Web in Front is a song by American

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

band

Archers of Loaf Archers of Loaf is an American indie rock band originally formed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 1991. The group toured extensively and released four studio albums, one compilation, numerous singles and EPs, and a live album which was release ...

, originally released as a 7" single on

Alias Records Alias Records is a small American indie-rock record label based in Lexington, Kentucky. Alias has released albums by American Music Club, Archers of Loaf, Yo La Tengo, The Magnolias, The Loud Family, Too Much Joy Too Much Joy is an A ...

in 1993. It was their first release on the Alias label, and their first single from their debut album ''

Icky Mettle ''Icky Mettle'' is the first studio album recorded by the indie rock band Archers of Loaf. It was produced and engineered by Caleb Southern at Kraptone Studios in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and released by Alias Records on September 7, 1993. ...

''. The original single also included the tracks "Bathroom" and "Tatayana".

Impact

"Web in Front" launched ''Icky Mettle'' to high-ranking positions on the college charts, including #18 on the

CMJ New Music Report CMJ Holdings Corp. is a music events and online media company, originally founded in 1978, which ran a website, hosted an annual festival in New York City, and published two magazines, ''CMJ New Music Monthly'' and ''CMJ New Music Report''. Th ...

Top 150. The single was played regularly on both college radio and

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

, and its music video was featured in an episode of

Beavis & Butthead ''Beavis and Butt-Head'' is an American adult animated series created by Mike Judge. The series follows Beavis and Butt-Head, both voiced by Judge, a pair of teenage slackers characterized by their apathy, lack of intelligence, lowbrow humor, an ...

Critical reception

When "Web in Front" was originally released, music critics often compared it to Pavement and

Superchunk Superchunk is an American indie rock band from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States, consisting of singer-guitarist Mac McCaughan, guitarist Jim Wilbur, bassist Laura Ballance, and drummer Jon Wurster. Formed in 1989, they were one of t ...

. For example,

Charles Aaron Charles Aaron is an American music journalist and editor, formerly for '' Spin'' magazine, where he worked for 23 years. Personal Charles Aaron was born in Rockingham, North Carolina, and raised in Asheboro, North Carolina and Rome, Georgia. He ...

wrote in ''

Spin Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning * Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis * Spin (propaganda), an intentionally b ...

'' that the song was "...a less fettered and more frolicsome rewrite of Pavement's "From Now On" (from '' Perfect Sound Forever''). ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

Neil Strauss Neil Darrow Strauss, also known by the pen names Style and Chris Powles, is an American author, journalist and ghostwriter. He is best known for his book '' The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists'', in which he describes his ...

described the song as frontman Eric Bachmann's "...own tongue-in-cheek version of a love song, and a perfect combination of weirdness with pop intuition."

Retrospective

In a review of '' Seconds Before the Accident'', a 2000 Archers of Loaf live album, Pete Nicholson described "Web in Front" as a "pop classic". In 2012,

Pitchfork Media ''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music publication (currently owned by Condé Nast) that was launched in 1995 by writer Ryan Schreiber as an independent music blog. Schreiber started Pitchfork while working ...

's Matt LeMay wrote that "..."Web in Front" is quite simply among the finest indie rock songs ever written. That a song whose lyrics are all but impossible to parse literally comes off as so immediate and relatable speaks both to Bachmann's skill with words-as-sounds, and to his bandmates' ability to put force and nuance behind his voice." Also in 2012, Pitchfork's Paul Thompson wrote that the song "...isn't just their finest song, it's their defining moment, their rocket-shot into the canon." Pitchfork ranked the song as the 77th best track of the 1990s in a 2010 list.

Track listing

# Web in Front # Bathroom # Tatayana

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Web in Front Archers of Loaf songs 1993 singles Alias Records singles 1993 songs