Clipping of my review of the 1989 Blake Babies album, Earwig, as published in the March 1990 issue of my high school newspaper, The Spectrum.
First, our copy editor was... not the most detail-oriented person. Can you tell? I mean, getting the name of the album wrong is pretty bad. That most definitely was not part of the copy I turned in for this piece.
This review appeared in the same issue of my newspaper as my Feelies gig review I wrote about yesterday. As with most issues, I took up more than my fair share of column inches. But hey, I was discovering new music left and right and had a lot that I wanted to write about. No matter that my audience was suburban teenagers who rocked out to Aerosmith and Pink Floyd. I was here to preach the gospel of Boston indie rock!
My prose here was perhaps a tad overwrought, but I do like this particular passage:
Juliana Hatfield’s voice is... so sweet and innocent. So it’s startling to hear these bitter sentiments that she alternately croons and spits out with equal parts sly knowing and pure venom.
Even though three stars were attached to this review, it was definitely a four-star album for me in 1989. And if I did ever get one of those Blake Babies Pez dispensers referenced in the review, I sure as heck don’t have it anymore.
