They Yo La Tengo

It's encouraging that nearly four decades into one of the most impressive careers in indie rock, Yo La Tengo are still finding new ways of doing things. On 2018's There's A Riot Going On, the band upended their usual process of writing material and then re-creating it in the studio by setting up recording gear in their rehearsal space and capturing their music in a freer and more spontaneous manner. For that album, YLT handed the tracks over to John McEntire (of Tortoise and the Sea and Cake) for mixing, but 2023's This Stupid World sees them cutting out the last middleman in their process – this time, the band mixed the tracks themselves, and for the first time they've made an album with essentially no outside input.

Yo La Tengo - Extra Painful (2014) {2CD 30th Anniversary Matador OLE 1063-2 rec 1993}
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© 1993, 2014 Matador Records | OLE 1063-2
Rock / Indie Rock

This year (2014) marks Yo La Tengo’s 30th anniversary, and they’re celebrating it by reissuing their sixth album, Painful, released nearly a decade into their career. The cardigan-cozy sound of the record effectively established Yo La Tengo as indie rock’s great romantics, and featured a couple of significant firsts for the trio.

Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass (2006) {Matador OLE 692-2}
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© 2006 Matador Records | OLE 692-2
Rock / Indie Rock / Alternative / Dream Pop

After the elegant, introspective romantic narratives of And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out and the beautifully crafted but restrained pop textures of Summer Sun, it was hard not to wonder if Yo La Tengo was ever going to turn up the amps and let Ira Kaplan go nuts on guitar again. For more than a few fans "Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind," the opening cut from YLT's 2006 album I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass, will feel like the reassuring sound of a homecoming – ten minutes of noisy six-string freak-out, with James McNew's thick, malleable basslines and Georgia Hubley's simple but subtly funky drumming providing a rock-solid framework for Kaplan's enthusiastic fret abuse.

Yo La Tengo - Stuff Like That There (2015) {Matador OLE-1079-2}
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© 2015 Matador Records | OLE 1079-2
Rock / Indie Rock / Alternative / Dream Pop

These days, every band seems eager to honor the anniversary of one of its landmark albums, usually in the form of a concert tour or an expanded reissue, and even Yo La Tengo have gotten into the act – a quarter century after they released their endlessly charming 1990 LP Fakebook, in which they covered a handful of their favorite songs and reworked a few of their own numbers in semi-acoustic fashion, YLT have recorded what amounts to a sequel, 2015's Stuff Like That There. Just like a sequel to a 1980s horror movie, Stuff Like That There follows the template of the original as closely as possible – there are two new songs, three remakes from the YLT back catalog, and nine covers, which range from the instantly recognizable (Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," inspired by Al Green's version) to the thoroughly obscure (unless you're a Hoboken pop obsessive or a James McNew completist, "Automatic Doom" by the Special Pillows is probably not on your hit parade).

There’s a riot going on. You don’t need me, or Yo La Tengo, to tell you that. These are dark times, in our heads as much as in the streets. It’s easy to lose contact with the ground. Confusion and anxiety intrude into daily life and cause you to lose your compass. There are times that call for anthems, something to lift you out of your slump and put fire in your feet. And sometimes what is needed is a balm, a sound that will wrap around you and work out the knots in your neck.

Yo La Tengo - President Yo La Tengo + New Wave Hot Dogs (1993) {City Slang 04925-27 rec 1987, 1989}
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© 1987, 1989, 1993 City Slang / Yo La Tengo | 04925-27
Rock / Indie Rock / Alternative / Dream Pop

Two records now available as a single CD, these really show off Yo La Tengo's ability to create musical extremes. New Wave Hot Dogs has the firm pop sense and strong songwriting of the debut, but President Yo La Tengo offers up a little more free-form skronk in the ten-minute live version of "The Evil That Men Do," a gloriously squalling, over-the-top crash-and-bash session which proves how liberating and fun sonic dissonance can be. Just in case you don't like that sort of thing, "Evil" also shows up as a straight-ahead folk-rock track. This is a great collection of material that, as well as anything else they have recorded, gets to the heart of what makes this band tick.