Customer Reviews

Innocence & Experience

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I first heard about the Blake Babies when I was reading an article about Evan Dando (lead singer of the Lemonheads). I read that he had done some background singing with the band, so I went out and bought my first Blake Babies CD, Innocence and Experience. This CD reveals the strong voice of Julianna Hatfield and the talent that the whole band can produce. It's worth adding to your CD collection!

Juliana Hatfield's early band the Blake Babies released this album late in their career with songs from earlier albums (including Earwig and Sunburn). Rain is a great song that is seen on here as the demo version, it's a great song, however I did perfer the original released version). 'Lament' is the best song on here, and is also the best Blake Babies song of all time in my opinion. As a Lemonheads fan I enjoyed hearing Evan Dando's voice on several of the tracks including 'Lament'. All in all it's an excellent cd that most any fans of Juliana will love... Long live the Blake Babies
~B

The Blake Babies have always been a bit of an engima to me-- Juliana Hatfield remains one of my favorite performers, but I've just never been able to get into her old band-- I picked up a copy of "Sunburn" years ago and couldn't get into it. But recently I saw a copy of this compilation, "Innocence and Experience", for next to nothing, and I gave it a spin.

I'm thinking in the end that I didn't give "Sunburn" enough of a chance. This compilation has convinced me to pull it back off my racks and give it another listen. Either I wasn't ready to hear the material or I didn't give it a good enough listen, because this stuff is fantastic.

The band, consisting of Juliana Hatfield, John Strohm, and Freda Boner put together punky jangle pop music-- glistening guitars trade back and forth with distorted washes, and throughout a crisp, clear bass rings alongside rocksteady drumming-- less aggressive than punk but more interesting than pop. Hatfield's vocal, innocent and crisp, soars above all the preceedings.

A few things I noted about it-- the material is largely reminiscent of Hatfield's debut album, but with better songwriting. Hatfield's voice tends to lack confidence as it did on her debut, but at times she digs in nicely ("Sanctify"). The influence Strohm had on Hatfield's guitar playing can't be underestimated (check his solo on the "Star" demo), and the music feels exciting and immediate, and more to the point for something recorded quite a long time ago now (over fifteen years for some of this material), it sounds fresh and new.

Evidentally there's a couple demos and a live track there were unreleased before this compilation for fans, again I'm not too familiar with the material, but it certainly is well worth a listen for fans of alternative movements, I'm glad I gave this is a second listen.

If this band ever exhibited a shred of wit this drab retrospective offering is no evidence of it. It's difficult to imagine what The Frogs' fans find in this yawnfest. Hunt down a copy of It's Only Right and Natural instead of buying this cd.

This is perhaps THE WORST CD I have EVER heard in my life! Hatfield is horrible on vocals (and I have one of her solo albums that she is much better on). (...)