Customer Reviews

Prisoners of Love: A Smattering of Scintillating [2 disc set]

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Yo La Tengo has reached the point in their career where it's hard to figure out where to start with their catalog. Thankfully, they've put out "Prisoners of Love: A Smattering of Scintilating Senescent Songs 1985-2003", perhaps as good an overview as anyone could hope to put together of the band.

Presenting over two hours of music-- the collection's pretty much got all the aspects of the band's sound-- grumbling, down alt-rockers ("Shaker"), fantastic, noisy pop songs ("Sugarcube", "Tom Courtenay"), bright, modern, edgy pop explorations ("Autumn Sweater"), folk excursions ("Stockholm Syndrome"), gentle ballads ("Little Eyes") and the truly bizarre ("Blue Line Swinger", "Nuclear War"). If you don't know what you'll think about the band, this is the place to start. It's where I started after half a decade of not knowing where.

A quick note-- if you're the type that gets obsessive over bands, you might want to spend the couple bucks and get Prisoners of Love: A Smattering of Scintillating Senescent Songs 1985-2003 [3 disc] with a bonus disc of rarities instead. You'll be happy for them later.

This album is way better than I ever expected! It's my first Yo La Tengo album, and I highly recommend it for people who are new to them also. I especially like the song "little eyes". The base guitar is so rad!

Why there aren't more bands like YLT? After 19 years of given this
rustic garage rock mixed with low tunes and folk, they haven't been tempted to rearrenge their basic sound to the masses. Maybe they will not sell a lot, but nowdays, in times when the record industry is going nuts, is better to be faithful to your grounds, than just another pimp sound band. A great collection, inspiring, and basically all what I need to cover my hears with sounds of pure old rock and roll.