I really want to know where you’ve been.

Lis­ten: Dinosaur Jr. — Almost Ready

At the time fad­ing into his­to­ry seemed the prop­er thing to do. Dinosaur Jr. had lost the oomph that made those first three records dis­tinc­tive and vital touch­stones to any­one grow­ing up in the Nineties. After that, it was Mas­cis’ nasal drawl and gui­tar lead­ing the way to occa­sion­al moments of bril­liance. But it just was­n’t good enough.

Beyond, their first record since reunit­ing, isn’t all that great either yet some­how in hind­sight it makes me wish that they would’ve labored on regard­less, nos­tal­gia be damned, mak­ing one bad record after anoth­er, min­ing the same sound, the same mate­r­i­al, for­ev­er and ever, amen.

So what if that would’ve made J Mas­cis indie rock­’s Peter Framp­ton? Isn’t he any­way? Con­sid­er the alter­na­tive. Integri­ty isn’t a word that comes to mind when I think of Nickelback.