As an ’80s baby, I’m fairy used to having my sense of nostalgia tugged at by shrewd marketers (note to Hollywood execs: I’m still waiting for a “Dinosaucers” remake) but I’ve got to say, the recent avalanche of reissues of albums from my youth/early adolescence has me feeling kind of old. While I suppose it makes perfect sense from a business standpoint—my generation is, perhaps, the last generation that grew up with the understanding that music costs money—it’s a little weird seeing a record like Hail to the Thief get reissued only six years after it was first released. That said, I can totally dig these Sunny Day Real Estate reissues, not because they come with a wealth of bonus material (they don’t) but because Diary and LP2 are more than ripe for revisiting and deserve to be heard by a wider audience (i.e. the emo kids of today—get off my lawn, you kids!). My review of the SDRE reissues can be found here. On a completely unrelated note, I was watching Dan Harris interview David Bazan on ABC News yesterday and as if it wasn’t surreal enough seeing David Bazan being interviewed on ABC News, I realized that Harris indirectly references my review of Curse Your Branches toward the end there, when he congratulates Bazan for getting an “8” from PopMatters. Dave, I can send you an ink jet printout of that review, suitable for framing, if you like.
