REVIEW: The Posies, The Best of the Posies: Dream All Day (Geffen)
- John Davidson
It takes courage to wander the ruins of power pop, to walk the line between the insanely catchy and the hummable but strangely hip. There's little room for error as the very embrace of pop music is an acceptance of short-attention fickleness, a willingness to induce memorable singsong that ultimately may repulse. Even the greatest songs fear the trappings of a mirthful hook, knowing that mystique and beauty can easily fade at the altar of indulgent repetition. Yet bands like the Posies keep coming and going, pursuing brittle pop dreams in the face of inevitable career oblivion.
The Posies rose above of the soul-scorched metal scene in Seattle with a revved-up, modern version of everything the Zombies couldn't quite put their finger on. Signed to DGC after a home-produced album sold well in the Pacific Northwest, the band delivered a precocious major label debut in 1990. The bright guitars, Hollies-styled harmonies, and bittersweet tales of Dear 23 garnered immediate attention, but the glow was only temporary.
After all, DGC had also recently signed Nirvana, and it was only a matter of time before the Posies and the rest of the country were swept away by the deluge of grunge. It was a cruel fate of timing, and two albums later (1993's Frosting on the Beater and 1996's Amazing Disgrace) the Posies and Geffen parted ways.
The Best of the Posies is an adequate summarization of the band's output for DGC, with some rarities thrown in for good measure. Kicking of with "My Big Mouth", an ebullient tale of regret set to jumping acoustic guitar, the band seems young and playful despite the sad lyrics. It's easy to see the early charm that got the band signed to the big time, but as the album progresses, the chronological sequence of songs unwinds the Posies' maturing disillusion, culminating in the raging "Everybody Is a Fucking Liar" (from Amazing Disgrace.) Few artists have been so blunt with their frustration on the label's own nickel.
Yet the bulk of the album is content to lay out what the Posies did best: pour out hook after hook and somehow back it up with enough squall to bleed the soul. Big Star has always been a reference point (what with lead Posies Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer backing the reformed Alex Chilton/Jody Stephens cult fave on relapse), and the first half of the album pouts with many nods to that esteemed prickly pop, even including the soaring "I Am the Cosmos" cover that was previously vinyl 45 r.p.m only. "Solar Sister" was a hit that never happened, and one of their last official releases, "Please Return It" begs to be heard as well. Even "Going, Going, Gone" deserved better than the one-off territory of the Reality Bites soundtrack. In fact, by the time the album concludes with the wigged out guitarscape in "Flood of Sunshine," it's obvious that one more talented, fairly unique band has fallen to the hands of diverging trends and impatient A&R types.
Or maybe not. The Posies released a live album this year on the tiny Badman label, and a four-CD boxed compendium of rarities spanning their entire career is coming in the next few months on an indie as well. That's not bad for a band that parted ways three years ago. Better still, it's a testament to the fine songwriting that simply won't leave your head.
