Comparisons are funny, aren't they? Some bands can't escape them, no matter how hard they try. They can even break up for several years, reunite, then release a retrospective compilation and still come back to the same tired metaphors. It seems that finding commentary on Big Dipper without some reference to R.E.M. is like trying to avoid porn while surfing the internet (face it buddy, it ain't gonna happen). So let's get it over with here, then: Big Dipper sound similar to R.E.M. in a sort of vague, ambivalent way (they share chiming, clean electric guitar sounds and some tempos, but that's about it).
Now, let's move on to the important stuff: this anthology. Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology is a delicately assembled 49-track collection of the group's best pop gems in a tidy 3CD set by Merge Records. Giving up the music industry ghost back in ’92 after releasing a commercially unsuccessful effort in Slam on the Epic label, the Boston quartet's experience has obviously retained a bit of its original bitter taste, as only "Life Inside The Cemetery" appears on the Supercluster compilation (a tiny 2% of the anthology doesn't show a great deal of faith in their past product).
There are more than enough good reasons on Supercluster to justify its existence, however. Completists can bask in the knowledge that all of Big Dipper's late-’80s records for now-defunct label Homestead are included (Boo-Boo (1987), Heavens (1988), and Craps (1989)) in a shiny, remastered form. Meanwhile, obscurists can celebrate the debut of 15 previously unreleased tracks, an unreleased album titled A Very Loud Array, recorded after Slam silently flopped.
Big Dipper's charm was in their jangly pop-rock sensibilities laid over steady drum rolls; cuts like "Man O'War," "Meet The Witch," and "She's Fetching" are infectiously catchy riff-based college rock that surely inspired countless great Pavement and Dinosaur Jr. songs. There are plenty of hooky standouts amongst the crew of newly unveiled cuts, too: "Wake Up The King," "Lifetime Achievement Award," and the tinny but wonderfully harmony-drenched swan song "Beginning of the End."
Supercluster's bottom line is that even the worst Peter Buck reference couldn't hold this set down. If you can excuse the slightly dodgy album design, Supercluster has all the makings of any well-executed anthology -- complete sets of great songs, insightful liner notes, and a large number of high-quality unreleased tracks. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to avoid porn on the internet. Wish me luck.
Disc 1:
