Feel the Pain

The guitar arrives first — a cascade of notes that sounds simultaneously like a classic rock riff and something entirely more damaged, J Mascis running melody and noise together until they're inseparable. "Feel the Pain" is Dinosaur Jr. at their most paradoxically accessible: the production is enormous, the hooks undeniable, and yet underneath everything sits a layer of controlled chaos that keeps it from ever feeling polished. Mascis's voice is one of rock's great instruments precisely because it sounds so effortless and so burdened at the same time — a high, slightly nasal whine that carries more emotional weight than its nonchalant delivery should allow. The lyric circles around self-awareness without self-improvement, the narrator knowing exactly what's wrong and being powerless against it anyway, which is an honest and quietly devastating thing to put into a song this melodically generous. Lou Barlow's bass anchors the low end while the guitars exist in their own stratosphere. The solo mid-song is a reminder that Mascis is one of the last guitarists who treats the extended solo as genuine emotional expression rather than technical display. This is quintessential early-nineties alternative rock in the sense that it has no interest in being alternative — it just wants to be huge and sad and loud, and it succeeds completely. A song for driving with the windows down when something is wrong that you haven't found words for yet.