5. Smash Your Head On The Punk Rock (1992)

I remember watching a bootleg VHS of Sebadoh just before Smash Your Head On The Punk Rock was released, and the show opened with three songs from Gaffney. As absurd as that sounds now, Gaffney to that point seemed to be just as integral a part of the band’s songwriting as Barlow, and even bigger a factor than Lowenstein, thanks in large part to his stunning contributions to III.

On Smash Your Head, however, Gaffney only contributed three songs, and they paled in comparison to Barlow’s four numbers, including the show-stopping “Brand New Love.” The latter, reconfigured into a full-on rock song from its previous gossamer incarnation on Weed Forestin, is devastating here. “Vampire” features some of the most brutal lyrics Barlow’s ever written, matching the bruised clamor of instrumentation like a glove. As he catatonically croons, “I ask a simple question when I know the answer right/ I ask me if I love her as I tell her it’s all right/ But nothing in my life would fit, I turned into an idiot vampire, draining her desire.” It’s pure, unmitigated self-loathing, illustrating the black heart at the core of this album.

The Barlow covers are equally harrowing. His tremulous vocals on “Everybody’s Been Burned” transform the original Byrds number into a pitch-black dirge, while Nick Drake’s delicate “Pink Moon” is mutilated into a whiplash thrash number. Jason Lowenstein contributes two songs, while Bob Fay contributes one, but this was the album in which Barlow became Sebadoh’s focal point — which would persist even though Lowenstein would essentially assume the co-frontman mantle circa Bakesale.