I have had many exchanges with Jamie Campbell about music, and I have always found his observations interesting and informative, so I wanted to get him to share them on the show. He obliged for this week’s episode, in which we discussed one of his favorite albums — I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One by Yo La Tengo. In addition to discussing this album, Jamie talked about the role that radio played in shaping his musical tastes, and the formative role that ‘90s music played for him in general.
You can find Jamie and his musical commentary on Twitter at @spacegauche.
Al is on Twitter at @almelchiorBB, and this show has accounts on Twitter and Instagram at @youmealbum. Be sure to follow @youmealbum to find out in advance about upcoming guests and featured albums for this podcast.
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1:20 Jamie joins the show
1:59 Jamie explains the baseball-related origins of Yo La Tengo’s name
4:11 Jamie really started digging into bands he liked in the early ‘90s
7:11 Both Jamie and Al listened to WHFS during formative music-listening periods
10:48 Jamie tells Al of WHFS’s demise
12:42 Al wonders why he doesn’t remember hearing YLT on the radio
13:42 Jamie became less reliant on radio as the ‘90s progressed
15:57 Little Honda was Jamie’s entry point into YLT
17:05 Becoming a YLT fan was a long-term project for Jamie
20:12 Al wonders if he would have heard Beating as One differently with more knowledge of YLT’s catalog
23:27 Jamie explains why he chose Beating as One for this episode
25:00 Al and Jamie find Beating as One to be both eclectic and consistent
25:59 Stockholm Syndrome as an outlier on the album
32:01 Jamie likes how YLT vocals are more like just another instrument
36:01 The songs Jamie liked in his initial listens to Beating as One
38:24 The Georgia Hubley songs
40:07 The songs that were growers for Jamie
44:44 The one track that Jamie is still ambivalent about
51:06 What changes would Jamie make to shorten the album?
55:09 My Little Corner of the World
57:14 We’re An American Band
1:00:17 Al highlights his favorite tracks so far
1:04:19 Deeper Into Movies