“Indian Summer” by Beat Happening

"Indian Summer" is Calvin Johnson's song, words and music, and it turns up on Jamboree, the second Beat Happening album, put out by K Records and Rough Trade in 1988. That's the record where the band's bare-bones twee pop grew a shadow: more distortion on the guitars, a more professional sheen than their earlier recordings ever had, and Johnson's deep voice shoved right to the front.

It's largely his show. Johnson sings most of Jamboree, with Heather Lewis stepping up on only two songs, the brash "In Between" and the more low-key "Ask Me". When it came out, he summed up the album's sound as dark and sexy, and it's hard to argue with him.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.