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. cokemachineglow
    86
    Tender Buttons feels more urgent and alive than anything Broadcast has ever recorded.
  2. Dusted Magazine
    90
    It's so satisfying when a band is able to subtly re-invent its sound, as Keenan and Cargill have done here so well.
  3. Entertainment Weekly
    67
    Overall, the depleted group's signal is weakened. [23 Sep 2005, p.90]
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  5. Filter
    68
    Though it may be too severe a downgrade for some, Tender Buttons is in fact a lovely ugly thing. [#17, p.96]
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  6. Junkmedia
    70
    Hypnotic and dreamlike, the album presents a vision of pop music's future glimpsed through the lens of its past.
  7. Mojo
    80
    Their best by a country mile. [Oct 2005, p.118]
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  8. musicOMH.com
    80
    Broadcast have produced arguably their finest moment.
  9. Neumu.net
    80
    The resulting sound is tougher and more insistent, a succession of incessant rhythms layered with fuzziness and distortion.
  10. New Musical Express (NME)
    80
    A bit of a winner. [17 Sep 2005, p.58]
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  11. Pitchfork
    75
    What you have with Tender Buttons is a Broadcast album that listeners might need to spend more time with than expected. That said, this is still a Broadcast album, meaning it's one of the better things you'll put in your ear this year.
  12. Playlouder
    70
    The Birmingham band's finest hour yet.
  13. PopMatters
    70
    For those who loved haha Sound, it may sound jarring at first, but ultimately, Broadcast's newfound edginess makes this rewarding new album their boldest to date.
  14. Prefix Magazine
    80
    Made of equal parts detached beauty and inspired disintegration, it is a transmission from another place -- no matter where you live.
  15. Stylus Magazine
    83
    They've lost two members... so perhaps that explains some of the more aggressive focus and minimalist arrangement, but not the surprise-around-every-corner freedom they find within their self-imposed stricture.
  16. The Guardian
    80
    [Broadcast] have managed to find a halfway house between this always engaging but fussed-at sound and the resonant, muscular psychedelia of their spectacular live shows.
  17. Tiny Mix Tapes
    70
    Many tracks sound like they're simply missing a piece.
  18. Uncut
    70
    Despite this record's twilight charms, the group may need to become more expansive if they want to head further out there. [Oct 2005, p.96]
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  19. Under The Radar
    70
    The most challenging [album] yet for Broadcast, and the melodic bits hidden amongst the headspace traffic reward keen listeners on repeated spins. [#11, p.109]
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  20. Urb
    80
    It's always amazing to see a band eclipse their influences. [Oct 2005, p.77]
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Awards & Rankings

62
#62 Most Shared Album of 2005

User Reviews

All reviews »
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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