Dinosaur Jr.: You're Living All Over Me [JAGJAGUWAR]

Why you'll love it

This Jagjaguwar remaster restores the 1987 album with its original nine songs. Spin ranked it No. 31 among the best albums of 1985 to 2005, and it sits in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

This edition

• Remastered

About the album

Few bands from Amherst, Massachusetts have rattled as many windows. When this album first came out on SST, the trio were still called Dinosaur; a lawsuit soon added the "Jr.," and the label reprinted the sleeve. By then Sonic Youth had seen them live, declared themselves fans and taken them on tour, which is the kind of reference a young band frames.

J Mascis wrote most of it, pairing a sleepy drawl with guitar so loud and melodic it seems to bend the air. "Little Fury Things" got a video, "Sludgefeast" lives up to its name, "Kracked" and "The Lung" are pure surge, and "In a Jar" is a perfect noise-pop single. Side one was cut at Fun City and side two at Pine Trax. Lou Barlow takes the last two songs: the punk sprint "Lose" and "Poledo," which he recorded alone in his room on two tape recorders before it dissolves into sound collage.

Kevin Shields has named it an influence on My Bloody Valentine, and plenty of writers trace a line from here to Nirvana. Mascis says it's his favourite of the band's records, which from a man of famously few words counts as a speech.

Also at Kops: more Dinosaur Jr. on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Jagjaguwar (cat# JAG197), a reissue of the 1987 album.