one of those bands poised on the
\nedge of greatness. To me that doesn’t mean you become hugely
\nfamous, but that you stay true to your musical vision and put out
\ngreat records, despite how few people listen to them With a great
\nduo at the Posies helm, their strength is in memorable songwriting
\nand lyrics. The more solid rock sound that they’ve been developing
\nsince the early 90’s is helped by the use of ex-XTC producer Nick
\nLauney who does exploit some of the Posies best musical qualities.
\nBut this album seems to find its cowriters teetering on that brink
\nbetween clever and bitter. It’s almost as if they’re smirking a
\nlittle too hard now. What always makes a great band connect with
\nits listeners is letting us in on the joke but still making us
\nthink we’re cool for getting it in the first place. And while I
\nenjoy the cleverness of their songwriting and its inherent sarcasm
\nat times, I found this album a little too knowing and at times it
\nfeels seriously forced.<\/p>\n
I still like this band a lot and am sorry I missed the guys
\nhooking up with my all-time hero, Alex Chilton, as I’m sure it was
\na great mix of pop singers\/players.
\nAmazing Disgrace<\/i> is just disgraceful to the talent that
\nPosies possess but didn’t seem to muster on this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":27353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7275],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-38718","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-posies","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38718"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38718"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}