Matador Records
2005
Prisoners of Love
About This Album
I was a bit startled when I read the title of this compilation and it struck me that Yo La Tengo have been making records for almost 20 years now. As artists who have always followed their own path, Yo La Tengo have been making timeless music ever since they first started out, and if that description sounds a bit grand, little of the stuff on this set suggests the moment in rock history in which it was recorded ("Little Eyes" from 2003's Summer Sun sits comfortably beside "Lewis" from 1987's New Wave Hot Dogs, and you can't say that about the work of many other bands that were considered hip in either year), so until the band (and Matador Records) chose to point it out to me, I never gave much thought to how long they'd been doing this stuff. Still mixing up folk, noise, pop, and indie rock after all this time, and still doing it with melodic intelligence and joy, Yo La Tengo don't seem like likely candidates for a career retrospective -- their average fan owns all of their albums, and with nearly all of their material in print, it's not as if curious newbies have limited options for checking out their music. But if you've ever dreamed of a "Yo La Tengo Greatest Hits" album, Prisoners of Love: A Smattering of Scintillating Senescent Songs, 1985-2003 is that notion made into a fine reality.
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 1,3,5,6,7,8,10,11 and 12)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.

Disc 2 (try tracks 1,5,7,8,11,12 and 13)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.

 
report abuse