Yo La Tengo - Painful

Yo La Tengo - Painful
「Matador」

失眠時候，我都聽著Big Day Coming

// Yo La Tengo - Big Day Coming

Let's be undecided, let's take our time
And sooner or later, we will know our mind
We'll be on the outside, we won't care
Cause we're together, that's somewhere
And there's a big day coming, about a mile away
There's a big day coming, I can hardly wait
Let's wake up the neighbors,
let's turn up our amps
And we know we're used to without a plan
We can play a Stones song, sitting on a fence
And it'll sound pretty good,
til I forget how it ends I woke up early,
couldn't go back to sleep
Cause I had been thinking of where it all would lead
So I made you wake up, I said, "Let's take a walk,
I wanna hold your hand, we don't have to talk"
最近不斷的repeat著Yo La Tengo的Painful。

我有許多Yo La Tengo的專輯，這並非是我很喜歡她們，因為其中絕大多數都是趁著馬雅大特價時一口氣買下。坦白說，Yo La Tengo的作品很雜，水準也良莠不齊，Ride The Tiger的鄉村民謠讓我傻眼、Summer Sun嫌太過平淡、Electr-O-Pura雖好聽卻沒有感動、 I Can Hear The Heart Beating as One算是我之前最愛的一張專輯了，簡直是Noise Pop的經典，不過在聽到Painful之後，最愛的寶座瞬間換人。

這張專輯的入手是十分幸運的，在我去中壢的Voice（一間二手唱片行）談合作時，在一堆二手唱片裡面挖寶到的，美盤無刮傷，二話不說就收下了。（PS：這店真的不賴，收藏豐富，裡面還有Jeff Buckley的Live紙殼版!!!）

allmusic上面的review寫的很有趣："Yo La Tengo has released several fine albums before, but only Painful encapsulates their folky guitar experimentalism perfectly."（我覺得講白一點就是說，你們之前沒什麼，直到出了Painful這張才像樣。）這句話簡直就是點到我心坎裡去了，在1993年發行Painful之前，Yo La Tengo共出了五張專輯。雖然我沒有全部都聽過，不過就以聽過的幾張來說，Painful在完成度與成熟性來說都遠超過之前的作品。事實上，轉投Matador廠後的Yo La Tengo就像是脫胎換骨一般，連三張作品都受到超高的評價。

回到專輯上面來說，Painful主要是由Noise Pop和Folk Ballad所構成的，專輯裡面我最愛的Big Day Coming有兩個版本，開場曲Ira Kaplan帶點laidback淡淡的唱著，電吉他間歇性的散發著情緒式的低鳴，投入歌詞裡面繪製的意境，雖平淡卻悠悠然令人掉淚。Nowhere Near是由妻子Georgia Hubley所獻唱，是首和Big Day Coming雷同的情歌。Yo La Tengo在情歌上面選擇不以賺人熱淚的煽情旋律，改以雋永曲調來勾勒，更顯其獨特之處。收尾曲I Heard You Looking則延續了另一版本的Big Day Coming，以吉他噪音為基調的小品。

其實Painful一點都不Pain嘛。