Summer Sun | 
 enlarge
| Artist: Yo La Tengo
Label: Matador Records
Category: Music
List Price: $11.98
Buy Used: $2.99
You Save: $8.99 (75%)
New (34) Used (18) from $2.99
Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 54815
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 4.9 x 0.3
MPN: 10548
UPC: 744861054825
EAN: 0744861054825
ASIN: B00008GEKS
Release Date: April 8, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Tracks:
| • | Beach Party Tonight | | • | Little Eyes | | • | Nothing But You and Me | | • | Season of the Shark | | • | Today Is the Day | | • | Tiny Birds | | • | How to Make a Baby Elephant Float | | • | Georgia Vs. Yo la Tengo | | • | Don't Have to Be So Sad | | • | Winter A-Go-Go | | • | Moonrock Mambo | | • | Let's Be Still | | • | Take Care - Yo La Tengo, Chilton, Alex |
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Any album with Summer Sun as its title and "Beach Party Tonight" as the opening track has to be the soundtrack of tanned flesh, cold beer, and killer waves, right? Not if it's the product of three New Jersey bohos who know, from personal experience or their record collections, that summer is also the place to find surfers afraid of the water and sun-poisoned girls afraid of going home alone, again. Although not quite as cohesive or instantly captivating as the band's 2000 breakthrough, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out, Summer Sun is crafted from a similar hushed and hypnotic mold. Most of the 13 songs are built on a simple foundation of lo-fi guitar, bass, and brushed drums, then finished off with swirling horns, insistent piano figures, or organ. Especially good are the Pet Sounds-like pocket symphony "Tiny Birds," the beat-groove-powered "Moonrock Mambo," and the album-closing cover of Big Star's "Take Care." This last song is re-imagined as a country lament with pleading pedal-steel guitar and singer Georgia Hubley sounding like Nico fronting a lounge band on the boardwalk of a beach town headed toward post-Labor Day oblivion. Ah, summer. --Keith Moerer
Album Description
A subtle stylistic shift from its predecessor (And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out). Upbeat, swinging, and sweet, but no less haunting. 'An ethereal wonder' - US News And World Report. 'Yo La Tengo has divided its devotion to the extremes of popular music, playing sweetly melodic pop songs and feedback-driven noise-rock with equally mesmerizing results'. 13 tracks packaged in a Digipak. Matador. 2003.
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Cooled off. October 15, 2008
Michael Stack (North Chelmsford, MA USA)
"Summer Sun" was the second album by Yo La Tengo finding them exploring a much more cooled off direction, trading the noise and feedback that decorated their previous records for quiet riffs, gentle vocals, and swirling sounds. And like its predecessor, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out, there's little on "Summer Sun" to dislike, but again like its predecessor, there's little that catches my attention.
The album pretty much moves from one downtempo, quiet number ("Today is the Day") to another ("Don't Have to Be So Sad") and while there's the occasional standout (the absolutely lovely "Little Eyes" comes to mind), by and large there's a bit too much of a sameness for me. There's a few exceptions (funky piano and wah guitar workout "Georgia vs. Yo La Tengo"), but by and large, "Summer Sun" doesn't do much to catch my attention.
Truth to be told, if I didn't know what came next when I wrote this, I'd be talking about how Yo La Tengo had gotten old. A lot of folks really like this stuff, but I find "Summer Sun" to be missing the fire of their earlier records.
 Spacey, diverse, mellow alt-rock June 3, 2006
OneLove (so fla)
3 1/2 stars
Focused, even in it's apparent lo-fi laziness of summer sloth, there are plenty of beautiful, soft ideas flourishing about, although many might not have been brought to complete fruition. Nevertheless, the breezy nature of the material serves the theme well, and all fans who seem disappointed in the face of greater, subtly intense musical statements on other records must step back and realize this is still an accomplished effort from a solid unit. The cheerful moods of the sun in summer are translated, distorted, and satirized all in an easy to digest format of pseudosunsoaked fun. For all it's simplicity, the production values imbue even the slightest melodic experiment with a tonal depth that gives more replay value then your typical straightforward alternative rock, which is one of the key ingredients that has helped separate this band from countless imitators.
 The Best Album of 2003 October 12, 2005
Dan Mohr (Minneapolis, MN, USA)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Say you had to discover what Yo La Tengo's Summer Sun LP is all about on the basis of three songs only. Then, take the opening ambient hymn (or prayer?) Beach Party Tonight, with its almost meditational refrain of "I'm on my knees"; the pop-trance ditty How To Make A Baby Elephant Float, with its gentle and delicately bouncing melodies hopscotching between piano and flute solos; and the jaw-droppingly rapturous, elegaic, hypnotic quasi-tribal free-jazz 10-minute magnum opus Let's Be Still - and you have not just the very best work of Yo La Tengo's entire career, but some of the most astonishingly beautiful music ever made anywhere, by anyone.
Even without these three alt-pop masterpieces, the remainder of the album is certainly as good as anything found off YLT's 2000 LP And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out (the gorgeous closing track of which, Night Falls On Hoboken, hinted at the lush and delicate splendor to be achieved in the sessions to come). Summer Sun may not contain anything as immediately hooky or catchy as Let's Save Tony Orlando's House or You Can Have It All from And Then Nothing, but it's far more beautiful and revelatory upon successive listens. In particular, Little Eyes is a rousing (yet cleverly subdued) folk-rock number; Don't Have To Be So Sad is a hypnotic lover's prayer spoken-sung over a pitter-pattering drum machine, piano and bass; and drummer Georgina Hubley's purely longing, utterly affectless and yet completely enchanting vocal turns on ballads Today Is The Day and album closer Take Care make me wish that she took over lead vocals much more often. Note to YLT fans - by all means please seek out the rarities Dreaming and Magnet off the bonus third disc of the trio's latest Prisoners Of Love best-of compilation to hear more of Hubley's thoroughly unpretentious yet exquisite singing - if only these two songs had replaced some of the less remarkable filler on Summer Sun, we might be talking about one of the best albums ever made. As is, the best album of 2003 and one of the very finest musical offerings halfway through our current decade is certainly nothing to scoff at.
Finally - A Summer Album You can kill Yourself To May 8, 2005
jon hay
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
It's the album I've spent my whole life waiting for - a summer soundtrack the O.C. wouldn't touch with a barge pole (that's a large stick for the nautically uninitiated) and that you can slash your wrists to. No, I kid you people. But the cdnow.com precis was spot on - this is the summer album for goths, nerds, geeks, tweakers, stoners, sniffy-sniffers, mods, teddy-boys, grungers, yokels, techno-bots and anyone else who is genuinely disturbed by the beach and its associated rituals. Lock yourself in your room, ignore the glorious sunshine outside and prepare for the end of days (it's revelations people!)
 Mediocre? December 20, 2004
Paul H. (USA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I really didn't understand the scathing reviews this album got. It's no I Can Hear The Heart..., Painful, or And Then Nothing Turned Itself..., but it's still a strong record. Really, point out one terrible thing about this record. I can't see it. It's beautiful. It may be like And Then Nothing... minus a "Cherry Chapstick," but I honestly enjoyed the record. Like Low and bands of that ilk, it's soothing music that's perfect for drifting off into slumber to. "Today Is The Day," "Little Eyes," and "Season Of The Shark" are excellent. Hell, even the instrumental opener "Beach Party Tonight" is stunning. Yes, it's no classic, but I guess when you're in Yo La Tengo's position, putting out a record that isn't a classic but still very strong is just as bad as putting out a pile of crap. Summer Sun is good, trust me.
|
|
|
