Enter the Vaselines
Album | The Vaselines
Two-disc complete overview of Scottish indie pop pioneers' 1986-'89 career
The 1992 compilation The Way of the Vaselines played up the Scottish indie pioneers' punky, DIY aspects, complete with Xeroxed-looking graphics and flat, hissy sound like a cassette dub of the original vinyl. Since about 97% of the Vaselines' American fans only discovered the band through Nirvana's faithful covers of three of their songs, the compilation was useful, but it didn't tell the whole story. Enter the Vaselines supplants it with greatly improved sound, chronological sequencing of the indie pioneers' three 1987-89 releases, and a 24-page booklet full of new interviews and fun vintage fanzine clippings that put the duo of Eugene Kelly and France McKee into proper historical context amongst Scottish contemporaries like the Pastels and the Shop Assistants. It's nice that Sub Pop included a second disc for completists, but only the most devoted Vaselines fan will listen regularly to its three lo-fi 1986 demos (two of which rightly never progressed beyond that point) and pair of shambolic live gigs. The band's amateurish vocal and instrumental chops, so charming in the studio, just sound haphazard onstage, where every bum note and flat vocal (and there's lots of both) overshadows the songs' giddy charm.
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