fun pop Yo La Tengo good, noodling snoozy Yo La Tengo not so much.

December 26, 2009 6:32 PM

I want to create a mix of Yo La Tengo's catchy pop songs.

I have a couple of Yo La Tengo albums and have heard parts of others over the years. My tastes run much more toward the catchy pop song side, and their albums all seem to contain a number of wandering / noodling snoozefests interspersed with occasional excellent pop songs like From A Motel 6, Tom Courtenay, Autumn Sweater, I Should Have known Better, and Nothing To Hide.

Help me make a CD-length mix of Yo La Tengo pop songs, one I can play in the car and not fall asleep. Assume I only know the five songs listed above, they stand out immediately as favorites. Thanks!

posted by otters walk among us to Media & Arts (11 answers total)

Avalon Or Someone Very Similar
Cast A Shadow
Cherry Chapstick
Deeper Into Movies
Little Honda
Magnet
(Straight Down To The) Bitter End
Sugarcube
The Summer
Upside-Down
posted by mykescipark at 6:40 PM on December 26, 2009

Mr. Tough is most certainly the best get-you-in-a-good-mood song ever.
Cherry Chapstick
The Room Got Heavy
Point and Shoot
Periodically Triple or Double
Beanbag Chair
Sugarcube

(IMHO, both Madeline and Let's Save Tony Orlando's House are poppy-ish but they may not work for you.)
posted by thisjax at 6:47 PM on December 26, 2009

The poppiest YLT I know is Here Comes My Baby. It's a Cat Stevens cover. Very bouncy, light, and fun. It'll make you want to dance a happy little jig, possibly involving skipping.

I don't know what noodling means, but the other one that stands out to me as having real pop sensibilities, but could possibly be considered sleepy, is their fuzzy cover of Beat Happening's Cast a Shadow. Very sweet and pop hooky.
posted by Askr at 7:01 PM on December 26, 2009

Response by poster: By noodling I mean the 6-minutes-plus slow songs that go nowhere fast. More Stars Than There Are In Heaven and The Fireside on the most recent album are good examples.

I've started sampling some of the suggested songs. Sugarcube sounds wonderful, just what I'm looking for.
posted by otters walk among us at 7:10 PM on December 26, 2009

Best answer: I just made a YLT playlist in my iTunes, with almost all of their songs -- they're that rare band that can do great pop/rock songs (fuzzy & sweet varieties), genuinely moving ballads, and hypnotic 12-minute psychedelic freakouts, but I can understand if they're not all to your taste! As for the pop songs ...

From 'Fakebook' (mostly covers):
Griselda
Here Comes My Baby
Emulsified

From 'May I Sing With Me':
Detouring America With Horns (has a slow build, but worth it)
Upside-Down

From 'Painful':
From a Motel 6
Sudden Organ
Big Day Coming (Loud)

From 'Electr-O-Pura':
Tom Courtenay
Pablo and Andrea
False Alarm
(Straight Down To) The Bitter End

From the 'Camp Yo La Tengo' EP:
Can't Seem to Make You Mine (Seeds cover)

From 'I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One'
Moby Octopad
Sugarcube
Stockholm Syndrome
Autumn Sweater
Center of Gravity
My Little Corner of the World

From the 'Little Honda' EP
Be Thankful for What You've Got
Black Hole

From 'And then nothing turned itself inside-out':
You Can Have it All

the 'Nuclear War' EP includes four versions of it -- the first is probably most to your taste

from 'I Am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass':
Beanbag Chair
Mr. Tough
I Should Have Known Better

From 'Popular Songs'
Periodically Double or Triple
Avalon or Someone Very Similar
posted by lisa g at 7:10 PM on December 26, 2009

Response by poster: These are all excellent answers and I'm sure more than enough to make a great mix. I'm just unable to wade through all twelve albums and multitudes of singles, EPs, and comps to find the stuff I like.

Next, I'll tackle The Fall.
posted by otters walk among us at 7:39 PM on December 26, 2009

I have an mp3 I got from somewhere of Yo La Tengo covering "Somebody's Baby" (the song from Fast Times At Ridgemont High) that I kind of love. Memail me if you'd like it, although it seems like you've got plenty in this thread to work with.

I feel the same way about Yo La Tengo, by the way. I'll be revisiting this thread for sure.
posted by MadamM at 8:39 PM on December 26, 2009

Oh god, a similar question about The Fall on here will leave you more confused than when you started!
posted by mykescipark at 3:09 AM on December 27, 2009 [1 favorite]

Seconding the "Somebody's Baby" cover and recommending "Drug Test," an early song.
posted by neroli at 9:32 AM on December 27, 2009

The "Somebody's Baby" and "Cast a Shadow" covers are both on "Genius + Love = Yo La Tengo"
posted by Lazlo Hollyfeld at 11:21 AM on December 27, 2009

The 2-disc "Prisoners of Love" compilation has done much of this work for you. I hate most "best of" collections, but like Guided by Voices' fantastic "Human Amusements at Hourly Rates" compilation, Prisoners of Love is a perfect distillation of the most listenable songs from a band that's equally known for a large body of unlistenable overindulgence.

That said, over time I've grown to absolutely love a lot of the "wandering snoozefests" that I used to hate in the early days of my YLT fandom. Perfect, accessible songs like "Sugarcube" are merely the gateway drug into the deeper parts of their catalog that are more of an acquired taste. Try not to completely dismiss that stuff.
posted by melorama at 12:23 AM on December 28, 2009