90s Jams #76: Superchunk "Slack Motherfucker" (1990)

A breathless punk-pop diatribe written by singer/guitarist Mac McCaughan, it's an anti-anthem, a personal vendetta which nevertheless captures the zeitgeist of its time and place to perfection. Though implicit in "Slack Motherfucker"'s message is a denouncement of an American system increasingly forcing its young to accept menial, low-income employment, indie rock's "Take This Job and Shove It" it ain't -- the song's vitriol is aimed far less at the socioeconomic structure at large than at a shiftless co-worker who won't get off his sorry ass and pitch in. Propelled by McCaughan's high, nasal yelp and a surging, buzz saw guitar hook, its chorus -- "I'm working, but I'm not working for you!" -- is as much an outcry of minimum-wage angst as it is a crystallization of the D.I.Y. ethic at its purest. Arguably, no band of the era transformed the personal into the populist (and vice versa) as brilliantly as Superchunk, and for all the superb records the band issued in the years to follow, "Slack Motherfucker" remains their crowning achievement. - Allmusic http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=33:gbfexx8dldae