Artist: The Apples In Stereo
Title: #1 Hits Explosion
Label: Yep Roc
Genre: Indie
Bitrate: 231kbit av.
Time: 00:52:28
Size: 91.21 mb
Rip Date: 2009-08-31
Str Date: 2009-09-01
01. Energy 3:32
02. Go 3:14
03. Strawberryfire 4:21
04. Tidal Wave (Radio Remix) 3:25
05. Please 2:27
06. The Rainbow 2:40
07. Seems So 3:19
08. Same Old Drag 3:23
09. The Bird That You Can't See 3:55
10. Shine A Light 3:21
11. Cases Suggestive Of... 2:52
12. Ruby 3:06
13. Signal In The Sky 2:58
14. Can You Feel It 4:10
15. Winter Must Be Cold 3:16
16. Sun Is Out 2:29
Release Notes:
The title is a joke, except not-- the Apples in Stereo have never had a
real hit, but singer/songwriter/producer Robert Schneider's
long-running crew has always been attracted to the sound of hits, the
aesthetics of hits, and the melodies of (specific) hits. They've just
never had much time for the economic framework of hits, and although
Sire co-released Tone Soul Evolution back in 1997 when it briefly
looked like anything could blow up, the Apples have generally presented
themselves as a DIY operation. Their home-brewed approximation of
late-60s psychedelic pop is removed both temporally and culturally from
the audience they often pretend they're playing to. (They've also
barely released any singles: they're an album band and a live act.)
It turns out, though, that isolating songs from their records and
scrambling their chronology does them neither good nor harm. This
best-of spanning the six albums they've made in the last decade and a
half is their most straightforward record: no trippy gestures or
between-song links, thanks, just Schneider's better hooks lined up
end-to-end, plus a couple of showcases for now-departed drummer Hilarie
Sidney. (The one non-album track is probably the Apples' most widely
exposed song, the adorable Powerpuff Girls soundtrack contribution
"Signal in the Sky [Let's Go]".)
Schneider was arguably the engine of the Elephant 6 collective, the guy
whose work ethic and low-budget ingenuity turned his friends' dreams
and jams into actual records like In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and
Dusk at Cubist Castle. His greatest weakness as a frontman is that he
has nothing in particular to say lyrically ("It's gonna be all right/
It's gonna be all right, uh-huh, yeah"); the strength that covers up
for it is that he's figured out all the tricks of 40-year-old psych-pop
production, chief among which is keeping something new and ear-grabbing
jumping out of the speakers every few seconds. (Schneider's never heard
a backing vocal he didn't like, especially if it sounds like something
John Lennon could have sung.) He also likes to work in stray bits of
melody from 40-year-old records: the very first line of the first song
here, "Energy", echoes Jackie DeShannon's "Put a Little Love in Your
Heart", and "Seems So" suggests an intimate familiarity with the
Beatles' "You Won't See Me".
The Apples' sound has been remarkably consistent over time; aside from
the ELO tendencies and digitalisms that turn up on the four songs here
from 2007's New Magnetic Wonder, this set could just as well document a
single year in the life of a band, and it wouldn't be clear what year.
(The unfancy crunch of 2002's "Please" is the only real nod to their
.38 Special-ish live sound.) What's missing from #1 Hits Explosion is a
sense of why a hitless, consistent album act needs a retrospective. If
it were the only Apples record, it'd be a shock and a delight. Given
that there's been only one new album by the band in the past seven
years, though, it feels like a time-marking gesture-- a mixtape whose
only argument about the Apples is how reliable they are.
sire@hush.ai