Peel Sessions

Galaxie 500 | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 22, 2005)
• Original Release Date: 2005
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: 20/20/20
• ASIN: B000BOH93Q
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #189,513 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Galaxie 500' Peels Sessions: Fly Me to the Moon...Languidly, May 20, 2010

By 

Peter Walenta "Peter Walenta" (Long Island, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Peel Sessions (Audio CD)

In his review of Galaxie 500 for the Fourth Edition of the Trouser Press Record Guide, (Edited by Ira Robbins, Collier Books, New York, c. 1991), Michael Pietsch captured the band's essence fairly well by stating that, "...Galaxie 500 made a virtue of lethargy" (p 271). At the time, slow was apparently not the way to go in rock if you wanted to make a hit, as proto grunge, hard core and speed metal were more commercially popular. So what does one make of a band that comes along with spare, drone-like, slow tempo, melodic rock songs that evoke hazy dream states of mind? Galaxie 500 was initially dismissed as being out of step with the times. More amusing and ironic is that lead guitarist Dean Wareham, bassist Naomi Yang and drummer Damon Krukowski were criticized for encouraging the so-called "shoe gaze" movement (which evidently wasn't cool in 1989), and yet some 15 years later were praised as being the pioneering innovators of "slow-core" rock. Granted, their music creates a calm reflective mood, but the early dismissal of Galaxie 500's music as being the sound track for the lethargic and self absorbed was too simplistic and the more recent descriptions of them being the original progenitors of slow-core rock is overly exaggerated. The truth lies somewhere in the middle in that Galaxie 500 was a vibrant, funny and very talented bunch of rock musicians who made very good (and occasionally exceptional) but not groundbreaking rock music.

Galaxie 500 Peel Sessions" (20/20/20, c. 2005, total running time 34:59), captures the band recording 8 songs for John Peel's BBC radio programs in September 1989 and October 1990. As AMG reviewer Rob Theaksoton notes, "die-hard fans will already own bootlegged copies of this with substantially worse sonic quality". After repeated listenings I can say that the sound quality of this 20/20/20 release is superb. This is great late night chill out music, and far from being lazy, there is a lot of lively guitar, bass and drum interplay going on here. The vocals which on first listen sound faint are intentionally understated, so you need to listen a bit harder to appreciate the lyrics. This was not exactly uncharted musical territory in the late 1980's. Canada's Cowboy Junkies were mining a similar Velvet Underground-influenced sound as was Galaxie 500 in that both bands played quiet music in more languid tempos and did covers of interesting songs that ultimately they reinterpreted and branded with their own style. To scrape the brutal edges off the Sex Pistols' "Submission" and still keep the songs' frustrated despair and puzzled mystery intact is quite a feat and Galaxie 500 accomplishes this admirably on Peel Sessions. My favorite tune is Galaxie's cover of Buffy Sainte Marie's 1972 song "Moonshot", which is a rather whimsical tale of folks going off into space. It's an apt tune for Galaxie 500, as they did soon after go off and break up with Dean Wareham later forming and having a bit more success with the harder edged dream pop band Luna. Flying to the moon, indeed. May "Peel Sessions" encourage you to check out not only Galaxie 500 but the original songwriters of the four cover tunes as well. 4 Stars.