The Lemonheads: Car Button Cloth

The Lemonheads (and frontman Evan Dando in particular) faced a huge backlash after the release of 1994's Come On Feel The Lemonheads and the media overload that followed. And though Dando didn't handle fame well—he nearly killed himself with drugs, he acted coy and flaky in interviews, and he was ludicrously omnipresent on compilations and magazine covers—that doesn't take away from the fact that he still writes a hell of a pop song. Listen to 1993's It's a Shame About Ray, and you'll have a hard time thinking of a more perfect '90s pop record. The new Car Button Cloth is pretty good, too, though it emulates Come On Feel's tendency to wander off on plodding tangents (a leaden cover of the country standard "Knoxville Girl") and sodden ballads ("C'mon Daddy," a lyrically ambiguous collaboration with Epic Soundtracks). But tracks like "If I Could Talk I'd Tell You," "Break Me" and "It's All True" will make damn fine pop singles, and while Car Button Cloth's second half doesn't live up to its first, the album is still solid overall.