FLAC / Lossless / Log (100%) / Cue
Label/Cat#: DGC #24277
Country: USA
Year: April 17, 1990
Genre: Pop,Rock
Format: CD,Album


1 Skin & Bones 4:17
2 Here's Where the Story Ends 3:55
3 Can't Be Sure 3:25
4 I Won 4:22
5 Hideous Towns 3:48
6 You're Not the Only One I Know 3:51
7 A Certain Someone 4:25
8 I Kicked a Boy 2:18
9 My Finest Hour 3:59
10 Joy 4:10




The Sundays' debut album builds on the layered, ringing guitar hooks and unconventional pop melodies of the Smiths, adding more ethereal vocals and a stronger backbeat. As evidenced by the lilting, melancholy single "Here's Where the Story Ends," it's a winning combination, making Reading, Writing and Arithmetic a thoroughly engaging debut.
Like the album's title, this music is about the basics. This seminal release from 1990 rerouted pop music for several years, and for the better. This simple guitar/bass/drum/vocal affair cut like a searchlight through the fog of tortuously overproduced music of the time, as The Sundays proved that more is often merely more. Harriet Wheeler's lilting, swooningly sweet voice is clearly the strong driving factor behind this debut's appeal, fore-grounded through spare arrangements and an almost timid rhythm section, though the timbre of Wheeler's voice is perfectly matched to David Gavurin's terrific 12-string guitar. Taken as a whole, the album bears repeated listening, even though some of the songs tend to blur together. The hit single "Here's Where the Story Ends" is rivaled by, if not equal to, "You're Not the Only One I Know," "I Kicked a Boy," and "Joy."