Tender Buttons
by Broadcast
  • Record Label: Warp
  • Release Date: Sep 20, 2005
Metascore
76

Generally favorable reviews - based on 21 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 19 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 21
  3. Negative: 0 out of 21
  1. Dot Music
    60
    There are precious moments on here and hints that something truly magnificent could emerge in time, but first Broadcast need to work out exactly where they're going and why.
  2. Q Magazine
    40
    You want to like Broadcast. But they don't make it easy. [Oct 2005, p.115]
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Awards & Rankings

62
#62 Most Shared Album of 2005

User Reviews

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User Score
8.4

Universal acclaim- based on 23 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 22 out of 23
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 23
  3. Negative: 1 out of 23
  1. Sinews
    Apr 8, 2020
    10
    There's a sort of eerie sadness to Broadcast's fittingly named third LP Tender Buttons. Maybe this is what happens when we die - we bearThere's a sort of eerie sadness to Broadcast's fittingly named third LP Tender Buttons. Maybe this is what happens when we die - we bear witness to a kind of plaintive, bittersweet nostalgia, err on the side of bitter. And yet, tragic though the death of Trish Keenan may be, it somehow doesn't come as any surprise to the listener that they are hearing the voice of a dead woman.

    The album isn't so much dream pop as it dream-of-a-long-deceased-loved-one pop; perhaps the sound of being haunted by the ghost of an overdue library book. It certainly fits the distant effect of the genre, but almost goes too far with it, producing an almost dissociative effect. It's surreal almost to the point of unreal, the kind of album for which it almost seems more believable that it just happened to kind of exist as opposed to anyone ever having made it. Each track lures you into a maudlin lullaby, and then the electronics kick in, and that's when the music goes from grim to tear-inducing. Like a warm, affectionate hug from The Headless Horseman.

    And yet, Tender Buttons is hardly a grim album. Funereal and ghostly, maybe, but ultimately more celebratory and warm than morose and spiteful. It wants to love you, to wrap you up in its static-y, translucent arms. And in turn, you end up loving IT, because something about it just stirs some bleary-eyed, pure form of yourself that you weren't aware existed. Reminds you that beneath the sheen of dirt you've acquired over the years, there is some naive, friendly internal specter that refuses to depart into the next life, the kind that beckons you by name through rainy bus-windows, treasured Game Boy cartridges and old scraps of crude, sloppily-written essays from your childhood that defy obsolescence by turning up not infrequently during Spring Cleanings, a version of yourself that could've thrived in world absent of external forces.

    These are the kinds of pensive things you think about when the album reaches its conclusion, gesturing towards what you already had in mind, starting once more, from the beginning, and continuing your solemn, yet somehow hopeful train-of-thought.    … Full Review »
  2. michael801
    Jul 25, 2019
    9
    Broadcast's boldest album to date
    (R.i.p. Trish)
    Best tracks: I Found the F, Black Cat, Tender Buttons, Corporeal, Michael A Grammar, Subject    Broadcast's boldest album to date
    (R.i.p. Trish)

    Best tracks: I Found the F, Black Cat, Tender Buttons, Corporeal, Michael A Grammar, Subject to the Ladder, I Found the End

    Worst track: Goodbye Girls    … Full Review »
  3. hydrawithears
    Oct 6, 2011
    10
    To blend electronic and organic into a state of balance is a triumph that probably only Broadcast could achieve. In other words, TenderTo blend electronic and organic into a state of balance is a triumph that probably only Broadcast could achieve. In other words, Tender Buttons rocks. Less analogue, more jarring this time â… Full Review »
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