Teenage Fanclub: Four Thousand Seven Hundred And Sixty-Six Seconds: A Short Cut To Teenage Fanclub

Teenage Fanclub's brush with alt-rock greatness shadowed Nirvana's, with both bands refining the melodic grunge of their indie-label debuts for DGC-released second albums. Only Nirvana really broke through, perhaps because the Seattle group stuck to youth-friendly rock aggression, while Teenage Fanclub courted the limited fan base for gooey Big Star power-pop. Even early Fanclub fans turned their backs on the band when the sparkly sound of 1991's Bandwagonesque turned out to be a trend rather than an aberration. The quitters missed hearing Teenage Fanclub master its adopted form with increasingly complex, polished records, but with the release of Four Thousand Seven Hundred And Sixty-Six Seconds: A Short Cut To Teenage Fanclub, the group's 13-year career can be placed in its proper context. Mixing up the chronology over 21 tracks (three of which are new, and excellent), A Short Cut shows how Teenage Fanclub's commitment to walls of guitars, massive hooks, and a potent strain of adolescent pining hasn't changed much since its sloppy origins. The disc operates in the tradition of artist-defining collections like Neil Young's Decade and Buzzcocks' Singles Going Steady, and though it stands alone as perhaps Teenage Fanclub's best record, latter-day classics like the resounding, Byrds-y "Ain't That Enough" and the tranquil confessional "My Uptight Life" should leave former devotees searching the cutout bins for more.