#17 - Yuck - Yuck

Yuck - Yuck 

Fat Possum, 2011

Summer of 2011 was the Summer of Listening to Yuck’s eponymous debut a thousand times. Jenny and I listened to this album and pretty much nothing else. The band took the best of the Alternative Rock greats, ran them through their British sensibilities and alarming ear for melody, and turned out one of the most blissful wall-to-wall indie rock records of the decade. It was a spectacular debut, and everything was great until frontman Daniel Blumberg left the band and everything went to hell. The group soldiered on without Blumberg and released the bloodless Glow & Behold in 2013 (I feel like my assessment of the album from 2013 holds up, and the title track definitely sounds like a mashup of the Teenage Fanclub songs “Guiding Star” and “December” and that is their TITLE TRACK woof) and the equally bloodless Stranger Things in 2016. They’re not terrible records, there are worse things you could listen to, but they were decidedly not Yuck. It’s not like Daniel Blumberg was the engine though, because his 2018 solo album Minus was about as boring as it gets. 

And yet, when everyone was together, they made Yuck, and no matter what happened after 2011, this album never gets old. The pure pop bliss of “Georgia,” the slow-burn showstopper “Shook Down,” the simple loveliness of “Suicide Policeman,” the Sonic Youth tinged freedom of “Get Away.” Strangely, for me it’s a record of moments. The songs are tremendous but each song has a particular moment where that sticks in my mind (the “you could be my destiny” part at the end of “Shook Down” and the guitar solo that follows is probably my Music Moment of the 2010s it’s so pure and perfect). It’s hard to listen to this album now and not be a little heartbroken at the squandered potential, but the sadness doesn’t last too long because hey, at least they made this one record, and at least it kicks a ton of ass, and I’ll still be listening to this when I’m old and it will remind me that this was the soundtrack to one of the best years of my waning youth.