- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Nada Surf show they can play well with others on If I Had a Hi-Fi, though they'd do well to apply the lessons learned here to some new tunes for their next album.
-
Alternative PressCover albums are usually a contractual cop-out, but the diverse scope and amount of thought put into each track on If I Had A Hi-Fi prevents it from sounding superfluous or self-indulgent. [Jun 2010, p.107]
-
Consequently and unlike most covers records, If I Had a Hi-Fi (which, rather neatly, is a palindrome) sounds wonderfully fresh and easy, but also yields some unexpected pop trinkets.
-
The group's poppy guitars and thick, layered vocal harmonies occasionally improve upon some selections of the vastly diverse material.
-
This is how the covers album should be done, with tight technique and loving affection blending together to give the new versions life and bite.
-
Their approach avoids downright imitation of their source material, and they somehow capture a broad swathe of popular music in their own style.
-
Covers, of course, are always fraught with peril, and at times singer/guitarist Matthew Caws’ inflection has a way of fermenting the source material’s latent cheese.
-
Ultimately what places this covers album a notch higher than the rest is its unpretentiousness.
-
It's the best sort of covers album, reverent to the source material but not beholden to it.
-
UncutThe veteran New York trio draws from synth-pop, to pomp rock, yet somehow turns the wildly disparate source material into a coherent album that doubles as a tribute to their own roots in The Byrds and Big Star. [May 2010, p.99]
-
On If I Had a Hi-Fi, Nada Surf accomplishes the rare feat of producing a covers album that won't just waste space on your CD shelf.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 7 out of 8
-
Mixed: 1 out of 8
-
Negative: 0 out of 8
-
Nov 20, 2019
-
Aug 27, 2010