Perfect Teeth

I hate to feel like I’m just getting old and only able to appreciate music from my youth. I’m still open to new music and find much to enjoy in the output of the current generation of music. However, I suppose like anyone, I do have a soft spot for the soundtracks of my younger days.

Unrest - Perfect Teeth (Bandcamp)

I never actually owned a copy of Unrest’s Perfect Teeth, even while being devoted to the Teen-Beat record label that put out some of their catalog and was owned by founding member Mark Robinson.¹ I had a Teen-Beat mug to match my t-shirt. Back in those days, though, we had to buy albums and I only had limited funds, so I purchased the B.P.M compilation from the band instead of Perfect Teeth (which I don’t regret).

Perfect Teeth is a representative artifact of its era, and still influential now. In the case of standout track “Make Out Club,” it’s difficult to find jangle pop that’s so frantic yet so laid back. The title of the song became the basis for one of the first ever online social networks. The stylistic representation is all over the map on the record, though. It’s not just indebted to C86.

In addition to being an enjoyable listen, this is an artifact that says as much about the early 90s indie scene as any university-sponsored archeologist could ever dig up.