Slint’s Spiderland, by Scott Tennent (Continuum Books)
Continuum’s 33 1/3 series of books, in which each individual volume is devoted to a classic album, has been around for over five years now. In the early volumes of the series, they often covered albums about which so much criticism has already been written that one would be forgiven for wondering what new insights could be brought to bear about them. To the credit of the writers of the individual volumes, as well as the series editors, many of those earlier books adapted to this problem by taking creative approaches, mixing straightforward music criticism with philosophical digressions, autobiographical memoir, and even fictional narratives. In this way, writers who wrote about much-discussed groups like The Smiths, Black Sabbath, and Prince avoided recapitulation of well-trodden ground, and created books that were not only interesting in terms of what they said about the albums they focused on, but also stood on their own as literary works. However, as the series continues, the albums newer volumes focus on are often more obscure than the subjects of earlier volumes. A book about one of these albums that takes a memoiristic or fictional spin would probably seem more like a rare opportunity wasted than a way to make the much-discussed interesting again.
Slint’s Spiderland, by Scott Tennent (Continuum Books)
Continuum’s 33 1/3 series of books, in which each individual volume is devoted to a classic album, has been around for over five years now. In the early volumes of the series, they often covered albums about which so much criticism has already been written that one would be forgiven for wondering what new insights could be brought to bear about them. To the credit of the writers of the individual volumes, as well as the series editors, many of those earlier books adapted to this problem by taking creative approaches, mixing straightforward music criticism with philosophical digressions, autobiographical memoir, and even fictional narratives. In this way, writers who wrote about much-discussed groups like The Smiths, Black Sabbath, and Prince avoided recapitulation of well-trodden ground, and created books that were not only interesting in terms of what they said about the albums they focused on, but also stood on their own as literary works. However, as the series continues, the albums newer volumes focus on are often more obscure than the subjects of earlier volumes. A book about one of these albums that takes a memoiristic or fictional spin would probably seem more like a rare opportunity wasted than a way to make the much-discussed interesting again.
This statement is particularly true of Slint’s Spiderland, the album that is the focus of the 75th volume of the 33 1/3 series. Released in 1991, Spiderland seemed to come out of nowhere, with no easily pinpointed antecedents for its sound, and no available reference points with which to classify the group that produced it. It seemed like a dispatch from another planet, an impression only strengthened by the fact that Slint had rarely toured, and had broken up before the album came out. Its original release drew little attention, and only years of evangelism by underground tastemakers like Steve Albini and Lou Barlow allowed it to eventually attain the stature necessary to earn it a volume of the 33 1/3 series. Twenty years after its release, it is still an album that inspires more questions than answers, and it fairly cries out for the focused examination that the more straightforward volumes of the 33 1/3 series have brought to bear on the albums that are their subjects. Fortunately, Scott Tennent’s treatment of the album provides exactly that. His 145-page essay on Spiderland is in many respects a work of investigative journalism, going beyond a mere explanation of how Spiderland came to be to answer questions about the people who made it and the environment that allowed it to come into existence.
Tennent’s book begins nearly a decade before the release of Spiderland, with two junior high school punk bands from Louisville, Kentucky. Maurice and Squirrelbait Youth (later shortened to Squirrelbait) both contained members that would eventually form Slint, some of whom spent time in both bands. Tennent goes into detail about the careers of both bands, demonstrating how both of them, despite having only superficial sonic resemblance to Slint, helped influence the aesthetic that Slint would eventually create. As the book continues, the narrative advances to Slint’s formation, and the writing and recording of their embryonic first album, Tweez. As Tennent astutely notes in the book’s introduction, Slint’s non-Spiderland recordings, which include Tweez and an untitled, posthumously released two-song EP, often disappoint fans who discover the band through Spiderland and go hunting for more Slint material. However, by discussing Slint’s earlier recordings, as well as the work of pre-Slint bands, before getting to Spiderland, Tennent does the important work of placing Spiderland into a creative context, demonstrating the ways in which those earlier works, despite being essentially different from (and, most would argue, inferior to) Spiderland, also led directly to Spiderland‘s final form. Another important context Tennent creates is a social one; instead of leaving Slint floating alone in a wasteland of bands that sound nothing like them, as they are usually depicted, Tennent describes the vibrant musical community, mostly centered in Louisville and Chicago, that nurtured and encouraged Slint’s creative endeavors as they worked their way up to the achievements they made on Spiderland. Indeed, the book begins with a graphic flowchart that traces Slint’s connections, Kevin Bacon-style, to quite a few other Louisville and Chicago bands. He demonstrates, both through the flowchart and through his biographical narrative, the ways that Slint were closely connected to such widely divergent groups as avant-garde experimentalists Gastr Del Sol, melodic alt-rockers The Lemonheads, hardcore/metal crossover act Kinghorse, and seminal post-rock instrumental act Tortoise. While neither these acts, nor such post-Slint groups as The Breeders, Zwan, and The For Carnation, ever sounded all that much like Slint, Tennent is able to point out minor or major elements of the Slint sound that appear in all of them.
Finally, most importantly, he sets about analyzing Spiderland as a musical document. Even for a longtime fan like myself, who has pored over Spiderland as closely as anyone has, Tennent’s analysis is at times revelatory. With Spiderland‘s unusual lyrical forms–on almost all of the songs, vocals are delivered as spoken narration rather than conventionally sung–it opens itself up to opportunities for intricate textual analysis that most albums don’t provide. As the narrated vocals are generally mixed too quietly to be heard clearly at all times, there are lines that had remained obscure to me for nearly two decades that I only fully understood once I read Tennent’s discussion of them. Furthermore, his evaluation of the relationships between musical composition and the way the lyrics interact with the music points out that Slint’s music and lyrics are always closely connected, despite the spoken narrative at first making the lyrics seem less related to their musical backing than most conventionally sung vocals. In his discussion of the song “Breadcrumb Trail,” he points out the way that each separate movement of the music corresponds to narration from a different character’s point of view. When he talks about the album’s final and most famous track, “Good Morning Captain,” he examines the fact that the music carries some of the song’s narrative weight–something I had never considered, but realized, as I read, that I had always subconsciously understood. When I received this book, I was more excited to read the biographical information about Slint than the analysis of the album; I understood myself to have already figured out all there was to understand about Spiderland as a piece of music. However, as I read, I found that there was still plenty of new information for me to discover. It takes a writer with a great deal of skill to make a much-beloved album seem like a newly heard treasure, to be freshly discovered all over again. Fortunately, Tennent is that skilled. His book about Spiderland is essential reading, not only for those who are unfamiliar with Slint, their history, and their influence on the past two decades of music, but also for those who have long treasured this album. After reading this book, you will hear Spiderland with new ears again, and what greater gift could a book like this possibly offer?
