4 out of 5

Label: Merge Records

Produced by: Various

Full disclosure: I’ve never been a big fan of Merge records, who dropped this digital compilation. I certainly own a few albums on the label, but from the get-go they’ve generally catered to a type of syrupy pop that just doesn’t hit very hard for me. That’s not necessarily important when I’m just ranking a label comp on how well it meets what I consider to be its purposes – to give a listener a good sampling of offerings, mainly – but it does maybe mean I can’t tell you if this is truly a great set of tunes by the featured bands, as much of it kind of mushes together into a syrupy pop pile. However, even given that, the crafters of ‘Hindsight’ did some work: the album is well sequenced to juggle between twee pop, synthy new-wave stuff, jittery electro pop, singer-songwriter fare, and some sprinkles of heavier guitar-oriented pop. None of it sounds un-Merge like to me, but it does feel like an effective exploration of their sound, which, if you’ll recall, was my main criteria. I’m also a sucker for a theme, even if it’s just in the title, so bundling these tunes – which are mostly upbeat – as a salve for what was, for many, a difficult year, works for me. And though exclusivity isn’t at all a requirement for comps (that can sometimes work against it, if it’s a sampler, because you want to be able to maybe track down the album or single featuring your favorite song), I think the mix here, where I’d guess the live tracks are exclusive?, is a good balance, although the live tracks are perhaps the most skippable, with the fidelity dipping on a few.

As a final nit, I realize this is a digital download, but including some additional info on where these songs can be found is always a good idea. So either an additional file with the download, or maybe this was on a bandcamp page at some point where it did include that info in which case scratch my concern, but I got this as a bundle with a digital download of another album, so in that version, ideally a little 1-sheet blurb is included.

Anyhow: mine ears were not offended or bored by this comp, thanks to good sequencing and a fair mix of Merge styles. And if you’re a Merge fan, I imagine it’s even better.