Premier Rock Forum

Will someone please reccomend me some Yo La Tengo...
What would you consider the essentials?
I've heard them alot, like em, just don't know what album to buy.
I want to get started the right way with this band and get a strong album at first.

Any Recommendations?
Thanx

I can Hear the Heart Beat as One is fantastic! It's like a mix tape, but really it's just one band.

And then Nothing Turned itself inside out is a soft, textured, delicate record with a lot of strong emotion.

Electr-o-Pura and Painful are solid, with good songs, but not as good as the former two.


The rest of the catalogue is meh, although the Little honda ep is great.

Okay.

Faiz

I would say Electropura is a good record to start with...

Javier Ortiz

kerble wrote:I can Hear the Heart Beat as One is fantastic! It's like a mix tape, but really it's just one band.

Yeah, what he said. For sure. It's truly a wonderful album. And years on, i still find new things i like about it with each listen.

If we're talking essentials, then definitely Elect-o-pura,
May I Sing With Me, and Genius + Love = Yo La Tengo.
Genius + Love has the all intrumental disc, which is g.d.
cool.

Thanks for the help guys.

I'll start with Electropura!!!

At the risk of sounding like one of those "I like their older stuff" guys, I want to say that Yo La Tengo's non-Matador stuff is too often overlooked. Although "Fakebook," an album of mostly acoustic mostly-covers seems like the kind of thing only a completist would want, I think it's one of the best things they've ever done. And if you can find it, I've always loved "May I Sing With Me," which I find has a certain "snap" to it that's missing from the Matador albums, as good as they are.

i think with Yo La Tengo their older stuff isn't all that good...

Electr-O-Pura
I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One
And then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out

those were three amazing back-to-back albums...it's hard to decide which is my favorite...maybe Electr-O-Pura overall...but I Can Hear the Heart... has my absolute favorite song of theirs ("Damage"...it also has a lot of other stuff that's up with their best...) and there's my opinion...

I'm gonna put in another plug for the older stuff. There's an undeniable earnestness to "Ride the Tiger" and "New Wave Hot Dogs". You get the sense you're listening to a band in the throws of discovery. I like that. The fact that most of it's Velvet Underground and Modern Lovers inspired helps too.

"Drug Test" (from President Yo La Tengo) captures the simultaneous allure and repulsion of drug use like no song I've ever heard.

gmilner wrote:At the risk of sounding like one of those "I like their older stuff" guys, I want to say that Yo La Tengo's non-Matador stuff is too often overlooked. Although "Fakebook," an album of mostly acoustic mostly-covers seems like the kind of thing only a completist would want, I think it's one of the best things they've ever done. And if you can find it, I've always loved "May I Sing With Me," which I find has a certain "snap" to it that's missing from the Matador albums, as good as they are.

I definitely second "Fakebook," though it isn’t really representative of the band. It is a beautiful album!