Painful is the sixth studio album by American indie rock band Yo La Tengo, released in 1993 by record label Matador, their first for the label.
On 2 December 2014, the album was reissued with bonus material as Extra Painful, available on double CD, double vinyl and as a digital download.
The album marked a creative shift from Yo La Tengo's previous work, blending atmospheric and ambient sounds with their famous noise jams. Painful features a much more melody-driven Yo La Tengo in its hazy, dream-like songwriting. Music journalist Andrew Earles described the album as the band's "ultimate love letter" to UK shoegaze and New Zealand indie pop, calling it the band's most atmospheric-sounding release to date. Music critic Jim DeRogatis said the tracks âÂÂBig Day Comingâ and âÂÂSudden Organâ have been noted for their elements of psychedelic music. Music critic Robert Christgau characterized the album as "Hoboken's answer to My Bloody Valentine".
Two versions of the track "Big Day Coming" are present on the album.
Music critic Robert Christgau gave Painful a score of A-minus, and wrote: "This is not the forbidding experimentation of an aspiring vanguard. This is the fooling around of folks who like to go out on Saturday night and make some noise--and then go home humming it."
In recent years, Painful has become regarded as a significant step for Yo La Tengo in their discography. In a biography of the band, AllMusic's Mark Deming dubbed it "their first masterpiece", seeing it push them "in a multitude of new directions, significantly expanding [their] palette of sounds and textures." Reflecting on it in a 20th anniversary review, Spectrum Cultures Rodger Coleman called it "revelatory, ageless and sublime." He saw it as the album "where they first came together as a real band," as well as showing "a substantial refinement of sound and approach."
In 2014, Stuart Berman of Pitchfork gave the album's 30th anniversary reissue a score of 9.6 out of 10, and wrote: "From this point on, Yo La Tengo could no longer be described as mere Velvet Underground wannabes, and within just a few years, youâÂÂd be hard-pressed to even call them a rock band anymore. But then, such a free-ranging future seemed almost predestined when, after a decade of playing the rock'n'roll classicist, Kaplan opened up Painful by declaring, 'letâÂÂs be undecided.' As Yo La TengoâÂÂs post-Painful path would prove, indecision has never sounded so assured."