My Top 1000 Songs #889: Raisans

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

On their second LP, 1987's You're Living All Over Me, Dinosaur Jr. were still firmly in feral post-punk mode, noisy guitar-driven rock, but started to show signs of the slightly more melodic grunge-adjacent alt.rock of later work. "Raisans" in particular sees of J. Mascis making minor concessions to college radio, merging thrashy punk and classic rock guitar heroics with an actual stick-in-your-head bubblegum hook jabbed into the chorus. It made for an easy fit into my college radio shows at the time, appeasing the hardcore thrashers and those more inclined to the jangle pop I preferred. Later given a faithful but slightly sugar-coated spin by Juliana Hatfield.

Live 1994:

Juliana Hatfield cover: