a brief preface:
the tag 'lo-fi' is commonly applied to describe music that is recorded in less-than-professional settings, or music that sounds as though it was. home recordings like those made by groups like guided by voices, pavement or the thermals, for example. not all of these songs are lo-fi in the traditional sense. some are lo-fi by virtue of the time or circumstances in which they were recorded. others aren't lo-fidelity recordings at all, but just songs that have undeniable pop sensibility despite their off-kilter sound. some of these songs were released as singles, others are LP cuts that i find myself revisiting over and over to figure out what about them appeals to me so much. in fact, the more i think about it, calling this a list of 'lo-fi classics' might be misleading. better to say that this is a short list of songs that i consider to be examples of perfectly written pop, despite their sometimes less-than-stellar recording quality.
WITCH - silver lady.
WITCH (we intend to cause havoc) were a band from zambia. they combined elements of american rock, soul and R&B with some nigerian highlife sounds and a touch of american/british psych and prog. this song's chorus made me jump out of bed one time at 3AM because i thought it was an english beat song that i had never heard before. when i figured out who it actually was, it made me even happier because i had become so quickly and deeply smitten with their music.
deerhunter - vox celeste.
deerhunter are one of those bands who straddle the line between lo-fi and more commercial recordings. their breakout, 'cryptograms,' was recorded in a professional studio, but featured an often dense, very layered sound with lots of reverb. follow up 'microcastle' was recorded in new york at nicolas vernhes' rare book room studio and featured a cleaner sound, but it was accompanied by bonus album 'weird era continued,' a collection of home and practice space tracks that tends closer to fuzzy dream-garage workouts like this one than the understated ronettes-on-downers tracks on 'microcastle.'
pavement - debris slide.
pavement's early singles hid pop perfection under layers of feedback and tape hiss, to the point where the 'lo-fi' tag followed them throughout their career, which included such decidedly non-lo-fi turns as recording with nigel godrich (radiohead, REM, beck). this is one of those songs that i probably listened to ten times in a row the first time i heard it. if you're into shitty recordings hiding amazing songs and you don't have pavement's first LP, 'slanted and enchanted,' as well as their early EP collection 'westing (by musket and sextant),' what the fuck is wrong with you? go buy that shit immediately. you should probably get 'crooked rain, crooked rain,' too. it will make you less of an asshole.
yo la tengo - the river of water.
it was really hard to pick a YLT song for this list, as they have so many classics. i decided on 'river of water' mainly because it was their very first single. a super catchy song that sketched a blueprint for the yo la tengo sound that would follow.
beat happening - cast a shadow.
beat happening and singer calvin johnson's K records were perhaps the earliest champions of the lo-fi sound. in fact, it could be said that they originated many of the hallmarks of lo-fi, from the sometimes-recorded-to-boombox sound to the simple but hooky songwriting and often rudimentary musicianship, though groups like the raincoats and, before them, the shaggs, could also be argued to be progenitors of the sound.
h¸sker d¸ - eight miles high.
for listeners who weren't raised on punk rock, with its emphasis on performance over perfection, a legacy of records made quickly and on the cheap and the tendency of some groups to bury their melodies in layers of guitar fuzz, screams and other noise, groups like h¸sker d¸ can be a little difficult to deal with on first listen. this song worked as a sort of rosetta stone to the h¸sker sound, as, if you could catch the melody in this one, it became much easier to find the pop content of their stuff, especially their earlier, more hardcore-sounding songs. also, if you grew up hearing the byrds' version of this one a lot (like i did), it's pretty fun to hear them totally desecrate a hippy classic, even though their version is really faithful to the original, distortion and shitty recording notwithstanding.
nirvana - marigold.
notable for being the only nirvana song that kurt cobain didn't sing or play guitar on, this was dave grohl's first turn at lead vocals. while not as much of a rager as the tunes that would appear on the 1995 debut of foo fighters, it's in the same vein as early FF single 'big me,' ie. a quick blast of jangly, sugary goodness, with cobain behind the drumkit for good measure (grohl did all the instruments on the first FF album, which he recorded at the same place this track was done, the laundry room; basically a step up from home recording, but a pretty small one).
guided by voices - echos myron.
guided by voices formed in dayton, OH, nineteen-something-and-five. they played a few poorly recieved shows around town before retreating to singer bob pollard's basement for the better part of a decade spent crafting album after album of home recorded pop goodness, equally indebted to british invasion psych as to spazzy UK post-punks like wire and swell maps. this one's one of their more straightforward songs, and a perfect example of the songwriting genius that is robert pollard.
tony molina - don't come back.
tony molina is from san francisco. he sings in some hardcore bands and then writes stuff on his own that's like if bob pollard was born in the 80's and grew up on early american hardcore instead of mid-60's british psych. all the songs are short and sweet and sound like they came from sort of alternate universe where rivers cuomo never made a shitty record. his 'six tracks' EP is only available as a matador singles club thing, and it's probably worth spending the $80 or whatever the fuck it costs just to get that record cuz every song on it is a gem. his first "LP,"'dissed and dismissed,' is just about to be rereleased, although by the time this goes live, it probably is already available. seek it out. listen. thank me later.
mirah - sweepstakes prize.
mirah yom tov zeitlyn is an olympia, WA, based songwriter who records primarily for calvin johnson's K records. she's also absolutely fucking adorable, as you can tell from the picture above. this song's off her first album, 'you think it's like this, but really it's like this,' which she recorded with phil elverum of the microphones to a four-track in his basement. i only have her first three records, so i can't claim to be a super-fan or anything, but all three get pretty constant heavy rotation around my house. if you're into excellent folk-pop tunes, i strongly recommend grabbing this one or its follow-up, 'advisory committee.'
the thermals - born dead.
the thermals are from portland, OR. their debut album, 'more parts per million,' was recorded by singer hutch harris to a four-track machine in his kitchen. he also played all of the instruments, though the liner notes credit forever bassist kathy foster, as well as former touring members ben barnett (kind of like spitting) and jordan hudson. their current lineup consists of harris and foster with drummer westin glass. MPPM, 'fuckin' a,' and 'the body, the blood, the machine,' were all released on sub pop, while the following two albums (2009's 'now we can see' and 2010's 'personal life') came out on kill rock stars. currently, the thermals record for saddle creek records, who released 2013's john agnello-produced 'desperate ground,' a continuation of their scrappy punk-pop songwriting, with slightly cleaner production than on the first album.
le tigre - deceptacon.
after bikini kill broke up, kathleen hanna moved to new york, bought a sampler and started making electronic-influenced punk music, first releasing an album under the name julie ruin, and then getting the group le tigre together with johanna fateman and sadie benning, who in 2001 left the band and was replaced by JD samson. le tigre were known for their trashy synth and drum machine sounds (courtesy of an alesis HR16 and hanna's sampling keyboard) and politically conscious, pro-LGBT and feminist lyrics, as well as for playing shows complete with video screens, matching costumes and choreographed dance moves. this album's great for drunken dance parties in tiny apartments.
the replacements - color me impressed.
the replacements could be another poster band for the lo-fi movement, with their first two albums and the EP 'stink' consisting of raw, sloppy first-take garage punk. what set them apart from most of the punk/hardcore bands around at the time was lead singer/songwriter paul westerberg's excellent ear for choruses. their later stuff became more produced and slightly cleaner sounding, but they retained the pop sensiblities that first started to show on their old records.
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p.s. Hey. Thank you all for yesterday. Today we soldier on, hopefully minus the soldier, with the help of Rewritedept's picks and paean re: Lo-Fi, a genre that happens to garner much love from me and mine as well. Please see what he has done, listen as well as watch when the vids give you something to watch, and corral your minds accordingly, and feedback in your guest-host's direction, if you will. Thanks, and thank you a ton, Rwd. ** Marc Vallée, Hi, Marc. Really good to see you. Yes, and thank you a lot. ** Kiddiepunk, Hi, bud. Yeah, fucking heart-wrenching. Hope you're good. I'll call you in a bit. ** Paul Curran, Hey, Paul. I was really caught by terrible surprise too. I was excited to see on FB that your book is being 3D-ified at the printers! ** Bitter69uk, Hi. Yeah, Sarah Lucas, there you go. I wish I had thought of her when I was building the post. Thanks, man. ** David Ehrenstein, Yes, for sure. ** Gregoryedwin, How really good it is to see you, my friend. Thanks for the thinking and for the kindness. I hope you're doing spectacularly well. Love, me. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. Yeah, so sad, thank you a lot. ** Cobaltfram, Hi. Yeah, me too, I had hopes galore. Thanks, man. ** Tosh Berman, Good morning, Tosh. The beauty of the tribute was all his doing, of course. ** Magick mike, Hey, Mike. Wow, that's ... That's such great news, though, that his work will be in Lies/Isle. He surely was so happy about that. Thank you a lot for the link to his music. I was trying to find that link/place when I was setting up the post, and I couldn't remember the location or find where it could be. Everyone, One of Jheorgge's many talents was in music, and I had hoped to direct you to the music he made yesterday, but I was foiled by my memory and by google's lack of help. Magick mike knows, however, and he shared the link yesterday. So, Jheorgge made a really fantastic EP consisting of 3 tracks under the moniker Judith Prietht. It's called 'Untitled at Birth', and I hope you will both give yourself the great pleasure and pay further tribute to Jheorgge's memory by clicking this link to his spot on bandcamp and having a listen. Thank you. Again, thanks so very much, Mike. Love, me. ** Kier, Oh, Kier, it's so lovely to see you. Yeah, it's so sad, so hard. In one of his last last posts on his FB page, your work came up as being important to him. The drawings based on his naked SPD photos are amazing. Everyone, the great artist and d.l. Kier made three drawings a while back inspired by the photos that Jheorgge had used in his contribution to the blog's Naked Self-Portrait Day, and you saw them yesterday, and here are Kier's works: 1, 2, 3. A serious convergence of two amazing talents there, so please check them out. I'm good, Kier. Oh, man, I've missed you a lot too, as has this place. I'm so happy to hear that you're doing well. That's such good news. I would love to see you more, very needless to say, so, yeah, please be here whenever it feels good and right. Giant love to you, my pal. ** Heliotrope, Hi, Mark. Thanks a lot for the good words. Crazy to see that photo of Cass. I never knew him in context with motorcycles, but I really hardly knew him. Peripherally in high school through Robert, and I was only starting to know him for real for the short time that he and I went to PCC simultaneously. That's excellent, excellent news about the positive input from the alternative medicinal stuff. You're feeling better and ... believe, man, that's all that matters. Love you too, big M. ** Jonathan, Hi, J! Always really nice to see you. Understood entirely about the busyness. Berlin, cool, any highlights? Shows? Great, yes, fill me in, please. Yeah, any amount that you can and want to be around is and would an eternal boon. ** Zach, Hi, Zach. It's true, yeah, I've noticed too that ecigarette smokers seem to end up looking like infants with overgrown pacifiers in their mouths. The loudish, sort of mechanical sound when they take a drag is kind of spooky too. Wow, so the class is all about the book. I like that. Figuring out how to read in a new way is really exciting. I'm always trying to find newness re: reading on my own, but having a guide and 'Ulysses' as the scoutmaster sounds, yeah, great, makes sense. Over here in France, you're supposed to go outside even when you smoke ecigarettes, but few do. When they do, they're definitely stigmatized and eyed/treated like unwanted dorks by the other exiled smokers, I've noticed. ** Wolf, Hi, Wolf! I've been thinking about you a lot and missing you big time. Beautiful, beautiful words about George, all of which ring utterly true to me. Fucking world. When you have the space and mood to, I would love to hear how you're doing and what's going on. In the meantime and always, mega-hugs and love from me to you. ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. Thank you a lot for saying that about him. I hope you're doing great. ** Nicki, Hi, my dear pal! Yeah, I know, so incredibly sad and terrible. Thank you for putting words here to your remembering. Of course I hope you're doing so well, my friend, and, now that I so luckily have you before me, or at least 'before' me, I send you my love today as I do always. ** Rewritedept, Hi. Thank you so much for today's pretty post and for helping lead us all out of the dark and into the light, or into the relative light, at least. Hope you get to see GbV, obviously. And, yeah, I'm so sorry for all that crap you're having to deal with from your mom. I guess if I'd thought about it, I might have wondered if you were a closet Deadhead given the range of your tastes and all that. Thanks for saying that about the blog. You and everybody else gets the credit. I'm just sitting here posting stuff and being amazed and going whoa. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Thank you. I wondered if you had known George, he being a fellow Scottish d.l. and all, but it's not like Scotland is a pub, I guess. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T. Yeah, I know, yeah. So true: everything you said about him. It's just inconceivable that he's gone, and, yet, there it it: reality, I guess. ** Tender prey, Hi, Marc. I know, so heartbreaking. Thank you, man. Take good care. ** Sypha, I don't really know old he was. I would guess maybe late 20s, but I'm not sure. Wow, that is pretty fore-fronted for that time. Huh. I'm looking forward to reading it. ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris. Thanks for the good and kind words. For and about George and about the blog. I feel very, very lucky to be the guy who has the password to this place. And thank you so much for sharing his video and mentioning the tribute on ALG. That's so great. I know he would have been blown away. Hugs back to you. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Punch in the gut is right. Well, you know, thank you about the blog, and I of course totally agree, and I say that from the place of feeling as lucky as everyone else here that the blog is what it is. It's a combination of magic and collective doing, I think. I'm still hoping something will happen that'll get LPS back to you. Given her track record, anything, bad and/or great, albeit not by her doing in the case of the latter, seems possible. ** Steevee, Hi, Steve. I don't know if the blood is real. It looks real, but fake blood can look pretty real. Sorry to hear about the Earthlink-caused mess. But wonderful about the VV gig and that you're meeting with the actor! *** Rigby, Hi, Rigster. Missed you, man. Those photos you put on Facebook this morning are great, beautiful, thank you! He was a great, great guy and a maker of wonderful things and all the rest. It's so unfair. I send you a whole fucking bunch of love, pal. ** Bill, Hi, Bill. Yeah, so elegant, that's a great word for it. Best to you, B. ** Okay. With that, let's enjoy the deliberately fidelity-impaired stylings of the stuff chosen for us by the fidelity-unimpaired Rewritedept. Have the best days you can, and I'll see you tomorrow, no doubt.