Cracker

The Golden Age (Virgin)
by Joshua Brown

In the wonderful rock critic tradition of bio-thievery, where it is inevitably the casual magazine reader who gets hoodwinked, I offer you a direct quote by Cracker‘s David Lowery, lifted from the publicity package: “Perhaps an early conversation between Cracker co-founder and lead guitarist John Hickman and I would be enlightening. The gist was since Kerosene Hat had gone platinum, the typical route for artists like us – who’ve been kicking around in the Underground and Alternative scene for 15 or so years – would be to make our ‘credibility’ record and turn away from the mainstream, make our lo-fi or punk rock masterpiece, an acoustic record, whatever. But to the two of us it seemed this would be not only lame, but unchallenging, and really quite easy. We were interested in making something slightly pretentious and big-time.” For those of you who are still clinging to the beauty of Camper Van Beethoven before they “sold out” to the Saltine corporation, you can rest assured that your “back in the day” kudos are loaded with enough chemical preservatives to guarantee a long shelf life. I’ve already eaten mine and they weren’t bad. But fine wine they ain’t, so their value does not appreciate with time. And would you mind removing your three-foot-high hat adorned with fake jade so I can get an unobstructed view of the band as they crank out neo-Richard Hellisms in “I Hate My Generation,” the late-’90s 15-piece string section head bang of “100 Flower Power Maximum,” and clever countryish ballads seamlessly executed like “Babylon Dixie?” Thanks, I owe you one.