Teenage song stew

Teenage Fanclub’s Bandwagonesque was the platter that Spin magazine deemed their Album of the Year in 1991. At the end of those 12 months, pristine harmonies complemented by fuzzy guitars beat out grunge (Nirvana’s Nevermind), college rock (REM’s Out of Time), and shoegaze (My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless). The band soldiered on at a strong clip through the end of the ’90s, releasing three more albums that mellowed the guitars and allowed the vocals to absorb the spotlight.

“Yes, we are definitely less fuzzed up than we were 20-odd years ago,” Fannies singer/guitarist Raymond McGinley says via email.

The recent albums may sound more AM gold than the Big Star–leaning Bandwagonesque, but the key ingredients remain the same. McGinley, alongside Norman Blake (guitar/vocals), and Gerard Love (bass/vocals) all toss their individual songs (a perfectly democratic four each on last year’s Here) into the mix. The eventual song stew becomes the album.

“I wouldn’t describe the way we work as ‘tinkering,’” says McGinley, “and we never critique each other’s songs/ideas, we just accept them as they are and then we all work together to try to help whoever wrote the song to get it happening in a way that the writer would like it to be.”

Here climbed to number 10 on the UK’s albums chart. McGinley says that “there are both younger and older people coming to the shows. Teenagers, yes, but also the occasional septuagenarian.”

Teenage Fanclub plays the Belly Up on Thursday, March 16.