Dean Wareham – That’s The Price of Loving Me (Carpark Records)
For some reason I have yet to fully fathom, Dean Wareham’s music strikes me as very seasonal.
His first proper band – the marvelous, but short-lived, Galaxie 500 – produced dreamy and moody shoe-gaze alt-rock in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and to me it always felt like music for the autumn.
Songs like Listen The Snow Is Falling and Decomposing Trees sounded as if they were made to emphasize the seasonal vibe I felt as a young and impressionable listener, switched on to the band by older and cooler friends who lived in a downtown apartment atop a commercial building.
Whenever the Hamilton mist becomes more prevalent, and the leaves begin to fall from the trees, I reach for Galaxie 500’s three stupendous albums – Today (1988), On Fire (1989), This is Our Music (1990).
In winter 2024, Auckland festival The Others Way announced Dean and Britta Phillips on the bill, with the pair (life and musical partners) performing Galaxie 500 music. I bought tickets immediately, bristling with excitement at the prospect of finally hearing Galaxie 500 music performed live (Galaxie 500 broke up, citing internal tensions, before I’d discovered the trio’s music).
By spring 2024, The Others Way festival was only weeks away… and I became very ill, very quickly. I simply wasn’t well enough to go to the festival, so instead sent my daughter and her boyfriend along with my tickets, with strict instructions they see Dean and Britta, since I couldn’t. They dutifully did, and I was treated to a series of delightful video snippets of the performance, via Facebook Messenger. As if she needed to absolve my pain at missing the concert, my wife bought me a Galaxie 500 t-shirt for Christmas.
I must admit post-Galaxie 500 I’ve not paid a lot of attention to Dean’s music. We saw his second band, Luna, perform in London in the mid-‘90s, but it wasn’t the same, really.
Fast-forward to autumn 2025, and a new Dean Wareham album has arrived – a collaboration with another underground ‘80s-‘90s music legend, Kramer (Bongwater, King Missile, Shimmy Disc). How conveniently seasonal!
In many places, That’s The Price of Loving Me has a distinctly country vibe compared to the Galaxie 500 records I adore. Wareham’s wistful voice drifts along in an almost whispering fashion, on tracks like You Were The One and Dear Betty Baby which feel as if they’d fit neatly into a record by the plethora of Southern-USA new country acts popping up all over the internet.
Elsewhere, Wareham strips the musicality right back to the bare downtempo minimum, on the ballad-like The Mystery Guest, which speaks of a troublesome party attendee who remains a friend. We’re Not Finished Yet has a distinctly similar vibe, while Bougeois Mancque could have been lifted directly from a Galaxie 500 record. The Cloud is Coming is remarkably similar.
The title track is perhaps the most surprising, with Wareham and Kramer dabbling in what almost sounds like a trip-hop/soul mood, plodding along in a way you might expect from Tricky, early ‘90s Paul Weller, or Massive Attack. It’s the most radio-friendly and café-friendly track on the album. Reich der Traume is sung in German and is an awkward and jarring fit on an otherwise very enjoyable listen. Kramer’s influence is heard through the occasional appearance of an underlay of female vocals (as he did with Bongwater) and the multi-layered instrumentation.
One of things I’ve always liked about Dean Wareham’s music is his clever lyrics. Wareham is a genuine musical story-teller, and although it times it becomes almost non-sensical – a bit like Pavement – he always strings together his ideas in a way which leaves the listener paying close attention to grasp the exact meaning of the song. He references love, relationships, the seasons, the weather, and very occasional what sound like real-life events – perhaps for him, perhaps for the audience.
I’m not sure Dean Wareham will ever regain the musical heights of Galaxie 500, a truly wonderful band whose star shone brightly but not for long enough. But for those of us who enjoyed his early work, he hasn’t lost his touch – and That’s The Price of Loving Me reflects that beautifully.
Jeff Neems
That’s the Price of Loving Me, Dean Wareham’s new album, is out March 28th. Pre-order the Carpark Exclusive Neon Pink vinyl (limited to 100 copies)
