In their almost 30 years together, Yo La Tengo has released 12 full length albums, the best of which is named I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One. Though the band has had a number of fantastic releases (And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out and I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass, among many others), I Can Hear is the album that defined the band, cemented their style, and became a blueprint for many of the albums that followed.
But the true power of I Can Hear is not how it defined Yo La Tengo’s career, rather it is the way it perfectly expresses many bittersweet realities of everyday life: the intangible not-really-happy but not-quite-sad that everyone experiences, but very few can accurately capture. When “Moby Octopad” (the album’s first full track after the instrumental opener “Return to Hot Chicken”) arrives, its lingering flares of brass and the haunting singing of drummer Georgia Hubley clash with an upbeat bassline, and listeners begin to discover that I Can Hear is an album of conflicting emotions.
Sweet sounds butt heads with sour ones; they remind us of how confusing it can be to sort out emotion, and of that helpless feeling, being caught between two extremes. It is poignant and brilliant in its subtlety.
The record’s best tracks are those that tangle with these conflicting emotions. “Autumn Sweater,” perhaps the album’s greatest song, is beautiful because it wrestles with uncertainty, ambiguity, the pain of falling out of love, and nostalgia for loves lost—all within approximately 5 minutes of song time. But the album isn’t just “Autumn Sweater;” every song on I Can Hear is just as real, relatable, happy and sad.
Each track has a very bittersweet mood and message, but I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One still manages to be surprisingly diverse. Cute, catchy songs like the duet “Center of Gravity” intermingle with experimental, noisy instrumentals like the 10-minute jam “Spec Bebop.” Though the band incorporates a bunch of unique styles into each individual song, the album doesn’t feel scattered because of the band’s overarching style: whispy, haunting vocals (usually from lead guitarist Ira Kaplan, though drummer Georgia Hubley and bassist James McNew both get songs in the limelight), distorted, sometimes noisy guitars tied down by simple, solid bass lines and subtle, yet effective, percussion.
It’s the album’s consistent style and mood that allows it to effortlessly tie together elements and experiments that might, in less capable hands, be jarring or distracting.
In true Yo La Tengo fashion, the album also has a few covers. It can be difficult to pull an older song and fit it into an album, but Yo La Tengo makes it work. The band has always made a clear effort to make each cover song their own by masterfully adapting it to their noise-pop style, and the pair of covers on I Can Hear, “Little Honda” and “My Little Corner of the World,” are no exception. The band’s carefully modified classics fit into the album seamlessly.
This seamlessness is what makes the album important 14 years after its initial release. Despite the covers, despite the widely diverse song selection, the album flows well. It has an overarching mood that brings in an emotional power that few other albums can match. This is a record that is truly fully-formed. Though all of Yo La Tengo’s music is worth checking out, their masterpiece will always be I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One. Its masterful melancholia, haunting noise-pop and perfect mix of sweet and somber makes it a modern classic.
