The band were discovered while busking. That stripped-down 'playing on the street' sound remained relatively untouched by studio gloss on this album. Sticking largely to Victor DLorenzo's minimal drum kit, Brian Ritchie's upright bass and Gordon Gano's guitar and vaguely strung out vocals, the Femmes' sound came pretty fully-formed.
There seems like a pretty straight line between the Velvet Underground and the Femmes, though the Femmes seem potentially a bit lighter. Less heroin and BDSM, and more run-of-the-mill sexual desperation.
The album would go on to sell over a million copies but never troubled the charts too much in the process, as it took them a gradual 4 years to amass those numbers.
