Yo La Tengo - Fakebook

Yo la Tengo released Fakebook in 1990, an album made up of a few originals and many covers, light years before social media.  The album has a very soft sound, right from the soothing country twang of Can't Forget.  Ira Kaplan sings in a soft, half whisper, bands like Belle and Sebastian may well have been listening and taking notes.  They fare best on their own material.  Barnaby, Hardly Working is revisited from its origin on President Yo La Tengo and recast as a low key strummer, with some great guitar work.  Elsewhere versions of Antonia's Griselda, Cat Stevens' Here Comes My Baby and The Flaming Groovies' You Tore Me Down are dangerously close to cheese.  

One of the strongest tracks is their own The Summer, a Georgia Hubley/Kaplan duet where they make an attempt at inventing a cool, alt-country feel.  The Hubley sung What Comes Next is in a similar vein and equally successful.  Another old Yo La Yengo song reworked, Did I Tell You channels the Velvet Underground third album sound pretty well.

So something of a flawed experiment, though it sees the band dial back the noise and invent the stripped down YLT sound.

Yo La Tengo - New Wave Hot Dogs

Yo La Tengo's second album, released in 1987, sees them go more abrasive than the debut.  As such, band workouts such as Clunk, House Fall Down and Let's Compromise are ok but sound like they were more enjoyable to record than for us to listen to.  The album works better when they shift down a gear.  Did I Tell You and Lewis have a slow, VU grind to them.  Many of the songs are very brief, Lost In Bessemer takes this to an extreme, a 78 second instrumental.  It's Alright borrows some of the melody and chords from the Rolling Stones' I'm Free.  

A Shy Dog is the most recognisable Yo La Tengo sounding track, you can hear the band inventing their 90s sound, while penultimate track No Water is the most muted and probably strongest song here, with an Ira Kaplan guitar flourish or two.  But in the main, the album is interesting to see where the band came from, but little more.