As one scans back through the last twenty-five years, it becomes pretty easy to see that one of the best producers of new label signing/ new music compilations has been Sub Pop Records. To be fair, the label comps that Epitaph and Fat Wreck Chords used to put out were pretty awesome, but no label has proven to have the same consistency that Sub Pop has; in fact, comps like Sub Pop 100 and 200 have even taken on a deserved and enduring collectible quality – a characteristic basically unheard of in the form. Listening to Terminal Sales Vol. VI – The Silver Ticket – Sub Pop's 25th Anniversary label compilation of the best songs from the label's newest releases – it's reassuring to know that some things do not change; while a lot of the grunge has been knocked out of the label's roster and been replaced with an eclectic mix of other sounds, styles and musical forms, the new Siiver Ticket compilation still holds up both as a good sampling of wares and as a good, diverse listen.
The compilation begins about as far from the historical norm for what long-time supporters of Sub Pop expect, with a bit of saccharine pop from The Ruby Suns. There “the song's called “In Real Life”), descending pianos and heavy computer beats along with a string section sample straight out of the Seventies register right away, and the mix exudes a breath of fresh air for Sub Pop. The tight and new wavey song is exciting in its own right, but it seems even more so when one considers that this crisp pop number is coming from “The House The Grunge Built” – somehow that it is so different seems like an effort to actively branch out from the “rock” mentality, and that it presents so well makes it feel all the more exciting. Those tingles continue through Shabazz Palaces' “Recollections Of The Wraith” and the ballsy, swinging hip hop coloring of it which is really cool, but listeners' eyes will grow all the wider and brighter when Pissed Jeans' brand of street punk crashes the gates. It's at that point where listeners will pause and realize that all these songs are the wares of one one label, and that's unbelievable. It's remarkable how they all play pretty well together too.
Of course, some ears will eventually begin to gravitate more toward the material that they find immediately appealing (in this writer's case, that would be the post-punk strains of Metz, the side-winding weirdness of Survival Knife, the bracingly moody “So Blue” by Low, the vintage grunge of “I Like It Small” by Mudhoney, the sinewy, scruffy and minimalist rock Ed Schrader's Music Beat and the sort of indie roots rock of The Baptist Generals), but it's impossible to ignore the number of directions in which The Silver Ticket stretches. It's an incredibly varied disc, but it's worth pointing out that no one song is really out of place; listeners of any stripe or preference will find songs here which cause them to track forward but, more often than one might expect, they'll resist the urge in favor of just waiting songs out instead of skipping them because, while they're not a given listener's first choice, they're still not bad.
So, of course the trite thing to write here would be something to the effect of “Terminal Sales Vol. VI – The Silver Ticket is an excellent sampling of Sub Pop's current wares, and has some great surprises,” but this comp actually represents more than that. The Silver Ticket is an illustration that an indie label like Sub Pop CAN continue to keep its eye on the same goals it had when it started and use the same methods to meet them successfully. Over a 25-year span, Sub Pop has done exactly the same thing repeatedly – from Sub Pop 100 to The Silver Ticket – and it has never let them down. That achievement is just awesome.
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