Harmacy
Encyclopedia
Harmacy is the sixth album
by American
indie rock
band Sebadoh
. It was released by Sub Pop
in 1996.
It is the second and final Sebadoh album to feature drummer
Bob Fay, who replaced founding member Eric Gaffney
in 1994.
The album cover features a photograph of a pharmacy
in Cashel
, Ireland
, taken by band member Jason Loewenstein
on tour. The missing "P" gave the album its title.
, the songwriting on Harmacy was handled primarily by Loewenstein and founding member Lou Barlow
, with Fay contributing the lone track, "Sforzando!," and the band covering "I Smell a Rat" by American hard rock
band The Bags
. Their cover was featured on the soundtrack for the 1998 American comedy-thriller film Homegrown
.
Like Bakesale, the album found Sebadoh flirting "with (relatively) polished production", as well as a pervasive use of electric guitar
s and longer song structures, marking a clear departure from the band's lo-fi, often acoustic
earlier albums like their landmark release, Sebadoh III
(1991).
," with his band Folk Implosion, Harmacy became Sebadoh's first charting album in the U.S., expanding on the success of Bakesale, and yielding the Modern Rock Tracks
hit, "Ocean."
The album was well-received by critics, albeit less so than Bakesale. Stephen Thompson of The Onion's
A.V. Club wrote that Harmacy "doesn't have Bakesales considerable staying power as a whole, but the strong balance of soft pop
songs ("Too Pure," "Perfect Way," the elegant pop ballad "Willing to Wait") and abrasively punky
rock songs ("Love To Fight," "Mind Reader," "Can't Give Up") still holds together somehow."
Harmacy was included on several year-end lists in 1996, including Rolling Stone's "Ten Best Albums" (#8), the Village Voice's "Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll" (#36), and the NME's
critics' poll (#38).
Additional personnel
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
by American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
band Sebadoh
Sebadoh
Sebadoh is an American indie rock band, formed in 1986 in Westfield, Massachusetts by Eric Gaffney and Dinosaur Jr bass player Lou Barlow. Along with such bands as Pavement and Guided by Voices, Sebadoh helped pioneer lo-fi music, a style of indie rock characterized by low-fidelity recording...
. It was released by Sub Pop
Sub Pop
Sub Pop is a record label founded in 1986 by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman in Seattle, Washington. Sub Pop achieved fame in the late 1980s for first signing Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney and many other bands from the Seattle music scene...
in 1996.
It is the second and final Sebadoh album to feature drummer
Drummer
A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...
Bob Fay, who replaced founding member Eric Gaffney
Eric Gaffney
Eric Gaffney is a songwriter and recording artist. In 1989, he co-founded the indie rock band Sebadoh, and since 1998 has been performing and recording with his own project Fields of Gaffney. In 2007 a reformed Sebadoh began touring again.-External links:...
in 1994.
The album cover features a photograph of a pharmacy
Pharmacy
Pharmacy is the health profession that links the health sciences with the chemical sciences and it is charged with ensuring the safe and effective use of pharmaceutical drugs...
in Cashel
Cashel, County Tipperary
Cashel is a town in South Tipperary in Ireland. Its population was 2936 at the 2006 census. The town gives its name to the ecclesiastical province of Cashel. Additionally, the cathedra of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly was originally in the town prior to the English Reformation....
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, taken by band member Jason Loewenstein
Jason Loewenstein
Jason Loewenstein is an American alternative rock singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist and a member of the indie-rock bands Sebadoh and The Fiery Furnaces...
on tour. The missing "P" gave the album its title.
Music
As with its predecessor, BakesaleBakesale
Bakesale is the fifth album by American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was released by Sub Pop in 1994.Bakesale was the first Sebadoh album released following the departure of founding member, Eric Gaffney, though he did drum on four of the album's tracks from a session engineered by Bob Weston. Tara...
, the songwriting on Harmacy was handled primarily by Loewenstein and founding member Lou Barlow
Lou Barlow
Louis Knox Barlow is an American alternative rock musician and songwriter. A founding member of the groups Deep Wound, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh and The Folk Implosion. Barlow is credited with helping to pioneer the lo-fi style of rock music in the late 1980s and early 1990s...
, with Fay contributing the lone track, "Sforzando!," and the band covering "I Smell a Rat" by American hard rock
Hard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
band The Bags
The Bags (1985)
The Bags are a hard rock/punk rock band from Lexington, Massachusetts — formed in 1985 — and are not to be confused with The Bags, a punk rock band formed in 1977. The band is composed of members Jon Hardy, Jim Janota, and Crispin Wood...
. Their cover was featured on the soundtrack for the 1998 American comedy-thriller film Homegrown
Homegrown (film)
Homegrown is a 1998 comedy / thriller film. It was directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal and starred Billy Bob Thornton, John Lithgow, and Hank Azaria.-Plot:...
.
Like Bakesale, the album found Sebadoh flirting "with (relatively) polished production", as well as a pervasive use of electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
s and longer song structures, marking a clear departure from the band's lo-fi, often acoustic
Acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
earlier albums like their landmark release, Sebadoh III
Sebadoh III
III is the third album by the American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was released by Homestead Records in 1991.III was the first full length Sebadoh album to feature Jason Loewenstein, who joined the band's two founding members Lou Barlow and Eric Gaffney in 1989, and debuted on the "Gimme Indie...
(1991).
Reception
Released in the wake of Barlow's Top 40 hit, "Natural OneNatural One
"Natural One" is an alternative rock song by the band The Folk Implosion.It was released as a single in 1995, and was featured on the soundtrack to the Larry Clark film Kids, but does not appear in the film itself...
," with his band Folk Implosion, Harmacy became Sebadoh's first charting album in the U.S., expanding on the success of Bakesale, and yielding the Modern Rock Tracks
Modern Rock Tracks
Alternative Songs is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in Billboard magazine since September 10, 1988. It lists the 40 most-played songs on modern rock radio stations, most of which are alternative rock songs...
hit, "Ocean."
The album was well-received by critics, albeit less so than Bakesale. Stephen Thompson of The Onion's
The Onion
The Onion is an American news satire organization. It is an entertainment newspaper and a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news, in addition to a non-satirical entertainment section known as The A.V. Club...
A.V. Club wrote that Harmacy "doesn't have Bakesales considerable staying power as a whole, but the strong balance of soft pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
songs ("Too Pure," "Perfect Way," the elegant pop ballad "Willing to Wait") and abrasively punky
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
rock songs ("Love To Fight," "Mind Reader," "Can't Give Up") still holds together somehow."
Harmacy was included on several year-end lists in 1996, including Rolling Stone's "Ten Best Albums" (#8), the Village Voice's "Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll" (#36), and the NME's
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
critics' poll (#38).
Track listing
- "On Fire" (Barlow) – 3:36
- "Prince-SPrincess EPPrincess is a 7" single by Sebadoh, released in 1996. It was only available by mail-order.A re-recorded version of "Princess" entitled "Prince-S" would later appear on the album Harmacy.- Track listing :#"Princess"#"1/2 Undressed"...
" (Loewenstein) – 2:52 - "Ocean" (Barlow) – 2:46
- "Nothing Like You" (Loewenstein) – 3:09
- "Crystal Gypsy" (Loewenstein) – 1:29
- "Beauty of the Ride" (Barlow) – 2:48
- "Mind Reader" (Loewenstein) – 1:50
- "Sforzando!" (Fay) – 3:30
- "Willing to Wait" (Barlow) – 3:32
- "Hillbilly II" (Loewenstein) – 1:59
- "Zone Doubt" (Loewenstein) – 2:18
- "Too Pure" (Barlow) – 3:46
- "Worst Thing" (Loewenstein) – 2:55
- "Love to Fight" (Loewenstein) – 0:54
- "Perfect Way" (Barlow) – 2:49
- "Can't Give Up" (Loewenstein) – 2:02
- "Open Ended" (Barlow) – 3:28
- "Weed Against Speed" (Barlow) – 2:55
- "I Smell a Rat" (Hardy, Janota, Wood)The Bags (1985)The Bags are a hard rock/punk rock band from Lexington, Massachusetts — formed in 1985 — and are not to be confused with The Bags, a punk rock band formed in 1977. The band is composed of members Jon Hardy, Jim Janota, and Crispin Wood...
– 1:34
Personnel
- Lou BarlowLou BarlowLouis Knox Barlow is an American alternative rock musician and songwriter. A founding member of the groups Deep Wound, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh and The Folk Implosion. Barlow is credited with helping to pioneer the lo-fi style of rock music in the late 1980s and early 1990s...
- Vocals, GuitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, BassBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick.... - Jason LoewensteinJason LoewensteinJason Loewenstein is an American alternative rock singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist and a member of the indie-rock bands Sebadoh and The Fiery Furnaces...
- Vocals, Bass, Guitar, Photography - Bob Fay - DrumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, Bass, Vocals
Additional personnel
- Mark Perretta - Guitar, Bass
- Wally Gagel - Engineer, Mixing
- Eric Masunaga - Engineer, Mixing
- Tim O'Heir - Engineer, Mixing
- Bryce Goggin - Mixing
- Charles Peterson - Photography
Album charts
| Year | Album | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | Harmacy | Heatseekers (US) | No. 3 |
| 1996 | Harmacy | Official UK Albums Chart | No. 38 |
| 1996 | Harmacy | Billboard Top 200 | No. 126 |
Charting singles
| Year | Song | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | Beauty of the Ride | UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ... |
No. 74 |
| 1996 | Ocean | Modern Rock Tracks Modern Rock Tracks Alternative Songs is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in Billboard magazine since September 10, 1988. It lists the 40 most-played songs on modern rock radio stations, most of which are alternative rock songs... (US) |
No. 23 |
| 1996 | Ocean | UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ... |
No. 146 |