Blonde Redhead "Melody Of Certain Damaged Lemons": C/D?

This is where they ditched the Sonic Youth copycat tag and sculpted their defining statement of art rock psychodrama. Wedding their angular tendencies and all-American discord to their dreamy melodicism and Euro sophistication, they finally get the sweet to vicious balance just right and set the stage for their excursions into ever more ethereal horizons. Classic? Very.

they shirt look like a dishrag, dud

I don't listen to this record as much as Misery Is A Butterfly but it's still wonderful. In Particular, in particular, is so great.

I love Mia Violenta, Expression and Lemons and their live show from this era was "best thing going". I am of the minority but not unheard-of opinion that with Misery this band went south in a big way, live, too

Classic. Possibly skewed from the fact that this was my introduction to Blonde Redhead, but it's my favorite out of all their albums (although Misery Is A Butterfly is right up there).

early albums were awesome

this was also my intro, and then in my senior year of hs i listened to it and fake can be just as good pretty much constantly. it's been a while since i listened to misery, but at the time it seemed to be a well-performed path that i didn't want to follow them down

I am of the minority but not unheard-of opinion that with Misery this band went south in a big way, live, too

otm. This album and live era were fantastic. Four years later, I was shocked at how boring Misery was and haven't thought much about the band in the intervening years.

The drumming is a secret weapon on this record (and subsequent ones, actually).

great alb that i never listen to

I love later-period Blonde Redhead (that kind of dreamy pop is right up my street) and I'm a bit scared to delve into their pre-Lemons stuff. Perhaps I should take a deep breath and give it a go.

Good point by vmajestic about the drumming being a "secret weapon" on BR records.

For me, the pattern with BR albums is that every one has two or three amazing tracks, with the rest varying in quality, and it's a matter of personal taste which album or era you prefer. Misery and Vita Violenta are the most consistent. Expression and Fake are like the 'difficult' pair but their angularity made for a more exciting, dynamic live performance than the later LPs. 23 and Lemons are strong but tail off a bit towards the end. Penny Sparkle was more or less universally panned but, despite its lack of the twins' singing/guitar/drums, I think it could be someone's favourite. This year is their 20th anniversary, isn't it? I wish someone like The Quietus would do some kind of appreciation piece on them.

Just happened to dig this out a month or two ago. Listened to it in the car for a few days, it was fun to rediscover. "Classic" might be overstating the case, but it's a good album. Never saw them live, wish I had.

As I mentioned in the Penny Sparkle thread, this record essentially functions as a Kazu solo record and is more or less a failed experiment as far as that goes.

The Penny Sparkle record, that is.

If you like their later stuff, just go chronologically backward until you hit a record and then stop. Their evolution has been pretty linear if you ask me. In reverse order it gets less dreamy, more angular, and eventually more like straight ahead 90s indie.

*until you hit a record you don't like*

i'm in the "they peaked with 'melody of certain damaged lemons'" camp but 23 is better than most of the other late-period albums, which i generally find pleasant but dull

23 is good but it has a weird pace to it. Kazu doesn't show up until the 4th or 5th track if I recall correctly. I never heard Penny Sparkle.