Music Arcades: Galaxie 500: Copenhagen

It had never occurred to me that this might be the best Galaxie 500 album. But that's what this blog post suggested last week.

It always felt like a bit of an afterthought to me. With typical record company aplomb, the boxed set comes out, providing a definitive and comprehensive document of the band's entire recorded work — and then a few months later, "Oh, yeah, look what we found behind the filing cabinet; maybe you'd like this too". Or, more cynically, "Wow, you suckers seemed to lap up that ramshackle collection of leftovers; let's see if we can wring a bit more out of you."

Well, yes, I bought it immediately, of course. It was recorded three weeks after the one time I saw them, so it's a good memento of that evening. I remember remarking to C how much Dean sounded like Neil Young. I think I was talking about the guitar solos, but it could have been the voice, a bit, I suppose? Back then I had a pet theory that Galaxie were equal parts Neil Young, Velvet Underground and late Joy Division. The Joy Division bit was just the bass playing, I think, which Naomi has acknowledged was at least partly modelled on Hooky. But a couple of decades on (ouch), Galaxie own their sound themselves and in their own right: they're just Galaxie 500.

I think our blogger friend has it wrong, to be honest. He seems to be saying that this is the best album because the band were "loosed from [producer] Kramer's hazy shimmer", but Kramer is evidently present at the mixing desk for the gig — you can hear Damon and Dean talking to him at one point, and the booklet says "live sound by Kramer" — and seems to be doing his best to recreate that shimmer.