overthrown

Post on behalf of M.

"I bought Material Issue’s “International Pop Overthrow” for a friend because she said she liked “Valerie Loves Me.” It cost me $2. Does anyone remember these guys? The better song is “Diane,” although you also have “Li’l Christine” and “Renee Remains the Same” to choose from.

The most interesting thing to me is manner in which the technically excellent recording completely fails the music. The production drips with 1980s reverb on the snare, the vocals, everywhere. Unfortunately, this was released in was 1991, and so the production makes this trio with 1978 pop aspirations (think The Knack) sound like an (even more) underwhelming version of Bon Jovi. Another problem is that nothing ever changes: It’s all EQ’d and compressed so that each song sounds exactly the same---the guitar is just so loud, the vocals are placed right there, etc.

It is painful, because there are some good songs (in the abstract) here, but they are outfitted in so much glossy glop that I can’t quite get into it.

I read somewhere that some engineers will randomly slide faders and turn knobs just a little during recordings in order to inject some life into recordings that would otherwise be perfect and sterile. That would have helped here."