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What's Up Matador

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Various Artists - Matador

 
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What's Up Matador

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Avg: 4.0 (28 ratings)

Over two hours' worth of hits-in-heaven and cast-asides that feel like life preservers.

  • We Say...

    Review by Jon Dolan


    The smarter they come, the harder they fall. Indie music has always been an incubator for proud losers, a sacred space where charming schlubs can rethink the stakes of a pop world that never gave them a shot. But from Rough Trade to Vice, no indie label has groused as willfully or wonderfully as the conscientious objectors at Matador Records. Co-owners Gerard Cosloy and Chris Lombardi founded their late-'80s start-up on an age-old punk premise: anyone who lets a corporate record company define their purchasing habits is inherently an idiot. Over the next two decades, they'd leverage that snooty individualism and an impeccable taste in hooky noise to become the hottest brand in the haute couture pop market where hip, smart, well-off white folks feel unique by acting alike. If that sounds ironic, it's just the kind of irony the best Matador bands savored, poked fun at, embodied and at times transcended. Even more ironic, former fanzine editor Cosloy's savvy in signing bands and spotting trends evidenced a cultural and even commercial prescience that any bean-counting major label A&R guy would kill for.

    This history of Matador's first boom years compiles hits-in-heaven and cast-asides that feel like life preservers. You get Pavement and Guided by Voices, plus Liz Phair, Superchunk, Cat Power, Bettie Serveert, the Fall, Chavez, Railroad Jerk, and oh so many more: An avalanche of sad sacks airing out their agony over some of the greatest lousy music ever made. Best line of romantic betrayal, from Silkworm's "Couldn't You Wait": "I thought you'd never get your teeth capped! I thought you'd never get your teeth capped!" Too much fun.

  • They Say...

    Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

    Once Sub Pop's roster broke through to the mainstream in the early '90s, its reign as America's premier independent label drew to a close, leaving Matador Records as the definitive indie label of the decade. Matador's period of greatest impact was between 1991 and 1997, which is the time that the double-disc set What's Up Matador chronicles. The budget-priced compilation is designed as both an introduction and as a collector's dream, containing one disc called Favorite Tracks and one disc of unreleased songs. Matador didn't have a signature sound, preferring to cultivate a loose aesthetic that permitted its artists to do whatever the hell they wanted. So, there's the nervous punk of Superchunk, the jangling pop of Bettie Serveert, the fractured pop of Pavement, pure weirdness from the Frogs, mathematical rock from Chavez, disco from the Pizzicato Five, the avant rock of Silkworm, hardcore punk from Unsane, psycho-blues from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Railroad Jerk, and lo-fi from Guided By Voices and Spoon, along with singer/songwriters like Liz Phair, Helium's Mary Timony, Cat Power, and Barbra Manning/SF Seals. It's an eclectic roster, but it's a rich one, containing many of the best and most important bands of the decade. The first disc runs through the hits quite effectively; for anyone curious about Matador specifically and American indie rock in general, it's an excellent primer. The second disc is for collectors and fanatics, and it does not disappoint. Many of the bands on disc one contribute unreleased songs that never sound like throwaways, and some of the label's newer bands that didn't make the first disc -- Run On, The For Carnation, and Bardo Pond -- are included. With its abundance of strong music and its complete Matador discography, What's Up Matador is an essential purchase for anyone curious about '90s indie rock.

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