Sebadoh - Bakesale
by Dan MacIntosh
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Sebadoh are lo-fi pioneers, and Bakesale is the group's fifth album. It's also considered one of the act's most accessible releases. This re-release album revisits a band that really should have made a bigger mark upon the �90s alternative rock scene. Maybe these musicians were just too unassuming to succeed.
While tracks like License to Confuse and Magnet's Coil at least come close to the average sonic quality of �90s alternative rock, Not a Friend is precisely the type of recording that gives lo-fi its rather unglamorous name. The vocal sounds like it is being sung from another room � and this is the re-mastered version!
Even sonic simplicity couldn't spoil a great song like Rebound, however. The track has an irresistible guitar riff and a power-pop tambourine shake that just won't quit. Of course, lyrically, this band is the George Costanza of love: Lou Barlow doesn't think he deserves to be loved, but he'll take love wherever he can get it -- even if it's on the rebound. Rebound is also included on this reissue disc as an acoustic-guitar-accompanied version. It's not nearly as good as the original, but it's kind of cool to hear the track from an entirely different instrumental angle. On the other hand, the acoustic version of Mystery Man is extremely good. Who knows why; it just is. Speaking of bonus songs, this new set comes with a whole 25 additional songs. Some of these added cuts are downright strange, such as the spooky Hank Williams, which is not at all a honky-tonk song. MOR Backlash, on the other hand, sounds like a skipping, discordant version of Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love [Listen at your own risk, brothers and sisters].
You often wonder some artists would be without manic depression. For instance, the song Dreams, off the original Bakesale album, would have made Paul Westerberg and The Replacements sound positively peppy. It puts the low squarely in lo-fi, that's for sure. Then again, this music was originally made by mixed-up college age kids, for college age kids with complicated emotions. Somehow, Phil Collins just didn't speak to them back then. Collins only spoke to the rich and bored, about being rich and bored. Yet as harrowing as it can sometimes be, Sebadoh's Bakesale still speaks to the fragile at heart.
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Sebadoh - Bakesale
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