(Mushroom, 1988)Based on what little Go-Betweens I’ve heard in my life, I’m something of a prickish heretic in my bored dismissal of the group. And maybe such dismissal is unfair of me, especially since this 7” is from the last album they released before breaking up (for the first time), and by that time they’d already had about a full decade in which to get lousy. So can the legions of fankids tell me whether “Was There Anything I Could Do” is representative or not? O please lemme know, dear people. Because what I hear is sad-guy acoustic strummery done in a fashion speedy, with big-cheese string-sawin’ choruses, and an awful fiddle solo dropped into the middle… all with production values sleek enough to make dud Aussie-buds the Church drool. Yeecch. B-side “Rock and Roll Friend” isn’t on the album (16 Lovers Lane), but it IS on my stereo right now, and I wish it’d get right the dickens off and take its midtempo, 1980s-CMJ-for-crybabies stylings with it. Boo! Boo to this record! Back into the box you go!
