Most people anticipating the return of Mazzy Star this month got their first taste nearly 20 years ago, playing "Fade Into You" on repeat (or rewinding the deck, as it were) over and over and over and (seriously) over again. After a few hours of this, they'd give So Tonight That I Might See an honest go in full, start to finish, before turning back to the practice of stop, rewind, play, over and over and over and (yes) over again. After about a week of that, by measures of necessity and near-boredom, they'd let it finally turn over to track two (for just the second time ever), and then track three and so on, until the saturation point. And then they'd go back and buy Mazzy Star's first record, She Hangs Brightly. And they'd love all of it just as much as "Fade Into You" because it was just like that song -- almost the very same in fact -- but without the monotony of stop, rewind, play, stop, rewind, play. It could give them a break without ever having to change.
People are gonna try to make Mazzy Star something they're not. I think we've all already been doing it. It's something like: Iconic '90s alt group that briefly sniffed at pop stardom before deciding they didn't like the smell. Returned to the quiet of overwrought artistry. Reemerged after 17 years with Seasons of Your Day, one of the most anticipated releases of 2013. Actually, that all sounds mostly true. But behind it, we're maybe inflating what Mazzy Star were a bit. We're forgetting that, despite some critical claim, Among My Swan was a mostly forgotten print that marked the band's walk off into the sunset. It didn't help at all, either, that they mostly shunned fame and were never entirely comfortable with the people part of the process -- shows, fans, etc.
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