Ivy’s ‘Apartment Life’ Is A Nineties Indie-Pop Gem That Still Sounds Perfect Today

Ivy crafted one of the Nineties’ terrific lost indie-pop gems with their 1997 cult classic Apartment Life. It’s among the years’s sharpest pictures of modern-day metropolitan love: remarkably moody adult love tunes, all purred by Paris-born chanteuse Dominique Durand in her groovy French accent. And now is a fun time to find it, with the the brand-new 25th Anniversary Edition including 2 excellent outtakes. The entire album has the ambiance of the exceptional cover image—a mod French female placing on her makeup, perhaps for a touch of glamour, however perhaps simply to prevent eye contact with an enthusiast who’s getting on her nerves.

Ivy were an all-star New York threesome: Durand, her guitar player (and partner) Andy Chase, and their pal, the late Adam Schlesinger, moonlighting from Fountains of Wayne. Apartment Life has lots of bittersweet guitar chime, elegantly melancholic tunes, and young romantics injuring each other’s hearts in the huge city. The music has the Paris taste of Durand’s youth idols Francoise Hardy and Serge Gainsbourg, yet with a dash of Blondie’s downtown NYC humor. The rich sound transportations you into a Nineties indie movie where you enter the coffeehouse where your crush hangs out, however you want you used a little fancier shoes.

“I’ve Got a Feeling” is the tune that ought to have been a hit, skyrocketing with Chase’s cheerful guitar and Durand’s lovesick sighs. “Never Do That Again” is a beautiful torch ballad about a domestic stalemate, where the couple can’t inform if this is simply an uncomfortable weekend or completion of the roadway. If you’ve ever heard yourself in Carole King’s “It’s Too Late” or Taylor Swift’s “Tolerate It,” you can most likely relate when Durand sings, “The feline’s on the carpet, the phone doesn’t work / I dislike when you’re peaceful / It suggests that you’re hurt.” Give these 2 tunes a combined 6 minutes and 35 seconds of your time, and the tunes will keep swimming around your skull for days.

Apartment Life got lost in the major-label shuffle, however it holds up as an ultimate mid-Nineties pop watershed in the mode of Everything But The Girl’s Amplified Heart, Saint Etienne’s Good Humor, or Luna’s Penthouse. Like them, it’s smooth and polished on the surface area, yet strikes near the heart. (“It’s never ever far too late / It’s just too difficult”—now there’s a lyric that led its time.) The brand-new edition has 2 outtakes that would have been welcome on the initial album, with the bossa-nova lilt of “Sleeping Late” and “Sweet Mary.” Ivy are likewise launching the stripped-down Apartment Life demonstrations on vinyl for Record Store Day. (The vinyl drops April 21; it begins streaming July 21.)

Ivy kept making cult favorites like Long Distance and Guestroom, where they saluted their roots with covers of the Cure, the Blow Monkeys, and Steely Dan. (You sanctuary’t heard “Only A Fool Would Say That” till you’ve heard it in Durand’s deadpan voice.) Adam Schlesinger, naturally, went on to future splendors with Fountain of Wayne’s Utopia Parkway and “Stacy’s Mom,” along with his tunes for That Thing You Do, Music & Lyrics, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Music fans were ravaged in 2020 when Schlesinger unfortunately died from Covid in 2020; all of us desired much more years of him. But Apartment Life stands as a homage to him and the radiance of all included.