Track Listing

1. Blue Thunder
2. Tell Me
3. Snowstorm
4. Strange
5. When Will You Come Home
6. Decomposing Trees
7. Another Day
8. Leave the Planet
9. Plastic Bird
10. Isn't It a Pity
11. Victory Garden [#]
12. Ceremony [#]
13. Cold Night [#]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46903 in Music
• Released on: 1997-04-29
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Enhanced, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered

From the Label
Galaxie 500 began to play beyond the Boston limits and their stock rose, especially in the UK where Today wasreceived enthusiastically. In the summer of 1989, the band re-entered Kramer’s studio to record their second album,On Fire, and its companion EP, the UK-only release Blue Thunder, both for Rough Trade. The critical acclaim for these recordings was deafening. Sounds described the album as "utter magnificence," Melody Maker called it "astunning collection of daydream pop," even Rolling Stone gave it 3½ stars.The world was beating its head on Galaxie’s door; the On Fire/Blue Thunder pairing expanded effortlessly on theband’s exquisite base. The plaintive threads of the Galaxie 500 sound had been pulled tighter by the technicalproficiency that had enveloped these ex-amateurs, and unlike so many others, technique had sharpened their instinctsrather than masked them. Playing with flash is superfluous, when you have the moxie to cover Red Crayola’s "VictoryGarden" and Joy Division’s "Ceremony," making both of them over in your own image. With the release of On Fire/Blue Thunder, Galaxie 500 took their playing to a whole new level.

Customer Reviews

Wrist-slitting fun
You just got dumped by your girlfriend, your dog just died, your really late on your college papers, you never get enough sleep... oh hell, put in G500's "On Fire" and just start crying. Because you're sad? No, no. Just 'cause the songs are just too damn beutiful. I love music, I got hundreds of CDs, but very few touch me like this one. It doesn't matter if you're listening to it in the subway, on bed or on the top of the Empire State Building, it always makes you feel kinda funny, inadequate, really. The world becomes absurd, abstract, deadly at every little corner. "Blue Thunder" is one of the most warm and gutsy song I've ever heard. And "Strange", well...it makes you feel like one. If you want to be a lonely argonaut travelling in a sea of faceless people, then buy this album, lock your door and hide all pointy objects.

I once got beat up to this C.D.
And while it was no fun having a skinny white guy's boot repeatedly assault my groin and lower abdomen, I couldn't help but notice the etheral guittar chords and well written lyrics playing in the background. Until then, I had only been beat up to rap music. They say music is the strongest source of nostalgia, and they are right. This C.D. takes me back to some good times.

Lazy, hazy hungover mornings
Listening to G5's On Fire this morning is taking me back to a time 10 years ago, sophomore in college, visiting friends in their dive apartment, getting loaded every night for two months and in the mornings, gradually prying our eyes open, rolling off the couches, beds, tables, putting in On Fire and slowly letting the mood work its way through the haze of booze and herb and cigarettes while we clean up the house, restock our bodies with food, play a little lazy pinochle, and get ready to do it all again. The slickest of G5's albums, and definitely the most unified. Lacking the orgasmic highs of Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste from Today and the occasional cornball low-points of This Is Our Music (like "but you have another eyelid..."), this album is very steadily great. Nothing like it when you're in just the right mood.