Vinyl makes you sit down and listen. It's way too much trouble to get up to count grooves to find specific songs. So I put the record on the turntable and for all intents and purposes heard Become What You Are for the first time. I realized that all those years ago I had been selling this masterful collection short. Hatfield's girlish voice has an unexpected edge, cutting in the way paper can slice through skin. But her voice is the counterpoint to her true instrument: Hatfield is an adept and impressive guitarist. How did I not notice this? Driven by guitar riffs that veer away from expected patterns, producer Scott Litt keeps the elements balanced but doesn't polish off the rough sonic surfaces, taking a cue from trios like The Police, Nirvana, and Dinosaur Jr. whose sound is more than the sum of its parts, far bigger than guitar + drum + bass should be. These songs, which I was so quick to dismiss in my youth, are deeper and more complex than I originally gave them credit for. They document a time when Gen X-ers were old enough to make their own decisions, but young enough to not regret their mistakes.
The Nineties were the golden age of the "Supermodel", also the title of the moody, drawling opening track, which exposes the veneer of perfection as a superficial – even degrading – illusion. "The highest paid piece of ass/You know it's not gonna last/Those magazines end up in the trash." It foreshadows the creepiness of reality television and social media influencers: "She's a living doll/and she's famous for nothing at all/She's living life like a dream/With a false sense of self-esteem." Then the ringer: "I wish she'd trade places with me." From: http://www.apessimistisneverdisappointed.com/2023/01/this-is-sound-brief-review-of-reissue.html
