Self: Subliminal Plastic Motives (CD Review)

Here’s a bit of a departure. This CD is not new. It’s not even recent. It’s actually more than a decade old. But you know what? It’s still awesome, and it actually contains the song which contains the line that I have chosen for the title of my blog.

I first heard Self in '96. Two singles, Cannon and So Low, were in decent rotation on two stations in Nashville, Thunder 94 and 103 KDF (both stations have long since undergone content changes). At the time, Nashville had a free summer concert, Dancin' in the District, every Thursday night. Self was headlining one night, and I went. They were crazy awesome live. And they had life-size Star Wars cut-outs on stage! After that, I ended up ordering this CD from BMG and listened to it constantly.

I think the CD is very much a product of its time, but still ahead of the curve. I'd classify it as post-grunge rock (think more Smashing Pumpkins, Beck and a bit of Weezer rather than Pearl Jam and Nirvana), but it utilized sampling at a time when I remember sampling only being used in rap.

What really impressed me about the CD, though, is that almost everything is done by (now) Self frontman Matt Mahaffey. The group really didn’t become a group until Matt started touring, and then he kept the guys on for subsequent CDs. The only other two times I know of this being done (I’m sure there are more, but I only know of two) are Foo Fighters debut release Foo Fighters and Abandoned Pools release Humanistic (I think that’s the one).

From the first track to the last, this CD seems almost perfectly put together, and would be a great (and probably extremely cheap) addition to any CD collection.

----------------
Listening to: Ambulance LTD - Heavy Lifting
via FoxyTunes