Customer Reviews

Realistic

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Gangly garage-rock guitar riffs, breathy French-accented female vocals, catchy tunes with insightful lyrics that capture the exuberance as well a good measure of the angst of youth. "In the Shadows", "No Guarantee", "Point of View", "Don't Believe a Word"--songs like these deserve better praise than I can possibly jot down here. You must listen for yourself! One of the top CD's of the 90's, I think. Their follow-up, "Apartment Life", though very good, falls into a safer pop groove. I'm looking for their third one to be the first great album of the new millenium.

Ivy is able to capture the essence of alternative college station rock without being tuneless, whiney, and just plain boring. It's a shame that this group doesn't get played on the radio, because if they did, they'd bump pseudo-intellectual indie garbage bands like Goo Goo Dolls, Matchbox 20, and Third Eye Blind straight out of the charts and off radio stations' playlists. It's soft, gorgeous, and melodious without being wimpy. It's fantastic.

I got this album after hearing someone in a record store play some of it over the loudspeakers upon having asked what group I was hearing months later I bought it and was just as impressed as I expected to be. Ivy's music is quite catchy, melodic and relaxing! Unlike alot of the thoughtless trash they deluge you with with in much of today's music Ivy has a sound that is uncommonly beautiful and rare. In short if you love catchy, Melodic groups like for example "The Cardigans" like I do and hate heavy and gloomy music you'll definitely love Ivy.

I first discovered Ivy after hearing 'Apartment Life' and loved it, even if some people said the guitars riffs weren't original. Ivy has a delightfull pop appeal to them.

I was biased to believe this album wouldn't be as good as their other work since it's now 11yrs old but surprisingly if they had released it today, I wouldn't have even suspected it was older material. Ivy's sound hasn't changed much, and in this case it's a good thing.

If you loved Apt Life, then get 'Realistic' as I would call it the sister album, same exact style, 90% as good as the original.

Although Ivy themsleves (actually a trio of Americans Andy Chase and Adam Schlesinger, with Andy's French-born wife, Dominique Durand) were rather notoriously dissatisfied by Kurt Ralske's minimalist, indiepop production of this record - they have opted for a slightly more orchestral pop approach on subsquent, self-produced albums - the stripped-down, jangly-guitars approach suits Ivy just fine. This 1994 release still contains their best batch of songs on a single album, every one of them memorable, hummable and emotionally affecting, and the melancholy but somehow propulsive quality of it all makes this an ideal album to listen to on lonely road trips. Dominique was also singing at the time with a less confident, more whispery quality, along with a charmingly heavy accent, which successive years of living in the US have tended to water down. Ivy might nowadays even find the exceedingly twee cover art a bit embarrassing, but for those of us who remember the twee era fondly, Realistic is a keeper. Make that: a classic.

If you are interested in buying an Ivy CD than buy "Apartment Life", definitely their best CD so far..and definitely underappreciated...."Realistic" is the beginning of what came in "Apartment Life"....It is a good CD but not as polished as the latter....Still if you are an Ivy fan than buy this CD because it is still good, just not as great as "Apartment Life"...the songs tend to run into each other kind of sounding the same....but again it is a good CD, just not great.

This album is filled with songs that I'd consider quite cinematic. When I'm feeling particularly "cool" while I walk down the street, "Over," the last track on this album, is the song that would be playing. "Get Enough" "Don't Believe a Word" and "Beautiful" would be wonderful film starters, remenicent of The Breakfast Club or Some Kind of Wonderful. In fact, all of these songs coincide with scenes from many of John Hughes great teen epics. It's just great.

Amazingly gorgeous and moody pop music. These guys are an American treasure. We should feel proud to have them representing the U.S. in this music world so dominated by (deservedly) great British bands. Wow!

First heard of this band after watching a scene in the "Something about Mary" movie. I couldn't tell if the artist was LUSH or STEREOLAB as the lead singer has quite a similar voice. A lot of the reviews say "Apartment Life" is the best, but I found that the album was good but a little too moody for me and slower paced. Dominique Durand's voice is very hazy and moody and the faster paced songs on "Realistic" create a good balance. Thus, I decided to go for this album, which is their first one and rock's out a bit more.

Do yourself a favour and have a listen to this band, we first heard there music in the Stephen King movie Kingdom Hospital, they are a great easy listening group, the female lead singer has a great voice and every song is a hit, try them out and you will never look back, they rock.