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From the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One

Yo La Tengo

1997

I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One

Album Summary

This album has been submitted by a user and is not included in any edition of the book.

I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One is the eighth studio album by the American indie rock band Yo La Tengo, released on April 22, 1997, by Matador Records. It was produced by Roger Moutenot and recorded at House of David in Nashville, Tennessee. The album expands the guitar-based pop of its predecessor Electr-O-Pura to encompass a variety of other music genres, including bossa nova, krautrock, and electronic music. Most of the songs on the album deal with melancholy emotions and range from short and fragile ballads to long and open-ended dissonance. Upon release, I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One reached number 19 on the Billboard's Heatseekers Albums chart, becoming the first Yo La Tengo album to enter the charts. Three songs from the album, "Autumn Sweater", "Sugarcube", and the cover "Little Honda", were released as singles. The album received widespread acclaim from music critics, who praised the band's ability to successfully expand the boundaries of nearly any pop style. The album is widely regarded as the band's best work and is frequently included on several publications' best album lists. In 2020, Rolling Stone included it on its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time as no. 423.

Wikipedia

Rating

3.14

Votes

28

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Reviews

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Jul 08 2025
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5

I'm glad someone decided to grant this album it's rightful place on the user list. The band's best work and one of the best albums of the 1990's. The music varies between rock, pop, noise going fast and slow. The Neil Young like, slightly off key, vocals of Ira Kaplan are a delight.

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Jul 07 2025
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4

I liked this quite a bit, will listen again. 4 stars.

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Jul 08 2025
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4

Took me way too long to get into this band, an outfit that I'd written off as another indie singer-songwriter outfit of the aughts on early listens. Joke's on me, especially with this LP – there's a sense of warmth across all of YLT's discography, but this album especially hums with a humanity that makes every track feel like the sonic equivalent of a warm hug. The production is just lo-fi enough to add the human touch, but clean enough that the bandwidth between the softer tracks and giant walls of noise register equally. A wide breadth of songwriting on this one too, with plenty of dynamic contrast and variety to make the album's runtime feel nearly justified. Just a great album at the end of the day, and a shocking oversight of the original 1001 to omit

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Jul 07 2025
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3

Can't recall if this band has made the list before. Certainly they are are profoundly foundational players in this genre of indie rock, carving out something less heavy and post-punk than similar contemporaries like Dinosaur Jr. I always liked them.and I liked this. I'm not sure its anything remarkable and a lot of it is rendered intelligible by typical muted vocals, but I'd happily listen to more any day.

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Jul 07 2025
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3

Rating: 6/10 Best songs: Green arrow

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Jul 07 2025
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3

Maybe if I was stoned? Maybe? The vocal harmonies are ever so slightly off and it got to me after a while. 3/5.

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Jul 09 2025
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3

A bit of a mix. At times very 90s indie, others quite Simon and Garfunkel. The album cover does not convey the contents.

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