Yo La Tengo - Electr-O-Pura

Around the time Electr-o-pura came out in 1995, American music critics were starting to recognize Yo La Tengo as a standout band. The Hoboken, New Jersey, trio lived up to that newfound billing on this release, fully realizing the fruits of what they had started on Painful. It was there that Yo La stopped thinking of themselves as a three-piece band with guitar, bass, drums, and the occasional keyboards, instead opening up walls of sound, patterns upon patterns over which Ira Kaplan's guitar soars, dives, and spirals. It's amazing that a great pop song ("Tom Courtenay"); a lopey, sleepy ballad ("Pablo and Andrea"); a droney, open-ended jam ("Blue Line Swinger," with which the band closed its shows for years); and a couple of out-and-out freak-outs could all coexist so naturally. Though there are bands that have mastered each one of those aspects better than Yo La had at this point, not one could combine them into one work as sublime as Electr-o-pura. --Randy Silver Amazon.com essential recording

Not my flavor.

"Electr-O-Pura" is one of those records that it seems like everyone likes more than I do-- it's not that it's a bad album per se, but certainly, I feel like Yo La Tengo had done (Painful) and would do (I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One) much better.

My biggest complaint about the record is its penchant for a sameness of sound-- it's a pretty dark record, full of moodiness, loops and downtempo sounds-- in fact, the record is completely dominated by these (opener "Decora", "The Ballad of Red Buckets"). None of them are terribly bad, though some ("Pablo and Andrea") are more listenable than others (the somewhat grating "Paul is Dead"). Having said that, right in the middle of all of this is a slice of pop heaven-- "Tom Courtenay" may be the best pop song in the band's catalog, with a fantastic hook, chugging guitars, a great vocal and a superb feedback-drenched lead guitar.

But like I said before, this is a record that a lot of folks rather like, so it may be something to check out-- there's many records by Yo La Tengo I prefer to this one, but as deeper exploration of the band's catalog ensues, this might be worth looking at. October 6, 2008

simply put

i'm a huge fan. this is my favorite. i want someone to bury me with a loop tape of blue line swinger playing in my box. December 9, 2007

Poor In Comparison To "I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One"

I was very disappointed in this recording. Maybe I was spoiled by purchasing I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One as my first dose of Yo La Tengo. If anyone is just surfing around Amazon and you want a great Indie CD try I Can Hear first. Outstanding recording. I promise you won't be disappointed. September 20, 2007

The best that is

A couple of months ago, a friend of mine lent me the album 'I can hear the heart...' saying "You've just got to hear this album!" I tried listening to it and got bored by the second song and gave up. Then, just a couple of days ago, i purchase my ticket to the Pitchfork music festival (mainly to see Devendra) and notice that yo la tengo's gonna be there, too. I figure what the heck, and borrow all of my friends ylt discs. I put this one on and it blew me away. I listened to the entire thing there in my kitchen without even moving. Then I listened to it again. The best track has gotta be "False alarm", I don't know why all you other reviewers hate it. Just a note about the song times: they got me. When Blue Line Swinger came on I thought "only three more minutes!" and listened to all ten thinking it was only three. Super trippy. June 14, 2006

One of Yo La Tengo's "Twin Peaks"

I wanted to lend my support to this album, which oddly tends to be seen by some critics as a mild misstep between the masterpieces Painful and I Can Hear the Heart. I think it is considerably better than Heart and about equal to Painful. As many of the reviews mention, there's a confidence on this one that allowed YLT to explore the further reaches of the noise that was woven into Painful. And yes, the noise was present on May I Sing With Me and the Evil That Men Do from President, but it was different. Those tacked on vicious feedback-laden guitar solos to songs. Here, the noise is an integral part of the songs themselves, if that makes sense. I could probably never choose between this and Painful, but suffice it to say they would both make it to the proverbial desert island.

The other reason for this review is to help clear up the confusion about the times listed for the songs. As I understand it, they lifted not only the song times, but the little descriptions (i.e., "patterns of sound are my bag right now") from some old, unrelated blues album. So it was essentially a joke, not a mistake. This is no mystery and YLT-philes could probably be more precise, but in essence, that's the reason. October 20, 2005

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