For anyone who came of ages in the Eighties, Peter Holsapple & Chris Stamey are practically Lennon & McCartney. The work of these two in The dB's is legendary, of course, and that band's music always struck a nice balance between Beatles-inspired pop and the sort of jangle-rock being cranked out by contemporaries R.E.M. then. Our Back Pages, a new release from the duo on Omnivore Recordings, finds the two working their way through some of the better numbers in their back pages in an effort to benefit a charity, this time MusiCares.
Like the best Peter Holsapple & Chris Stamey albums after the dissolution of The dB's, this one is also full of a lot of understated charm. The hooks and melodies are so strong from these two, that the laid-back presentation only makes these compositions stronger, and more welcomed by anyone with even a passing memory of The dB's. "Today Could be The Day", from 1987's The Sound of Music, here gets a slight country-western twang added to it, while "Dynamite" and "Black and White" from 1981's Stands for Decibels are elegant compositions that shine in even the simplest of arrangements.
Holsapple & Stamey inject a lot of zest into these familiar numbers, and even a less well-known song like "Picture Sleeve", or a real classic like "Big Brown Eyes" from Stands for Decibels (1981), soars. The resilience of a selection like this, and so many others here, is still a marvel to me, and I place these compositions next to those of Alex Chilton and Marshall Crenshaw as being some of the best American music ever, not just from the Eighties college rock boom. Given that, it's impossible to not love Our Back Pages unreservedly, even more so given the good intentions behind its existence.
Our Back Pages is out now via Omnivore Recordings. This is a digital-only release so order from them via the link.
More details on MusiCares via the Grammy organization.
[Photo: Daniel Coston]