| Product Summary | | Label: MATADOR RECORDS/ADA | | UPC: 00744861080022 | | Release Date: 8/18/2009 | | Buy.com Sku: 211450124 | | Item#: M4PSM6 | | Buy.com Sales Rank: 25079 | Format:  CD |
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| Song Listing |  |
Disc 1
| | Song Title | Sample | | 1. It Ain't Gonna Save Me ~ Jay Reatard |  | | 2. Before I Was Caught ~ Jay Reatard | | | 3. Man of Steel ~ Jay Reatard | | | 4. Can't Do It Anymore ~ Jay Reatard | | | 5. Faking It ~ Jay Reatard | | | 6. I'm Watching You ~ Jay Reatard | | | 7. Wounded ~ Jay Reatard | | | 8. Rotten Mind ~ Jay Reatard | | | 9. Nothing Now ~ Jay Reatard | | | 10. My Reality ~ Jay Reatard | | | 11. Hang Them All ~ Jay Reatard | | | 12. There is No Sun ~ Jay Reatard | |
| | For his second studio album and proper Matador debut, Memphis prolific punk wunderkind Jay Reatard has moved beyond his roots and recorded an album chockful of irresistible melodies, the songs cascading with joyous hooks. He would not be Jay Reatard, however, if there wasn't a certain aggro negativity, and the song titles and lyrics do much to undercut the pop sensibility: "I'm Watching You", "Hang Them All", "Can't Do It Anymore", "Wounded", "It Ain't Gonna Save Me". Track Listing
1. It Ain't Gonna Save Me
2. Before I Was Caught
3. Man Of Steel
4. Can't Do It Anymore
5. Faking It
6. I'm Watching You
7. Wounded
8. Rotten Mind
9. Nothing Now
10. My Reality
11. Hang Them All
12. There Is No Sun
"...Reatard's best album-length statement to date." Prefix Magazine
"Watch Me Fall includes some of his best sing-along jams yet." The Onion A.V. Club
| | Album Notes and Credits |
Notes & Personnel Info |  | Jay Reatard opens his second full-length, WATCH ME FALL, with a classic bit of Buzzcocks-style frantic, sexually pent-up punk pop. The record continues on the same pepped-up, neurotic pace, supremely self-flagellating, deliriously confused, reverent, often nostalgic, yet, oddly, wholly of its time; essentially everything that made Reatard one of the more exciting indie artists of the late-'00s. And that's not to say the record is anywhere near one-note: WATCH ME FALL veers from classic `70s punk to jagged-deconstructionist Devo-esque concoctions to Brit pop of more recent vintage to post-rock guitar fuzz. | | Nobody could accuse Jay Reatard of taking it easy. Just a year after releasing a new single nearly every month (compiled on Matador Singles '08), he's back with his first full-length album for Matador, Watch Me Fall. No one could level the charge that his prolific nature lends itself to putting out inferior material, either. Watch Me Fall stands shoulder to shoulder with Reatard's best work and keeps him firmly entrenched as the figurehead of the lo-fi noise pop sound of the late 2000s. The album is full of the kind of twitchy, hyper-catchy and hard to ignore rockers that made his name the trademark of quality it has become. The best of them (like the powerfully frantic "It Ain't Gonna Save Me," "Faking It," and "Hang Them All") are the kinds of songs that instantly get your blood flowing and make you want to sing along at the top of your lungs in your best rock & roll whine. As he started to demonstrate on his singles from 2008, Jay also has a quieter, more thoughtful side to go along with his nervous and overloaded side, one that brings to mind the classic strum and organ wheeze sound of an early Flying Nun record or the Go-Betweens at their jumpiest. On "I'm Watching You," "My Reality," and "Wounded" (which, like a large chunk of the record, displays some nice vocal harmonies), he still sounds slightly paranoid and unhinged, but he wraps his psychosis in thoughtful, almost gentle, arrangements. And it is "he" because apart from some drumming from Billy Hayes, Jay plays and sings everything himself in an impressive show of one-man band skills. Listening to the record, you'd swear it was recorded live to one mike thanks to the rambunctious energy and the fiery performances. Watch Me Fall is possibly Reatard's best work to date, the most fully realized and well-rounded album he's made, and proof that beyond the hype and antics, Reatard is a pop craftsman who is fully capable of making excellent albums for years to come. ~ Tim Sendra |
| | Compilation Appearances |
| | Technical Info | | Release Date : 08/18/2009 | | Original Release Date : 2009 | | Catalog ID : OLE-800-2 | | Label : Matador (record label) | | Number of Discs : 1 | | Runtime : 32m : 9s | | SPAR Code : n/a | | UPC : 00744861080022 |
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| | Professional Reviews | | Rolling Stone (p.88)
- 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "[This set] shows him letting his primitive guard down....[With] choral sugar, dub effects, sweet guitar cascades and mad hooks."Spin (p.93)
- "Reatard classes up the joint a bit, smearing organ, hard-strummed acoustic guitar, and strings on the unrequited-love epic 'I'm Watching You.'" Entertainment Weekly (p.111)
- "[These] ridiculously infectious tunes come wrapped in arrangements that run from frenetic punk to bouncy Britpop to wistful balladry." -- Grade: A- Alternative Press (p.108)
- 4 stars out of 5 -- "Reatard needs only the initial 15 seconds of 'It Ain't Gonna Save Me' to wedge the crunchy hooks and helium-inspired, faux-British vocals into the brain." Billboard - "The standout track 'Wounded' lets a sunny guitar melody gain momentum before Reatard's propulsive vocals conjure the glory days of garage rock." Pitchfork (Website)
- "Opening track and leadoff single 'It Ain't Gonna Save Me' is ample proof that Jay Reatard can mature without the dull connotation the word carries, being as relentlessly catchy as it is careful in its arrangement." |
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