Posies

The Posies were basically a two-man band, structured around cotton-candy-voiced Washington State residents Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer. The pair took its cue from power-pop a la Big Star, the Move, and Cheap Trick, penning harmony-drenched tunes whose melodic treasures drew such notables as former Beatle Ringo Starr to cover them ("Golden Blunders"). The band's first release was 1988's Failure, essentially a stripped-down home demo, but the Posies slowly added more and more rawk elements to the mixture up through Amazing Disgrace, before bowing out quietly in 1998 with Success.

Stringfellow followed up his Posies stint by becoming the touring keyboardist of R.E.M., and both he and Auer have since released solo albums.

Album reviews

Amazing Disgrace
DGC (1996)
The title of the Posies' 1996 record Amazing Disgrace is more than a play on words. It also serves as a half-joking review of their career.