Pony Express Record - My Sunday Review
+ John Legend on my podcast
Three Sundays ago, I had one of those jealous-in-the-best-way moments when I went to Pitchfork.com to read their weekly Sunday Review. The site covers a few new albums each day, but every Sunday they revisit a record from the past that never got a formal review. As someone who came of age musically in the ’80s and ’90s, these pieces often hit home for me. I even contributed one myself in 2020, writing about Bad Brains’ 1986 masterpiece, I Against I.
So imagine my surprise when the murky blue cover of Shudder To Think’s Pony Express Record filled my phone that morning. I couldn’t tell you exactly what’s pictured on the cover, but I’ve seen it—and played it—enough to recognize it instantly.
The review, written by Philip Sherburne, is excellent. It’s not what I would have written, but that’s the beauty of the Sunday Review: every writer puts an album into the context of their own life and the culture that surrounded it. Sherburne nails it when he writes:
“It slips sneakily between known forms and swaggers with cock-rock abandon, an avant-garde behemoth in hair-metal spandex; Gastr del Sol masquerading as Def Leppard, or vice versa—Van Halen getting their rocks off as Slint.”
That description captures exactly why this album floored me back in 1994—it was stranger, sharper, and more confidently weird than just about anything else I’d heard at the time.
My little pang of envy wasn’t about ownership—this album doesn’t “belong” to me. It was just that every so often, when I thought about what album I might write about next, Pony Express Record would cross my mind.
If I had written about it, I probably would have described seeing Shudder To Think open for Smashing Pumpkins on the Siamese Dream tour, and how awkwardly they stretched out the long pause in what would become the album’s opening track, “Hit Liquor.” I’d describe first hearing the record as a clerk at Easy Street Records in Seattle in 1994—how it jumped from the store speakers with noticeably higher fidelity than anything else we played. The angular, dissonant guitars reminded me of Drive Like Jehu or Jawbox but with a more refined edge. And Craig Wedren’s bold, sometimes jarring vocals made it impossible to stop listening.
I’d write that the drummer and music nerd in me loved the challenging riffs and odd time signatures, but that the album really flexed during the more straight-ahead, melodic moments. And that the album carried an air of elegant entitlement—the kid at the punk show with a popped pink collar, unafraid to stand up front. I’d recount seeing Shudder To Think again with Sunny Day Real Estate and being so blown away that I went back again the next night—thankfully there were two shows, and thankfully I, a 22-year-old record store clerk, could get in without much trouble.
I’d point out that the chorus of the album's “hit,” “X-French Tee Shirt,” only happens once—a minute-and-a-half into the song—and it repeats for a glorious 2-and-a-half minutes. I thought that was the strangest decision ever, until I realized that Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” does pretty much the same thing.
But I never wrote about Pony Express Record. Now, I’m here in a way that feels more free—nobody is editing, I’m sure there are typos, and I don’t know the word count. What I do know is that I love this record, and I’m thrilled that others do too.
Music is almost always about time and place—we connect to when and how we first experienced an album—which makes it hard to convince others how great an album is. Thirty-one years later, Pony Express Record was just re-released on Record Store Day, Shudder To Think have announced a bunch of fall tour dates, and I’m ecstatic to find more people who want to talk about this still weird, still brilliant record.
We’ve launched Season 2 of my podcast Identified! John Legend is this week’s guest, and previous guests include Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello, Neko Case, TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe, Chase Jarvis, and Laura Lee from the band Khruangbin. Stay tuned for a rapidly growing list of musicians, comedians, authors and friends talking about family. Identified is available on YouTube and all major podcast platforms, 100% free and ad free. LISTEN
My memoir is called My Life in the Sunshine. You can order it here, or listen to the audiobook on Spotify.
I hope to see you somewhere soon. Upcoming events are always listed here — 2 Northwest events are happening in early October.
Nabil Ayers / Brooklyn
Thank u Nabil! XXO
Shudder were so good, and so utterly original. The first incarnation of the band--Chris on guitar, Mike on drums--was equally phenomenal. There was just nothing else like them in D.C., maybe anywhere.