Sebadoh: Bakesale (deluxe edition) [SUB POP]

Why you'll love it

Sub Pop's deluxe edition brings the band's sharpest album back to vinyl with a printed insert. Bakesale reached No. 40 in the UK, Spin ranked it No. 16 of 1994, and Robert Christgau gave it an A.

This edition

• Deluxe edition
• Printed insert

About the album

Sebadoh started as Lou Barlow's escape hatch from Dinosaur Jr., a home-taping project built on four-track cassettes and a good deal of hiss. Alongside Pavement and Guided by Voices they helped invent lo-fi indie rock, and by 1994 the line-up was Barlow, Jason Loewenstein and new drummer Bob Fay. Bakesale is the moment they walked into a proper studio and let the songs stand up straight. Barlow and Loewenstein split the writing between them, with Fay chipping in, and the push and pull between their styles gives the album its shape.

Recorded with Tim O'Heir at Fort Apache, with a few tracks cut by Bob Weston in Chicago, it's the band's most hummable record. Barlow's "Rebound," "Skull" and "Magnet's Coil" are tender and hooky, about as close to pop hits as lo-fi ever got, while Loewenstein's "Careful" and "Not Too Amused" bring the rougher edges and keep everyone honest.

When Sub Pop dusted it off in 2011, Pitchfork called it "their most focused and purely pleasurable record." Thirty-odd years on it has aged like a favourite flannel shirt, and so, we're told, have most of us behind the counter.

Also at Kops: more Sebadoh on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Sub Pop (cat# SP 944), a reissue of the 1994 album.