The Tape of Only Linda explained

The Tape of Only Linda
Type:Album
Artist:The Loud Family
Cover:The_Tape_of_Only_Linda.jpg
Released:October 25, 1994
Recorded:1994
Genre:
Length:46:19
Label:Alias Records[1]
Producer:Mitch Easter
Prev Title:Slouching Towards Liverpool
Prev Year:1993
Next Title:Interbabe Concern
Next Year:1996

The Tape of Only Linda is the second full-length album by The Loud Family, released in 1994.[2] [3] The title of the album is a reference to the notorious tape recording of a live performance of "Hey Jude," by Paul McCartney, in which an engineer had isolated Linda McCartney's vocals.[4]

Composition

The Tape of Linda abandons the sound collage aesthetic of the band's debut, Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things (1993), in favor of a relatively more conventional approach, boasting twelve fully-formed songs with live-sounding production. Scott Miller's melodic, Beatles- and Big Star-influenced style of songwriting remains, with heavy usage of oblique wordplay.

Critical reception

Trouser Press wrote that "the sound is sharp, and the quintet rocks out with an epic mélange of amped-up guitars, odd rhythms and insinuating keyboard riffs, but the disappointing end result is neither particularly inventive nor especially tuneful."[5]

Describing the Loud Family as 'art rock with laughs', Stereo Review critic Steve Simels felt that The Tape of Only Linda confirmed the band were "the smartest, most imaginative rock band in America, the closest we Yanks have ever come to a homegrown version of XTC."[6]

Track listing

  1. "Soul Drain" (Miller, Smith, Wieneke)– 4:12
  2. "My Superior" (Smith, Miller)– 4:49
  3. "Marcia and Etrusca" (Miller, Becker, Smith, Wieneke, Poor)– 7:14
  4. "Hyde Street Virgins" (Miller)– 4:02
  5. "Baby Hard-To-Be-Around" (Miller, Becker, Smith, Wieneke, Poor)– 3:32
  6. "It Just Wouldn't Be Christmas" (Miller, Smith, Wieneke, Poor, Becker)– 4:38
  7. "Better Nature" (Wieneke)– 3:25
  8. "Still Its Own Reward" (Miller)– 4:12
  9. "For Beginners Only" (Smith)– 2:41
  10. "Ballet Hetero" (Miller, Poor, Smith)– 7:27

Personnel

with:

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Loud Family. Alias Records.
  2. Web site: Loud Family | Biography & History. AllMusic.
  3. Web site: Keeping the Music in Mind : Scott Miller's Loud Family Goes for the Cerebral--Whether Playing Quietly or Living Up to Its Name. June 22, 1996. Los Angeles Times.
  4. Book: Thompson, Dave. Alternative Rock. November 3, 2000. Hal Leonard Corporation. 9780879306076. Google Books.
  5. Web site: Loud Family . Trouser Press . 3 November 2020.
  6. Simels . Steve . The Loud Family: Art Rock with Laughs . Stereo Review . March 1995 . 80.

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