Jawbox Revisited: A Special Sweetheart

Generally accepted as one of the most accomplished albums to emerge from the fertile Washington D.C. scene of the early nineties, the remastering of For Your Own Special Sweetheart sharpens the guitars and fills out the bottom end of the sound on an already brilliant recording. The addition of three bonus tracks, including the excellent 68, is simply the icing on a most delicious cake. That's the bare bones for those of you lucky enough to already own it. For the uninitiated, it's perhaps prudent to illuminate the genesis of Jawbox's masterpiece.

Amongst its many highlights include the breakthrough MTV single Savory (later adopted to stunning effect in a collaboration between Deftones and Far), the brilliantly jagged Cruel Swing and teeth-gritting opener FF=66. The latter particularly exemplifies the way in which this pivotal group united progressive D.C. hardcore with the brittle, angular fury of Chicago's noise scene. The textured guitar of Tar and gargling bass of Shorty were seamlessly merged with Fugazi's sense of experimentalism and the results can feasibly be seen to pave the way for the last ten years of post-hardcore.

It's strange to think that, at the time of its original creation, Sweetheart was the subject of considerable controversy. Prior to its release, many DIY scenesters of the day were indignant following Jawbox's decision to leave the ultra-hip Dischord Records and sign for Atlantic, one even writing to the band wishing them death in a fiery van crash. Yet Jawbox demonstrated great savvy by carefully negotiating the terms of their major label contract, maintaining full creative control of their work. They knew the risks to their credibility but, on the back of the feeding frenzy generated largely by Nirvana's ascendency to the mainstream, it presented an opportunity they felt was too good to pass up.

With two musically-strong but weakly-produced albums behind them it was arguably – and somewhat ironically – the larger studio budget afforded to them by Atlantic that helped finally capture Jawbox's live brilliance on tape. Theirs was indeed a steep learning curve (their first ever show was with Fugazi) and yet it was only the transition to Atlantic that finally allowed J Robbins and co. to travel outwith the USA. Besides, for all the accusations levelled at them, Jawbox's own imprint, DeSoto, founded to put out their debut EP, is one of the US underground's most enduring independent labels and the driving force behind this re-release.

The band's subsequent and final eponymously-titled album, though strongly delivered and well-written – and despite College radio picking up on an inspired cover of Tori Amos' Cornflake Girl – never quite scaled the heights of its predecessor, with many suggesting that it was too polished and lacked the balance of powerful production and raw punk attitude so prevalent on Sweetheart.

So it stands that For Your Own Special Sweetheart remains Jawbox's crowning achievement: one demanding investigation by any fan of contemporary post-hardcore as well as a rebuke to anyone convinced that no good can come from working with a major label, albeit a rare bit of testimony to that effect.