 The Vaselines wrote songs so sloppy and catchy and funny that they sound like complete accidents even after you’ve heard them 50 times—and they’re enticing enough to play that often. Enter The Vaselines is essentially the twee Scottish group’s entire discography twice over: 19 tracks recorded 1987-89 (previously included on The Way Of The Vaselines, which Sub Pop originally issued in 1992, spurred by superfan Kurt Cobain) plus a second disc of unreleased demos (“Rosary Job” and “Red Poppy” are good unknowns) and stage performances from Bristol (way choppy) and London (tight and frisky). But the original sound of The Way has been greatly cleaned up here, and a few songs’ endings have been elongated slightly. Of course, The Vaselines’ then-couple leaders, Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee, wrote and/or sang several songs that Nirvana would cover: the rope-skipping “Son Of A Gun,” the cheeky crush anthem “Molly’s Lips,” a sunny, ramshackle run-through of “Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam.” But those are just the ones you know; the ones you should begin with are the gleefully funny electro remake of Divine’s “You Think You’re A Man” and the rowdy guitars of “Monsterpussy.” (“Meee-ooowww!”)...full text |
Kurt Cobain made plenty of mistakes in his life, but loving the Vaselines was not among them. Nirvana covered three of their songs, and as Kurt might tell you if he were alive today, from 1986 to 1989 the Vaselines were the best pop band around. Sub Pop was smart enough to cash in on the Nirvana connection, and in 1992 released the career retrospective The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History. From the stomping, singalong opener "Son of a Gun" to the distorted and nasty "Let's Get Ugly" 17 tracks later, this collection was the Holy Grail of indie pop. In 2009, hot off of Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee's reunion (and appearance at Sub Pop's 20th anniversary bash), the label remastered the studio recordings, added a second disc of demos and live performances, and retitled the whole thing Enter the Vaselines.
The Vaselines' music is unfailingly amateurish, almost completely silly, occasionally quite perverted, and always about sex. It has the simplicity and ear-grabbing melodies of the best bubblegum, the loud and semi-competent guitars of punk, and some of the attitude and lo-fi sound of their noise rock contemporaries like the Jesus and Mary Chain. They also had a charmingly unschooled vocal approach (Kelly sounding cool and tough, McKee sweet as pie) with a fleeting acquaintance to pitch but tons of humor, attitude, and style. Throw in a bunch of religion and add brilliantly simple choruses that will have you singing along the first time you hear the songs (as well as the thousandth), and you've got genius. This brilliance shines brightest on the band's first two EPs, which were recorded by Stephen Pastel and contain the songs the group was best known for, like "Molly's Lips," "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam," and "Son of a Gun." The full-length album Dum-Dum, recorded without Pastel's guidance and with a bulked-up, rockier sound, is still quite amazing and features some timelessly cool songs like "Sex Sux (Amen)," which includes the immortal line "Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost/I'm the Sacred Host with the most," the rip-roaring "Monsterpussy," and the hilarious "The Day I Was a Horse." Taken together, the band's official output is brainy, funny, sexy, catchy pop music at its best....full text |
It’s tempting to start a review of Sub Pop’s lush, loving new Vaselines retrospective with some comments on Kurt Cobain’s role in their popularity—ruminations on his early embrace of Earth and the Butthole Surfers and the Pixies and his overwhelmingly astute critical perspective on his own band—but it’d be better and fairer to start with “Son of a Gun,” just like the retrospective does, just like the band did. Because “Son of a Gun,” the first song on the Vaselines’ first EP and so the first one here, is one of the best songs ever: a swirling juggernaut of blue sky sentimentality delivered in thin fair melodies over an infinite snare crack, a field of strums sprouting bottle rockets of counter-melodies like grass. It provides more reasons to enjoy the sound of a guitar than most music of this decade combined. I’m so for real right now.
So it’s with a large caveat that I note to Vaselines newcomers that nothing else on Enter The Vaselines approaches “Son of a Gun,” because pretty much nothing else approaches that song ever, right. But like, say, Underground Kingz (2007) without “International Player’s Anthem,” there’s still a wealth here to love. No wonder Cobain—really, an uberfan—loved this band! The Vaselines are a music nerd’s Platonic ideal: a flashfire of beautiful pop music, simple and elegant and sometimes sad, sometimes lovely, sometimes sardonic, shot through with handsome boy/girl melodies delivered via a handsome boy/girl couple, dirty and sweet in equal measure like fucking a longtime crush. Enter The Vaselines is equal parts Cramps and Velvet Underground but lit from within by an obsession with this contrast between these two voices, male and female....full text |
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