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May I Sing with Me

Yo La Tengo - May I Sing with Me Audio CD

A fair review of the Yo La Tengo "May I Sing with Me" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Yo La Tengo reviews here, or go back to the Yo La Tengo tabs.

Band: Yo La Tengo
Title: May I Sing with Me
Rating:

Release Date: 1992-02-28
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Detouring America With Horns 2: Upside-Down 3: Mushroom Cloud Of Hiss 4: Swing For Life 5: Five-Cornered Drone (Crispy Duck) 6: Some Kinda Fatigue 7: Always Something 8: 86-Second Blowout 9: Out The Window 10: Sleeping Pill 11: Satellite

Consistently satisfying, but largely lacking in excellence.

Yo La Tengo has been known for noise-based rock of the type the Velvet Underground pioneered, and certainly "May I Sing With Me" has quite a bit of that in feedback drenched numbers like the extended "Mushroom Cloud of Hiss" and "Five-Cornered Drone", but they're also a band with a melodic side, and this comes out too in riff-based rockers like the utterly superb "Upside-Down" and "Some Kinda Fatigue". On their early records, Yo La Tengo was a band still trying to find itself in many ways, and 1992's "May I Sing With Me" was pretty much the point where they seemed to have arrived, reconciling all the elements of their sound-- folk, trance, noise and straight up rock and roll into a stew that, while it somewhat lacks the immediacy of their earlier records and excellence of what would be soon to come from the band, it was the first album they produced that felt consistent start to finish, and it was the first one that grappled with the band's many facets effectively. Make no mistake though, this isn't a loud record only, with the band finding themselves a unique brand of new waveish pop in the ambient-hinting "Always Something" and opener "Detouring America With Horns". And certainly it's this diversity that makes the record intriguing.

Having offered heaps of praise, one thing I can safely say about "May I Sing With Me" is it's not an album I find myself reaching for much-- yeah, "Upside-Down" is fantastic and there's a lot of good material on here, but there's not a lot of fantastic material. It's an album that avoids extremes of greatness by maintaining a sort of effectiveness throughout. It's a rebirth of sorts for them though, they've found their sound and they'd use it to great effect in the near future. Curiously, the album could have been made better by pulling in some b-sides from the single for Upside-Down EP (5 tracks), but those were covers and this was a record of originals. Together, the two work together better, but Yo La Tengo would produce better material shortly (this record's followup Painful, for example).

Even a sub-par YLT album is still a great album
While certainly not the best YLT release, it does not deserve all the ragging critics and fans have given it. I really ought to give this 4 stars, but I wanted to try and cancel out all the negative marks people give this album. Perhaps it was the victim of misguided (and dated) production techniques and maybe a little too long a rehearsal period, I'll give you that. Yes, it lacks dynamics, favoring constant noise and aggression when some tracks could use a quieter approach (and often receive it nowadays in live performances). But there are some really good songs and some great performances (particularly Ira's guitar work) on this disc. As the Amazon review says, this marks an important point in the band's career. Although bassist James McNew had not yet become a truly equal contributer for this recording (examples: the album credits songwriters individually instead of using the more democratic collective approach of future releases, and the bass lines are less integral to the arrangements) his arrival marks where YLT really started to become a cohesive unit with a true artistic direction. If you already own four or more YLT albums, you need to add this to your collection. Standout tracks include "Detouring America With Horns", "Upside Down", "Swing for Life", and "Five-Cornered Drone (Crispy Duck)" (which is featured in a superior instrumental version on "Genius+Love").

A completely untypical YLT album, but one I dearly love
This is widely considered to be one of Yo La Tengo's weakest albums, and is unquestionably one of their least popular. OK, I'm going to have to defend this album. I have always been perplexed by this take on it. Perhaps my liking for the album stems from the fact that the first time I saw them live (I've seen them about 15 times since) was immediately before this album was released, so that the songs on this album comprised most of the set that they were performing. Since then I have seen them perform fewer and fewer songs off the album, with the exception of "Mushroom Cloud of Hiss," which is a near staple of every performance (and who can forget all three members of the band shoving guitars or basses against amplifiers, creating the greatest amount of feedback and distortion recorded in human history?).

But I think part of my liking for this album stems from the fact that I am more into pure garage rock rather than electronic experimentation. I have to confess a preference for driving drums, a solid bass line, and a withering guitar to a gentle synthesizer that is tape looped that characterizes so much of the rest of the Yo La Tengo catalogue (though I like that as well, and in fact own over a dozen YLT albums--it is not "either/or" for me, more "both/and" though I prefer the grittier, rarer garage side of YLT). I love YLT wild and out of control. I love Ira Kaplan's guitar work (I use "work" advisedly, because it isn't so clear that he can play the guitar as that he is a master at manipulating it--listen to his guitar on "Mushroom Cloud of Hiss" and tell me that you would describe that as "playing" the guitar). I love many, many Yo La Tengo albums, but this is the only one that gets my adrenaline going.

I like nearly song on this album. "Some Kinda Fatigue" is one of my all time favorite YLT songs and actually one of my all time favorite hard rock songs period. I love the thick layering of sound, all so dense that it doesn't seem possible that it is a mere trio. I also love the weird guitar line that drives "Out the Window. " "Five-Cornered Hat" actually sounds more like something their buddies in Chicago's Eleventh Dream Day would play. (For those outside New York and Chicago, or perhaps not even in New York, there is a pretty solid connection between Yo La Tengo and Eleventh Dream Day. I have seen them perform together on several occasions. On more than a couple of occasions Ira Kaplan has joined Eleventh Dream Day to provide a second lead guitar to Rick Rizzo. And on several occasions when I have seen Yo La Tengo in Chicago, I have seen either Rick Rizzo or Janet Bean jump on stage to guest for a song or two, perhaps most memorably at the Metro in Chicago a couple of years ago when Rick Rizzo joined them for a number, and his ex-wife and ongoing bandmate Janet Bean jumped up on stage and undid his pants during a blistering guitar solo--for the ladies in the audience, Rick wears boxers. ) And there are several lighter songs as well, like "Always Something" and "Satellite. " The only song that really disappoints me is the long, dull "Sleeping Pill. "

It is possible that this is an album that some fans of harder alternative rock might like more than the rest of the Yo La Tengo albums. Myself, I like them all, but although not at all fashionable, I will nonetheless confess that this remains my favorite YLT album, and the one that I have played the most over the past decade or so.

love the band, hate this album.
Its an earlier album that instead of hinting at the genius to come, rather shows weaknesses in the genius that did.

A guitarfest that hasn't aged so well
But it's the one that got me into Yo La Tengo in the first place--in fact, I became a raving fanatic for the group after just one listen. Time hasn't been especially kind to this album. But tht was back in '92, when grunge ruled and we were living in a happy world of post-punk guitar noise. This, by far YLT's loudest effort, fit in really well with the times. Now, in the wake of the group's increasingly experimental and atmospheric sound, "May I Sing With Me" sounds way too long and way too noisy most of the time.

The group is very sensitive about being pegged as Velvet Underground-derived, but if any album of theirs deserves that tag, this one does. The guitar solos are mostly out of the "I Heard Her Call My Name"/"Sister Ray" school of squall, and the feedback blitzkrieg at the end of "Mushroom Cloud of Hiss" may be a deliberate homage to Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music. " Other tracks sound like an update of the Dream Syndicate's "Days of Wine and Roses," itself one of the better VU-clone albums.

The problem with the album is it's just too much. Swap out two or three crunching rockers (esp. "Mushroom Cloud of Hiss") with some of the YLT outtakes from the same era (many captured on "Genius+Love") and this would be an infinitely improved album. I hate to admit it, but nearly 10 years after its release, it gives me a headache to listen to all the way through. The shorter, quieter tracks--"Always Something," "Satellite," and "Detouring America with Horns" hold up the best.

Happily, the group realized they were backing themselves into a noisy corner, and shifted styles dramatially on the followup "Painful," which has aged very well in contrast. This is still a must-hear for new YLT fans, but be warned: you will not believe this is the same band that made "And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out" (except for "Cherry Chapstick," which would fit well on "May I Sing with Me," actually).

You can see a complete list of all Yo La Tengo discography, or go back to the Yo La Tengo tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.