It's not clear whether to praise The Embarrassment, or
whether to praise this particular compilation.  To
start off with, it can't hurt to say a few things
about The Embarrassments.  


The best answer to encapsulating the Embos into a
genre is probably one of the answers they gave
themselves when asked what sort of music they
played...American Rock and Roll.  With all that that
entails.  Their songs are sometimes smooth, sometimes
deliberately choppy, sometimes very fast and sometimes
heavy and brooding.  They're fueled by guitar and
drums and with sincere, intense lead vocals and sudden
jabs from backing vocals.  It is late-70s, early-80s
geek angst, when geek hadn't yet been declared chic by
Spin magazine, the angst of geeks who came of age a
few years before geeks coming of age could count on
jobs at Atari or HP. Back when a lot of geeks,
especially those in the western midwest, still took
liberal arts degrees.  In other words it was back
before "smart" and "technological bourgeoise" went
hand in hand.


The music is brooding, alternating between a string
of catchy riffs and sudden, throbbing, cutting in and
out of tune and rhythm like early Gang of Four.  The
lyrics for their original songs say a great deal with
a great economy of words, and rail against cultural
monstrosities like bookstore teeshirts and coffeeshop
chains that the corporate counter-culture would later
come to embrace.


One of the most amazing things, though, and the thing
that is fully brought to light in "Blister Pop" is
the skill The Embarrassment displayed as musicians in
performing cover songs.  Probably the reason that it
is so difficult to categorize The Embos (and the same
is true for many other great bands) is that they were
so damned good musically and played so many different
styles so well that it's tricky to pick out a style
and pin it on their asses.  "Blister Pop" contains
covers of the psychedelic anthem "The Time Has Come",
Roy Prbison's "Pretty Woman", Jurassic pop gem "Maybe
Baby", The Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog", and a
drunken-farouche cover of "Funtime".  All of these
covers manage to hold true to the original song, while
coming off at the same time as a whole new entity. 
Their abililty to cover songs in such a way that you
don't want to hear the original anymore but just want
to hear their cover over and over reminds me of TS
Eliot's quip, "bad poets borrow, good poets steal." 
Any song The Embarrassment covered was, thereafter,
theirs.  In fact, I never ever liked the song "Pretty
Woman" until I heard their version of it.


Along with the covers, "Blister Pop" contains some
unreleased material from The Embos' early days and
live versions of some of their bread and butter
repertoire.  It's interesting to hear the evolution of
some of the songs and even the songs which, contrary
to the claims of guy who wrote the liner notes, don't
*really* seem to have evolved a lot at all are
certainly worth another listen in another, even only
slightly different, form.


This is a very good compilation of songs by a very
good band.  The only other compilation I know of is
"Heyday," and even people who already own that great
big compilation would be unlikely to find "Blister
Pop" a redundant purchase.  It's one of those albums
that can trick me into thinking wistfully of better
times musically, until I remember that even back when
The Embarrassment was in its prime, there weren't a
hell of a lot of bands of their magnitude out there,
and then I remember that at any point in time there
will probably be about as many really really good
bands, painters, writers, comedians, etc, in the world
as at any other time and that the notion of a Golden
Age is a false grail and the notion of a Viable Scene
is the modern El Dorado, and then I need a drink. 
Excuse me.