Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics

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Dinosaur Jr.

  • You're Living All Over Me [SST, 1987] B+
  • Fossils [SST, 1991] ***
  • Green Mind [Sire/Warner Bros., 1991] B
  • Whatever's Cool With Me [Sire/Warner Bros., 1991] Neither
  • Where You Been [Sire/Warner Bros., 1993] **
  • Without a Sound [Sire/Warner Bros., 1994] Dud
  • Hand It Over [Reprise, 1997] Dud

Consumer Guide Reviews:

You're Living All Over Me [SST, 1987]
The singer implores in a childish whining drawl while dramatic paradiddles and sculpted streams of molten garage guitar enact one more nostalgic reconciliation with AOR metal. But this one isn't on metal's terms (too winsome), or AOR's either (what they arrange is sloppiness). All these growing malcontents want is a little structure and meaning in their lives. Is that so much to ask? B+

Fossils [SST, 1991]
best-of EP masquerading as singles comp, complete with fucked-up Frampton cover ("Just Like Heaven," "Little Fury Things") ***

Green Mind [Sire/Warner Bros., 1991]
J Mascis is a one-trick guitar god whose act gets sloppier and samier as his adolescence becomes more figurative. He does have his own instrumental sound, a roiling whine that's the essence of grunge on pot. Unfortunately, he also has his own vocal sound, ditto. Grunge's pothead contingent will adore him until he succumbs to male-pattern baldness. But someday, archaeologists will wonder just exactly what was the point. I wonder now. B

Whatever's Cool With Me [Sire/Warner Bros., 1991] Neither

Where You Been [Sire/Warner Bros., 1993]
somehow his axe and his voice sing the same tune, momentarily transmuting his self-pity into simple sadness ("Out There," "Start Choppin") **

Without a Sound [Sire/Warner Bros., 1994] Dud

Hand It Over [Reprise, 1997] Dud