Customer Reviews

WhatFunLifeWas

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When the history of the 1990s music is written, Dallas, Texas' Bedhead will likely not make the final draft, and I haven't decided whether that's just a shame or a total travesty. Ask anyone who owns "What Fun Life Was" to describe the first time they heard it. Ask them what it was like to first hear these eleven songs that contain not traditional songs but sonic components brilliantly arranged and brought one-by-one into each piece, silence followed by sound, a single guitar, then drums, then a buildup into something the entire band gets behind, usually ending with some of the most astonishing jams in the history of rock. Beginning with the quiet-to-roar of "Liferaft," through the crazed subtlety of "Unfinished," the sweet waltz of "Foaming Love," and the dramatic ending of "Wind Down"....aw, hell, there's not a bad track in the bunch. Yeah, yeah, the obvious 'references' people give for the uninitiated are Velvet Underground and Galaxie 500, but that's giving Bedhead way too little credit. They created something all their own here, and it's up to us missionaries who were lucky enough to stumble upon it the first time in '94 to carry The Word to the masses. Or at least to a few smart, open-minded people who would like to have their minds blown one more time. Everyone I have ever played this album for has gone out and bought their own copy within 24 hours. Get the message? Run, don't walk.

Truly a fantastic band. All of the their albums are worth owning--which is a rare thing to say about any band. This, their first album, I think is their best though. All the songs are fully developed and the album as a whole is magnificent.

I'm more than a little disappointed in the lack of attention that Bedhead, and this album in particular, ever received. Simply put, I think they were an incredibly consistent band, and this album is their finest. True, all of their discs are somwhat indistinguishable, but why mess with a good thing? Not every band can be like U2 and change sounds to fit the musical climate of the time.

Bedhead managed to find a unique style free of any gloss or gimmicks. They sorta reminded me of Yo La Tengo, in that they were somehow both soft and loud at the same time. They were the only "chill" music to go heavy on the guitars, that's for sure. Their songs were at least able to set a speciific mood, and evoke feelings on every listen. Track #8, Powder, is probably the best example of this. ...

I encourage anyone reading this to give Bedhead a serious shot at earning a spot in your music collection, you wont be disappointed.

how often do little things things that would skip past your eyes a flash of light on the pond change one's outlook forever?

so it is with bedhead and this album if you don't like trance music or don't like obscure bands this is definately the album that will bring you into this wonderful world of music driven by emotional swells and softspoken harmonious lyric flowing with the good kind of theological and personal content found in songs like living well or haywire that will make you happy to wake up every morning rolling from your bed pushing aside the curtain knowing that your bedhead will deeply touch the lives of thousands.

i've never heard any other band succeed (much less try) in creating a sound that is quiet, sometimes morose and ecstatically lush all at the same time. and then somehow as comfortable as an armchair. there is an easiness to each song as if the band just breathes them out. beautifully produced. listen to it as much as you can until you are saturated with the sound. it's been one of my favorites for years. saw them live 10 years ago (?) with stars of the lid, who are great as well.

i can't remember how i discovered this band but wish i did so i could buy a drink for whoever told me about them. be sure to tell all fans of slowdive, explosions in the sky, iron and wine, codeine to check out bedhead. and, fans of bedhead, check out seam "the pace is glacial" if you haven't.

The vocals are delightfully low-key; the guitars ring and intertwine with eachother while complementing the vocals - when there are any vocals - perfectly; the bass is often subdued but rises and falls with immediacy when the song demands it. An incomparably melodic mix of post-rock tinted with alt-country, avant, punk... Imitated but never surpassed.

Understated, Velvets-inspired vocals dance along the surface of three layered guitars as they jangle, chime, and chug their way from a whisper to a roar. Each note is carefully chosen: the indie rock answer to Miles Davis.

There isn't anything quite like the ride you take when listening to the first three tracks on this album, it's like a living rollecoaster, you're all over the place on a vehicle, but you know this vehicle isn't plain machine, it drips with human energy, hurt, grace, and the recoil from the last trauma. Three guitars don't lend to hammering you over the head, but various different sounds,and all great. In addition great song composition, something very much lacking in rock today. A solid album, and no filler.

This album defies classification. From the very first track there is a raw and very real energy that makes this one of the most exciting recordings I've ever heard. Don't listen to anyone that tries to describe Bedhead as anything. They are unique. I guarantee that anybody who describes Bedhead as "slow" or "sleepy" has only listened to the bare surface of their recordings. In fact, more goes on in a 3 minute Bedhead song than most people hear in their lives; the beautiful thing is you don't realize it until it's over.

You may wonder why so many reviewers are ranking this unfortunately little-known CD five stars when so few albums even by the most acclaimed artists deserve such accolades. Bedhead's self-effacing, restrained, and somber mien hides, if imperfectly, a steady pulse, a marching waltz-beat married to wistful vocals that come off not fey or strained but genuinely emotive. Low (Trance), Velvets (Syndicate), Seam (layers of sound stacked and growing), REM (South leaning by Southwest) all may come to mind, but there is more here: a dessicated, wide-open prairie spaciousness that seeps in to these panoramic portrayals of longing.

That much of this album is carried off neither at a whispery slowcore pace or a frenetic shouting bark, but that the golden, if often also greyly muted, mean recalls both extremes by its own moderation is no small feat, and I do not know how these five Texan young men hit the target this time, but they did.

Before I heard this, I thought their final CD, Transaction de Novo, was their pinnacle, but after repeated listenings, WhatFunLifeWas matches its peaks and gains a bit in the dead heat due to its more consistent mood. There's not a sound wrong on either record. (Also, find the records by their distinguished musical aftermath, "The New Year.") There are a couple of weaker songs, by comparison, especially "Foaming Love;" about a third of the songs on the CD sound as if the band's taking after Red House Painters in their marathon mopes, Replacements in their waning years, or REM in their muddled stage. None of these songs, however, are that weak, although I think I would rank the album lower than 5, about 4.5 overall.

But, as music for the morning after or after the night before, this should take the very short shelf of CDs to have by your bedside, or, for me, a long early-morning, pre-dawn commute, ideally on a still, overcast, expectantly silent atmosphere that wraps the music into its own hesitant air, as if waiting for a release of tension that will never arrive, but a state of expectation so deliciously sustained. The magic here is in the journey each song maps out.