From the Vault: Ivy's 'Apartment Life'
A forgotten album gets a second life.
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Good Morning!
Today we’re taking another look at Ivy’s Apartment Life album.
I don’t have to tell you it’s hot. Like, hot hot. Anything south of I-40 is a sauna. The air in the Midwest is thick enough to cut with a knife, and even the Best Coast is being hit with triple digits. If you’re Scarlett Johanssen, you take three showers a day. The rest of us have to get creative.
Enter Ivy’s Apartment Life record. With its smooth, sophisticated sound, it’s the epitome of cool. It’s also poppy enough to sound great at the beach (or stuck in traffic on the way there). This first ran in March 2023, but it is as timely as ever.
Hang in there. Fall’s comin’!
KA—
1997 seems like a lifetime ago, and in many ways, it was.
I didn’t know it then, but I spent that summer almost as a last hurrah: lots of road trips to nowhere around the West and a great swing through most of New England & the Mid-Atlantic.
It was a very specific moment before I came home and started a job I thought I’d only have for a couple of years while figuring out what I wanted to do when I grew up.
Twenty-five years later, I still haven’t decided.
While I was bombing up and down I-95 that summer, Ivy was putting together the final touches on their Apartment Life record.
A follow-up to 1995’s Realistic, the trio of Andy Chase, Adam Schlesinger, and Dominique Durand didn’t know it then, but they were putting together what many would consider their best record.
College rock snobs over the age of 30, get ready to feel old! Ivy’s 1997 opus Apartment Life just got reissued by Bar/None Records for its 25th anniversary, in digital and—for the first time—on LP. For everyone else, consider this a long overdue introduction to one of the most crucial, yet chronically overlooked, power pop records of the late ’90s.
Combining Schelsigner’s ear for a hook, Chase’s economical style of play, and Durand’s voice, they released something easy on the ear and hard to categorize.
Was it Indie? Dream pop? Shoegaze? Power pop? The correct answer is “yes.”
Durand’s voice asked us to float off into the clouds while Chase and Schelsinger’s tight rhythm kept our feet on the ground. There is also a touch of Ye Ye here—Durand is French, after all—but while that often felt like empty calories, Apartment Life is anything but. Rare is the record that balances sounding light while also substantive. Modern but classic. Tracks like “I Get the Message” and “Get Out of the City” manage to sound as new today as they did in 1997.
Saint Etienne does this really well. On Apartment Life, so does Ivy.
The band members went on to score several films. Schlesinger, of course, had another band and unfortunately became an early victim of COVID-19 in 2020.
As they were mourning, Chase and Durand began rooting through their demos and other work. That, coupled with years of fan requests, convinced them to reissue the album—this time on vinyl.
Last fall, to mark 25 years at work, I got a cake1. To mark it's 25th anniversary, Apartment Life was reissued on vinyl. One has a lot of empty calories. The other does not. Both will leave you feeling great, but Ivy's sugar rush will outlast any dessert.
Apartment Life is a classic record that sounds very much like that specific moment in music, even if Ivy didn't know it then.
Bottom Line: Sometimes, reissues or a nonstop timeline of “on this day” tweets can feel like a gut punch—after all, time never really slows down. But sometimes, it can feel great and take you back to a very specific place and time.
With its polished sound and lush vocals, Apartment Life will do just that for you. Have a good trip.
For your playlist: I Get The Message, Get Out of the City
Listen:
Ivy | Apartment Life, 1997
Click the record to listen on your platform of choice.
Further listening:
Friends of On Repeat Keith R. Higgons and Rob Janicke spoke with Chase & Durand for the Abandoned Albums podcast. Click here to check out the discussion.
What do you think of this record? Did you have it when it was first released? What were you doing in 1997? Share your thoughts below!
Thanks for being here,
Kevin—
Okay, it was really good, but still…
There are still copies of the 25th anniversary vinyl reissue available on their Bandcamp page. Although it's one less than it was a few minutes ago ;)
That's a brilliant album and a good comparison to St. Etienne - it's an album that can be played almost any time and cheer you up