Teenage Fanclub

Initially a rough-hewn quartet that wanted little more than to drink for all of Scotland, Teenage Fanclub soon evolved into a force of nature that wanted to wrap its arms around all of humankind. And, commercially speaking, they paid for it amidst a bleak post-grunge culture that had never been advised that all you need is love. Listening to this career-spanning, 21-track collection, the conviction that Teenage Fanclub was robbed is overwhelming; their grasp of the classicist pop song has, for over a decade, been beyond reproach. "Ain't That Enough," "Neil Jung," the new "Did I Say" - these songs pull at the most basic of emotional receptors but never manipulate them. Like the well-noted B-group touchstones (Beach Boys, Big Star, Beatles, Byrds) of group mainstays Norman Blake, Gerard Love and Raymond McGinley, Teenage Fanclub sound as though they broadcast from a superior alternate solar system where morning brings nothing but contentment and a melody can heal the ailing. To know them is to love them.