by Grant Lee Buffalo
Slash Records, 1993

the sound: Grant Lee Buffalo was one of the leading bands of Americana and alt country back in the day, known for socially aware lyrics, profound love songs and heartbreaking rhythms played on 12-string guitars. Lead singer Grant Lee Phillips has a deep, rumbling voice that works equally well when snarling or singing lullabies. Many of the 11 tracks on “Fuzzy” are lush and thick with piano and the hiss of a brush on a snare drum. The album’s opening track, “The Shining Hour,” sounds like something from a player piano. “Jupiter and Teardrop” is a romantic “Romeo and Juliet”-type ballad about a young girl and her convict boyfriend. “The Hook” is a gracious and mesmerizing tune about a relationship going bad. “Stars n’ Stripes’ is a sorrowful, Neil Young-esque look at the country, which starts out slow, with the discussion of “the red and white and the blue disease” and ends with the strange but lovely repetition of “Got you on my Handycam / fits in my hand.” “America Snoring” is about the L.A. riots, and the album’s last track, “You Just Have to Be Crazy” is one of the sweetest little love songs imaginable. “You just have to be starry baby / You just have to be chocolate cake,” Phillips purrs, “true or not.”

the background: The trio of Grant Lee Buffalo formed in Los Angeles in the late 1980s, built from the ruins of other groups. In 1993, while the mainstream was choking on “The Bodyguard” soundtrack, Eric Clapton was trying the unplugged thing and eardrums were still reverberating from the grunge surge, Buffalo managed to slip in a beautiful, indie-rock album that went relatively unseen. Interest in the band stemmed from a 1992 demo of the song “Fuzzy,” which was picked up by Bob Mould’s label and given life in heavy rotation on Boston’s WFNX. Large reaction to the single led to the recording of “Fuzzy,” the band’s first full-length album. Michael Stipe of R.E.M. called the record “the best album of the year, hands down,” driving up demand almost immediately and getting the band lots of college radio play.

the significance: While “Fuzzy” is undoubtedly a great record, it is the title track that makes the album. The very word “fuzzy” is itself fun to say, soft and squishy on the tongue, delightful to three-year-olds and grown-ups alike. The tune is a bittersweet love song, with Phillips describing his hurt and disappointment in the world while the bass thumps away behind him. “Bring me home to this house of many days / Just lay me on the floor, hard and cool as slate,” he sings. “I’ve been lied to / Now I’m Fuzzy,” he adds in a haunting falsetto in the chorus. By the end of the track, the guitars are crying right along with him. It’s one of those songs that never fails to make you smile when you think about where you were when you first heard it. After “Fuzzy,” Grant Lee Buffalo released the almost equally-fabulous album “Mighty Joe Moon,” followed by “Copperopolis.” But grand commercial success was never achieved, and the band didn’t last the century, with the last release, “Jubilee,” unveiled in 1998.