Track Listing

1. Fourth Of July
2. Hearing Voices
3. Spook
4. Summertime
5. Way Up High
6. Listen The Snow Is Falling
7. Sorry
8. Melt Away
9. King Of Spain Part Two

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38719 in Music
• Released on: 1997-04-28
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Enhanced, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered

CD Description
On THIS IS OUR MUSIC, Galaxie 500's third and final album, the band continue their deliberately paced, three-chord, Velvet Underground-influenced pop project. Though there's little here to distinguish the album from the group's previous efforts (save perhaps their strikingly straight-faced cover ofYoko Ono's "Listen, The Snow Is Falling"--a remarkable featin itself), THIS IS OUR MUSIC delivers spare, introspectivetunes characterised by ghostly moods, 4/4 guitar strums andDean Wareham's charmingly unaffected, drowsy vocals.
Surreal lyrics and simple, haunting guitar lines make songs like "Hearing Voices" and "Spook", both lovely and oddly poignant. Shortly after the release of this album, Wareham left Galaxie 500 to mine a similar musical vein with his band Luna.

Customer Reviews

Come ride the fiery breeze of Galaxie 500
Galaxie 500's final studio album was the all time classic that both On Fire and Today had hinted at. Although devastated that they split soon after its release as a final musical statement it is simply superb.

Galaxie 500 inherited the sound of The Velvet Underground and cemented it firmly in the conscious of the indie scene around 1992. Without them so much of what we here today (BDB, Mercury Rev et al) would simply not exist.

So come on - ride the fiery breeze of Galaxie 500

The Best Was Saved For Last
`This Is Our Music' indeed - with their boldly-titled final album title Galaxie 500 transcend their Velvet Underground influences and deliver the best and most confident record of their career.

All of the elements of their sound which so endeared them to the indie scene of the late 1980s are present; delicate percussion, emotional vocals and beautifully atmospheric guitars, but there is a new boldness to the band's sound here. Listen to them tacking an obscure cover version (Yoko Ono, anyone?), improvising an extended guitar workout and marvel at the power of the heavily reverbed guitar solo on `Sorry'.

`This Is Our Music's" best track is `Summertime' - a wonderfully controlled guitar piece, drenched in atmosphere and melody, superbly evocative of its subject matter. This is the band at their strongest and most self-assured, but the songwriting is strong throughout.

Their wonderfully kooky lyrics are also in evidence - witness the record's opening couplet: `I wrote a poem on a dog biscuit/And my dog refused to look at it'. Genius.

Once more, Kramer the producer is the de facto fourth member of the band, introducing otherwordly effects and sounds into the mix.

If you are reading this review you probably know all this already but Galaxie 500 have an almost iconic status in their genre and have influenced successive bands such as Low. When they split not long after this record came out they did so at the height of their powers and left a much-loved musical legacy. I love `This Is Our Music' as much today as I did in 1990 which is a rare thing indeed. Precious stuff.