The Second Single

The Swing Revival, Pt. I, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy & Brian Setzer Orchestra

2012-01-20T17:50:00.005-06:00

There were many sub genres of rock music that presented themselves to the masses in the wake of grunge. Plenty of genres exposed themselves to the harsh judgments of critics and the no as harsh ears of mass market radio listeners. The music world was in search of a new genre that would rise from the ether and capture the hearts and minds of sock hopping kids and discotheque-ing adults alike.

Unfortunately, that never happened. Instead, the record companies spent millions throwing money at any band or scene that showed even the smallest kernel of promise, hoping to get in on the ground floor of whatever would replace grunge. The thinking seemed to be, "wouldn't it be stupid to be the guy who turned down the next Nirvana? Don't be that guy!" Of course, there was never another Nirvana, and one could argue that--for various reasons to complex and boring to go into--no rock craze since has taken hold of the nation like grunge did in 1991.

But that didn't stop them from trying. They tried, oh god, how they tried. Some attempts more valiant than others. A quick list: ska (The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Save Ferris), pop-punk (Green Day, Offspring), jam bands (The Dave Matthews Band, Spin Doctors), roots rock (Counting Crows, Wallflowers), , superfluous-numbers-in-our-name rock (Matchbox 20, Blink 182), U2/R.E.M.-biting earnest bald guy rock (Live), electronica/techno (Fatboy Slim, Chemical Brothers, Moby), even alt. country--however briefly (Old 97's, Wilco). Some of these scenes and genres had fleeting moments of popularity, and a lot of the more talented bands stuck around even after their scene expired. But of all of these genres, the neo-swing revival seemed the most inexplicable, uninvited and, frankly, uncalled for.

Begun--like most inexplicable trends--by some hipsters, the swing revival has its roots in Southern California, dating back to the year of our lord 1989--the year a band calling themselves Royal Crown Revue formed in L.A. and began playing their own rock-based version of "jump blues"--a pre-rock musical style of up-tempo blues played by a group consisting of guitar, double (stand-up) bass, drums and a horn section (saxophone, trombone, trumpet, etc.). Big Bad Voodoo Daddy was formed by lead singer/guitarist Scotty Morris the same year (Cherry Poppin' Daddies, though also formed in '89, were stuck in a Faith No More funk-rock phase and it would be a while before they transitioned to swing). Both bands featured musicians who had cut their chops playing in and around the Southern California punk and alternative scenes and had traded in their safety pinned t-shirts and black 501s for zoot suits and black and white spectators.

Vaguely influenced by the rockabilly-punk crossover trend of the '80s popularized by groups like Brian Setzer's Stay Cats and fueled by Generation X's (the generation, not the band) insatiable thirst for nostalgia--even things they were too young to even be nostalgic about--the swing revival was small at first, contained mostly to Los Angeles lounge clubs frequented by 20-somethings looking for something more restrictive, formal and classically cool than the "who gives a shit? Flannel's comfy" aesthetic popularized in the grunge era.

And who can blame them? Grunge was sad and dour and brought to mind images of overcast skies and rain and suicidal kids with long, oily hair wearing plaid on their backs and Doc Martins on their feet, drinking cheap beer and singing about heroin, whereas swing brought to mind old-timey Rat Pack-like clubs where you could engage in complicated dance moves with a sexy lady, don a pin-striped suit and fedora and get loaded on dry martinis. It was all more than a little tongue-in-cheek, and in no way was it built to last.

But while the swing scene had been gaining momentum in the early '90s, it wasn't until 1994 that neo-swing began its five year plan to take over the rest of the country, starting, oddly enough, with the Jim Carrey vehicle The Mask. The retro, cartoonish nature of swing music matched the film--about a man who discovers a mask that turns him into a '30s era cartoon--perfectly. Royal Crown Revue appeared in the film performing "Hey Pachuco" (or as I call it, the Chips Ahoy! theme song) during Carrey's swing dance number with a gorgeous, young, and surprisingly healthy-looking Cameron Diaz. Of course, while the music and scene were memorable, most people don't look to Jim Carrey comedies for the next music/dance crazes, so the scene didn't take off just yet. Nonetheless, the seeds of swing were planted in the minds jackass 13-year olds running around, talking with their butt cheeks and saying "SSSSSSSMOKIN!" a lot.

Ironically, the very film that helped push the swing scene into the nation's consciousness also happened to be a send-up of the L.A. swing scene and all its pretensions. 1996's sleeper hit Swingers--the film that made Vince Vaughn a household name and started a decade of douchebags using words like "money" and referring to the objects of their affection as "beautiful babies." It also has the dubious distinction of popularizing the exclamation "Vegas, baby!" which is now shouted by every single white male under the age of 70 the very second he hits the strip.

Directed by future Jumper filmmaker Doug Liman, the small indie film used the mid-'90s L.A. lounge/swing scene as a backdrop for the tale of Mikey (Jon Favreau), a wannabe actor/comedian who has just been dumped by his longtime love and drifted out to the left coast in order to start over with his old buddy and fellow struggling actor, Trent (Vaughn). The film deftly and brilliantly rides a fine line between making the viewer think the whole lounge/swing scene is kinda cool, and not-so-subtly mocking the entire conceit of a scene that would birth such ridiculousness. Characters like Trent and Sue (Patrick Van Horn) are downright silly in their unironic worship of the Rat Pack aesthetic--or their version of the Rat Pack aesthetic--using it to snag as many "beautiful babies" as possible. Favreau's character is an outsider attempting to learn the strict but nonsensical rules of dating in Hollywood and fit in with this strange world where a club is only hip if it's a place no one has heard of and is nearly impossible to locate, and a man is only as cool as the car he drives (Mikey drives a red Chevy Cavalier). The still-unknown Big Bad Voodoo Daddy appeared in a pivotal scene in the film, where Favreau meets up with the unlikely gorgeous swing scenester Heather Graham--and SPOILER ALERT FOR A FIFTEEN YEAR OLD MOVIE--she turns out to actually like him. Watching the film as an adult, it seems crazy that anyone would take Favreau's screenplay as anything but an all-out parody of these type of too-cool-for-school hipster attitudes, but the film's influence reached young white males in a way that few indie films not directed by Troy Duffy manage to do. (Note: director Liman's follow-up film Go is also a similar, albeit darker, mockery of LA's next late night scene--the ecstasy influenced rave scene).

And while the swing scene in L.A. was old news by the time Swingers became a home video classic, the rest of the country was just starting to catch on. The cult success of the film birthed two soundtrack albums, featuring a mix of swing music new and old. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy had three featured tracks on the first soundtrack album, one being their future single "You & Me & The Bottle Makes 3 Tonight (Baby)."

1998 featured the release of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's hit album Americana Deluxe (also erroneously known as Big Bad Voodoo Daddy as, confusingly, Americana Deluxe isn't featured anywhere on the cover art). "You & Me & The Bottle..." was a minor hit, reaching 31 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart. BBVD never scored any other hits, but they remained a popular live act and according to Wikipedia, played one of the Super Bowl halftime shows, though absolutely no one has any memory of this taking place.

The popularity reached its zenith with a Gap ad for khakis, in which a bunch of young white people jumped, jived and wailed to Louis Prima's classic "Jump, Jive and Wail." The ad was renowned not just for the impressive swing-inspired dancing and well-dressed college kids, but for the special effect utilized in the commercial that I referred to at the time as "when they do a freeze frame and then the camera spins around, but everyone is frozen, and it's really crazy," but has since become known as "bullet time" thanks to its famous use in that equally crazy scene in The Matrix.

In what seems like the smartest move by a marketing department ever, former Stray Cats' front man Brian Setzer released a cover of Prima's song as the first single from his Orchestra's 1998 album The Dirty Boogie. While the band had been together since 1990 and released two prior albums, Dirty Boogie became a massive hit for the band, peaking at #9 on the Billboard album charts. Likewise, the Orchestra's cover became a smash, and was directly responsible for thousands of college students hurting themselves during unsuccessful attempts to do the Lindy Hop while wearing loose-fit khakis.

(TANGENT! not really worth mentioning, but that video features early '90s legend, Mr. "SHUSH!" himself, who is best known these days for being the star of this impossibly brilliant .gif--NOTE: if you don't get this reference, you are probably too young or were too much of a snob in 1993 to appreciate the merits of a Pauly Shore/Sean Astin comedy)

Setzer's song cracked the Billboard Hot 100 at #94 and went as high as #23 on the Top 40, and performed equally well in the UK. But Setzer's success was just the beginning of the US's brief flirtation with swing music...

Next week: 1998 and 1999 sees swing take the nation by storm (or at least by strong shower), causing a zoot suit riot of sorts. Having been well lubricated with a couple of years of ska horns courtesy of Ms. Stefani and others, Middle America was finally ready to let swing music do its worst, opening the gates for a couple of talented, non-swing centric bands to have massive success with one non-representative swing hit each. In other words, pigeonholing at its worst. Good times!

Download: It Was A Good Decade, Vol. VI, 1997

2011-07-07T13:51:00.003-05:00

It Was A Good Decade, Vol. VI (1997)

1. Ocean Colour Scene - Hundred Mile High City
2. Hurricane #1 - Step Into My World
3. Feeder - High
4. Sloan - Everything You've Done Wrong
5. Radish - Simple Sincerity
6. That Dog. - Never Say Never
7. Bouncing Souls - I Know You Love Me
8. Homie - American Girls
9. The Honeyrods - Soap Opera
10. Shudder to Think - Red House
11. Swell - Fuck Even Flow
12. Verbow - Holiday
13. Black Lab - Wash It Away
14. Days of the New - Downtown
15. Mighty Joe Plum - Stupid
16. Cravin' Melon - Come Undone
17. Lincoln - Sucker
18. The Pistoleros - My Guardian Angel
19. Farmer Not So John - Rusty Weathervane
20. Forest for the Trees - Dream

Click on the album art to download or just click here.

Download: It Was A Good Decade, Vol. V (1996)

2011-06-23T19:01:00.004-05:00

It could be argued that 1995 marked the end of grunge and post-grunge cornering the alternative rock market (though it reared its head in an uglier visage in the form of Creed and Nickleback a few short years later), and in turn, 1996 is a year in search of an identity--in search of the next genre that would dominate the radio waves and take bands playing dive bars in the middle of nowhere to football stadiums. It didn't really happen, but there were some valiant efforts put forth:

Power-pop: no doubt set off by the popularity of Weezer, a slew of similarly styled bands showed up in '96--notably Ash and Nada Surf, who both owed a debt to the Weezer sound (the latter even shared a producer--The Cars' Ric Ocasek--and a record label). Knoxville's Superdrag showed up with a Buzz Bin hit "Sucked Out" which mixed a punk attitude with the melodic sense of Alex Chilton. Fountains of Wayne even threatened to steal Weezer's spot as the kings of mixing clever phrasing with sugary melodies and crunching riffs (that is, if anyone had actually bought their debut). And artists like Super Deluxe and Jason Falkner, both popular with power-pop genre die-hards, made unsuccessful bids at stardom.

Ska-punk: Third-wave ska, to be exact, was a genre that, not unlike grunge, had been around since the '80s (with bands like Operation Ivy and Fishbone making a small splash in the indie scene), but didn't experience any real success until record companies found the ska-punk haven of Southern California. The scene took off with bands like Sublime and No Doubt (both of whom could only be called ska in the loosest sense of the term) making waves on MTV and rock radio. Goldfinger, Reel Big Fish and Mighty Mighty Bosstones (from Boston, but still) followed, gaining a hit or two with varying levels of success. There was a brief period of time when ska was freaking everywhere and kids were learning how to "skank" (a dance, and no it's not something Christina Aguleria created). The scene experienced something of a burnout and petered out in the early '00s as young, SoCal bands turned their interest to other, far worse genres (read: emo).

To a lesser extent:

Britpop -- which never really caught on in the U.S., despite the best efforts of Oasis (who had some success with What's the Story Morning Glory? and then sort of petered out) and Blur (who are essentially one-hit wonders in our country). Here Britpop is represented most characteristically by Kula Shaker, who are sort of like Oasis if they listened to more Deep Purple and Ravi Shankar. Lush and Ash also fit loosely into the Britpop category (though the two bands don't sound anything alike).

We also see the effects of a band like Green Day going platinum seven times (in the words of Kid Rock) with the seminal punk band Bad Religion actually getting some airplay thanks to a slick production also by Ric Ocasek (hey, the guy was hot in '96...not physically "hot," cause that guy is obviously a hideous, skeletal man-lady, but his career was certainly on fire).

There's some other bands too, that don't quite fit into any sort of genre, unless "chick-rock" counts (the similarly named Lush and Luscious Jackson), or maybe if acoustic college rock is its own genre (Jackopierce).

I got nothin' else to say, so: enjoy.

It Was A Good Decade, Vol. V, 1996

1. Birdbrain - Youth of America
2. Kula Shaker - Hey Dude
3. Hayden - Bad As They Seem
4. Ash - Girl From Mars
5. Superdrag - Destination Ursa Major
6. Nada Surf - Treehouse
7. Fountains of Wayne - Radiation Vibe
8. Jason Falkner - Miracle Medicine
9. Super Deluxe - She Came On
10. Imperial Teen - You're One
11. Cowboy Mouth - Jenny Says
12. Luscious Jackson - Naked Eye
13. Lush - Ladykillers
14. Limblifter - Screwed It Up
15. Bad Religion - A Walk
16. Goldfinger - Here In Your Room
17. Reel Big Fish - Beer
18. The Refreshments - Mekong
19. The Borrowers - Beautiful Struggle
20. Stir - Looking For
21. Thermadore - Amerasian
22. Jackopierce - Vineyard

Click the album art to download or just click here.

Download: It Was A Good Decade, Vol. IV (1995)

2011-06-16T16:54:00.007-05:00

And we continue on with the series. This week: 1995.

A surprising amount of upbeat music on this installment, possibly as a direct reaction to the down-in-the-dumps ambiance of grunge and post grunge music. '94 birthed Weezer, and here we have at least three Weezer-influenced bands in Wax (who were friends with the guys in Weezer), The Rentals (the former being the solo project of much-missed Weezer bassist Matt Sharp) and Self (no connection, but I think they kinda sound like 'em). Besides The Rentals there are two fantastic side-project bands included: Kim Deal (Pixies, The Breeders) tried her hand at Guided By Voices style lo-fi rock with The Amps, and Layne Staley of Alice in Chains teamed up with Mike McCready of Pearl Jam to make a one-off album under the name Mad Season that sounds, well, a lot like a cross between Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam--but a good one. Beyond that, we've compiled a mixture of jazz rock (Morphine), britpop (which was reaching the states around this time in the form of bands like Supergrass, Cast and Elastica), punk (Jawbreaker) and even Christian rock (Jars of Clay)! We're talking at least half a dozen different strands of alternative rock. Truly something for everybody!

This is in the top 3 contenders for my favorite mix of the series. There was just a ton of great music to cull from this time out. So much good music in fact, that it would maybe even be possible to make a Volume II of this Volume IV. But that sounds complicated. And I'm bad at math.

Enjoy.

It Was A Good Decade, Vol. IV, 1995

1. Self - So Low
2. Cast - Alright
3. The Rentals - Waiting
4. Wax - California
5. K's Choice - Not An Addict
6. Morphine - Honey White
7. The Amps - Tipp City
8. Toadies - Tyler
9. Black Grape - Kelly's Heroes
10. Supergrass - Alright
11. Rocket from the Crypt - On A Rope
12. Sparklehorse - Someday I Will Treat You Good
13. Sweet Water - Feed Yourself
14. Jars of Clay - Flood
15. Scarce - Freakshadow
16. Elastica - Stutter
17. Jawbreaker - Fireman
18. Dragmules - Send Away
19. The Mother Hips - Shut The Door
20. For Squirrels - Mighty KC
21. Tripping Daisy - I Got A Girl
22. Mad Season - River of Deceit

Click album art to download or click here

Download: It Was A Good Decade, Vol. III (1994)

2011-06-08T18:23:00.004-05:00

Quick word! I'd like to thank the great Dave Holmes (@DaveHolmes on Twitter) for bringing a lot of people to the site for these mixes. He's a hilarious guy, a fantastic tweeter and everyone should follow him and watch/buy everything he does. ALSO, for those of you who have figured out time travel technology, your first duty should be to go back to 1998 and vote for Dave on MTV's Wanna Be A VJ contest so he doesn't have to do that very gracious "oh, great, the guy who can't think won!" reaction when Jesse Camp is announced as winner.* That contest was so rigged. Seriously, it really was.

Hope everyone enjoys the mixes. More to come soon.

*(Even though it didn't really matter in the end since MTV hired Dave anyway and he had his job a good two years longer than Jesse, who I assume now makes his home with roommate Teck Holmes in a Port-a-John behind a Baja Fresh frequented by John Sencio, but still)

It Was A Good Decade Vol. III, 1994

1. Pete Droge - If You Don't Love Me (I'll Kill Myself)
2. Better Than Ezra - In the Blood
3. The Connells - Slackjawed
4. Widespread Panic - Can't Get High
5. Jackopierce - Late Shift
6. The Sons feat. Bret Reilly - Too Much of a Good Thing
7. Screamin' Cheetah Wheelies - Shakin' The Blues
8. Giant Sand - Yer Ropes
9. Velvet Crush - Hold Me Up
10. Gigolo Aunts - Where I Find My Heaven
11. Zumpano - The Party Rages On
12. Sugar - Gee Angel
13. Sebadoh - Skull
14. Sponge - Molly (Sixteen Candles)
15. Redd Kross - Yesterday Once More
16. Echobelly - Insomniac
17. Grant Lee Buffalo - Fuzzy
18. Jawbox - Savory
19. Cake Like - Suck
20. Sausage - Riddles Are Abound Tonight

Click album art to download or just click here.

Dionne Farris (formerly of Arrested Development) - "I Know"

2011-06-06T18:09:00.006-05:00

Settle down class! Welcome to Hip-Hop 101 for White People.

Now, we're preparing to do one of these hackneyed blog posts where I pretend to be a teacher in a classroom and you are my students. This is an easy (read: lazy) way to try to teach readers about something potentially boring without boring them to death.

Today's topic of discussion is one Dionne Farris.

Student: Sir, is that the athlete?

Funny you should ask, Dudley. I'm afraid not. That's Deion Sanders aka Neon Deion aka Prime Time. Although he did have a brief career in hip-hop, so I suppose the confusion isn't completely insane, just mildly so.

Student: Oh. My name's Doug, by the way.

Did you just correct me? Do you have brain damage? Get out. Take your books. Don't come back. Insolence will not be tolerated.

Now that that matter is settled. Let us go back to the days when hip-hop was still a means of educating the youth. The days when hip-hop was seen as a way to speak to all races about social issues. Let us go back to the early 1990s.

Around 1992, hip-hop was still finding its place fitting into the mainstream. Gangsta rap was coming in from the coasts in the form of Dr. Dre, Tupac, etc., but it hadn't yet reached the masses on the levels it soon would. We were out of the age of Run DMC and Grandmaster Flash had pop-rappers like MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice and co.--guys who had no street cred whatsoever and were basically trading in on a cartoon version of hip-hop. We had party rappers like Naughty By Nature who just wanted to have a good time. But, in the end, white people still weren't quite sure what to make of these tight rhythms and well-spun rhymes. The future of hip-hop was up for grabs, and for a minute there, it could have gone several ways, one of the ways being a slightly groovier, less violent and more socially conscious (albeit less cartoonishly entertaining) type of hip-hop.

Enter Arrested Development.

Student: Arrested Development? I love that show!
No, you fool. Not that Arrested Development (look forward to the movie coming 2035!).

This Arrested Development.

The hip-hop group that was socially and racially conscious while still being catchy and entertaining, they were the musical equivalent to an early Spike Lee or John Singleton "message" movie that were popular around the same time. White people could listen to this group and actually enjoy the music and only feel guilty when the lyrics told them to. Perfect.

The Atlanta, GA based group came along in 1992--a time when socially conscious hip-hop stars dressed in traditional African clothing--instead of baseball caps and hoodies--could still be featured prominently on MTV. They were part of a loose genre dubbed "alternative hip-hop." This was back when anything that contained socially redeeming qualities and didn't appeal to the lowest common denomniator was dubbed "alternative." Alternative hip-hop was a fresh take on the already tired use of heavy drum and bass typically used in hardcore and gangsta rap. The music combined influences from folk, funk, jazz, reggae, and even post-punk. The production was often influenced by DJs, sampling decidedly uncool artists like Hall & Oates, Steely Dan, and Johnny Cash among others, utilizing them more for fills than samples or hooks. Critics have likened the struggle between alternative hip-hop and gangsta rap as vaguely congruous to the rock world's tug-of-war between alternative rock and glam metal--except in this case, the alt. hip-hop community never birthed a Kurt Cobain to save the day from the likes of Ice Cube and Dr. Dre. Some of these artists experienced momentary success--individuals like De La Soul and Del Tha Funkee Homosapien and groups like Digital Underground. However, it should be noted that the success of those groups was (unfortunately) mostly in a novelty capacity with nonsense party songs like "Mistadobalina" and "The Humpty Dance."

Arrested Development, on the other hand, did something Behind the Music would refer to as "sweeping the nation," first with "Tennessee" and then with their follow-up, "Mr. Wendal," a song that had the capacity to at once make you hum along and bob your head while simultaneously making you feel like shit for ignoring that crazy homeless guy yelling at you every time you pass him on the way to work. They were serious artists and tackled serious issues. Spike Lee was so impressed with the group that he asked them to write a song for his 1992 biopic Malcolm X.

"Tennessee," "Mr. Wendal" and a third single, "People Everyday," all hit the top ten and helped their debut 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days in the Life Of... sell 4 million copies. Everyone just had to have that cassette, man. Sam Goody sold out of that shit with the quickness. In 1993, AD won multiple Grammys, and were held in high regard as the future of hip-hop--a hip-hop that wasn't appealing to the lowest common denominator and was informing youth, instead of just scaring the shit out of them. Then they made a second album, 1994's Zingalamaduni, but their style of music was already mostly out of fashion, and despite going gold, failed to reach expectations. In 1996, the group broke up.

But not all of them. Dionne Farris--the group's female vocalist--who had made quite a splash with her contributions to AD's album--particularly "Tennessee," left the group before their second album. And despite the mellow vibes present in AD's music, it's interesting to note that she actually left the vibes between Farris and the rest of the group weren't quite so groovy (could I be whiter?).

After working as a young singer in New Jersey and Manhattan (and enjoyed a brief stint with the female vocal group Onyx), Farris moved to Atlanta to live with her father in 1990 and started dating Arrested Development's drummer. The group was looking for a female voice for their songs and Farris obliged them. While Farris' role in Arrested Development was a bit of a gray area (she wasn't considered an official member) the attention she got from the press and fans created strife between she and AD front man Speech. Farris, seeing the writing on the wall and an opportunity, left the group and set to work on a solo career.

Though offered a deal with Arrested Development's record label, Farris rejected it in favor of one that might offer her more creative freedom. Wrangling a team of musicians and songwriting partners from the Atlanta-based band Follow For Now, Farris recorded a demo tape. The tape made its way to the desk of Sony executives who then signed her to a deal.

The album, Wild Seed -- Wild Flower was a delightful and serious take on everything that influenced Farris--r&b, soul, folk, blues, rock, and hip-hop. The album was critically acclaimed for its diversity and blending of styles--not to mention Farris's vocal prowess.

The single, "I Know," was a good representative of the album's sound--rootsy but modern, looking back to old styles while looking ahead to new ones, melding rock, folk and blues with soul and hip-hop. The song juxtaposes a dirty blues slide guitar riff with a hip-hop sensibility--at once taking what she learned in Arrested Development and expounding on it.

The song was a massive hit, playing on nearly every station format everywhere in 1995, peaking at #4 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the Top 40. It was even a world wide hit, charting high in Australia, New Zealand and France and hitting #41 in the UK. The song was ranked #11 on Billboard's year end Hot 100 list.

Farris appeared on Saturday Night Live and the song was used on that show New York Undercover which was an inexplicable hit for about five minutes. Later, Harris released two more singles from the album, "Don't Ever Touch Me Again" and "Passion," neither of which charted.

"Don't Ever Touch Me Again" is a pretty standard and good choice for a second single, as its one of the poppier tracks on a CD that is heavy on R&B and soul. It's different enough from "I Know" to show that the hit wasn't a fluke, but catchy enough to connect with the same audience. A mid-tempo, moody track, "Touch Me Again" moves along at a clip with wah-wah guitar, percussive strings and a catchy chorus. Granted, it's not as good as "I Know"--the set of verses aren't quite on par with the killer pre-chorus or chorus. It's slightly surprising the track didn't at least chart, as it's a fine slice of mid-'90s R&B pop. But few songs can possess the energy and catchiness of "I Know" without being supremely annoying.

"Passion" (co-written by Harris, unlike "I Know") oscillates between a neo-soul song on the verses and a hard-rocking--Living Colour-style metal, really--song on the chorus. It's an interesting, schizo dynamic, and a unique song, but ultimately lacks the pop hooks to be a mainstream hit like "I Know" or even "Don't Ever Touch Me Again." Ultimately it's a weak second stab at a follow-up.

Unsurprisingly, the album didn't sell as well as the single, and only got up to #57 on the album charts. It's always a revealing statistic when people don't really buy the album--it's like they somehow know that while they really dig the song, the album probably won't tickle their pickle.

Student: Um, sir?

Yes, Sharon?

Student: Did you just say "tickle their pickle"? I think that's sexual harassment.

Why, yes it is, Sharon. Yes it is. Moving on.

Her second and final hit came from a song called "Follow," a track that appeared on the highly popular Love Jones soundtrack in 1997 (Larenz Tate 4ever!).

The track did well on the charts, although there is no concrete information on the information superhighway as to what number it actually reached (her website describes it as "chart-topping"). Sorry. :-(

Student: Is that an emoticon, sir?

And what of it? I would suggest you ignore my stranger proclivities if you know what's good for you, Oliver.

Student: It's Andy.

OLIVER.

Let's continue. As the album was quite good and filled with engaging tracks, one naturally wants to look for the fatal flaw that only allowed the singer one hit--albeit one monster hit.

So what was it? Too much political commentary? Not really--the album was more introspective than political. Was Farris not good looking enough? Not showing enough skin? Well, by today's standards, probably not, but this was 1994 when people who didn't get buck naked and bend over for the camera could still be successful. The album had great songs, great production, everything.

The problem? Randy Jackson.

Student: You mean the American Idol judge? He's so nice. I love when he calls people "dawg!"

WRONG. He's evil.

I'm evil, dawg

Jackson served as "Executive Producer" on Wild Seed--Wild Flower. How could he have brought it down, you ask? The answer is, don't ask. You just know. You look at Jackson with his Jackson brand bass painted like a craps table and his casino themes pleather jacket that would look tacky on a Nascar track and that gravity defying two-foot flattop upon his head..you just look at all that and you know nothing but pure evil is pumping through his veins. By aligning herself with such evil, Ms. Farris never had a chance to go beyond wherever Jackson would allow her. If you look closely at the video for "Follow," you can see him sitting there with his bass, laughing like he can't wait to pawn this poor woman's soul.

Maybe some of that is true, maybe none of that is true (editor's note: none of it is true), but let's just agree that Dionne Farris could have done a duty for one Ruben Studdard and warned him about the true evil that lurked behind those glasses.

Following a twelve year hiatus, during which Farris gave birth and took time off to raise a child, she released a new album in 2007, For Truth If Not Love, which unfortunately seems to have stayed under the radar.

Dionne, if you're reading. You know who's responsible.

Yo. Class dismissed, dawgs.

Student: Did you call us "dawgs"?

Yes. And not one of you vomited. You all fail. Get out of my sight, cretins.

The First Single: Dionne Farris - I Know
The Second (er...Fourth?) Single: Dionne Farris - Hopeless

Download: It Was A Good Decade, Vol. II (1993)

2011-05-18T18:36:00.005-05:00

It Was a Good Decade, Vol. II (1993)
1. The Connells - '74-'75
2. BoDeans - Feed the Fire
3. Dillon Fence - Poor Poor Lonely
4. The Freddy Jones Band - In a Daydream
5. The Samples - Feel Us Shaking
6. James - Laid
7. Redd Kross - Lady in a Front Row
8. Jellyfish - The Ghost at Number One
9. Archers of Loaf - Web in Front
10. Suede - Metal Mickey
11. Urge Overkill - Sister Havana
12. Dig - Believe
13. Catherine Wheel - Crank
14. Seaweed - Losing Skin
15. Cop Shoot Cop - $10 Bill
16. Best Kissers in the World - Miss Teen USA
17. Pond - Young Splendor
18. Paw - Jessie
19. Bivouac - The Bell Foundry
20. The Spinanes - Manos
21. Swervedriver - Dual

Click album art to download or just click here.

Download: It Was A Good Decade, Vol. 1 (1990-1992) - The Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda-been Hits of the '90s

2011-04-13T14:50:00.011-05:00

Don't let the name set you off.

This isn't a mix tape of a bunch of nobodies. These are talented groups. Some could be called one-hit wonders (if you wanted to use such obnoxious nomenclature--perish the thought), but most are no-hit wonders. Some experienced success through live shows and word of mouth, but only a few experienced any real radio play.

But what they all have in common is being victims of a collective cultural amnesia. That is to say that, while The Sundays may be remembered by you and me, they don't get a ton of airplay on Jack FM (though, admittedly, this song was on Sirius/XM the other day). But they don't get the same nostalgic attention as even most of the one-hit wonders featured here.

And unlike some of the one-hit wonders we've covered, pretty much all of these bands have a lot of talent. Most all of them could have and should have taken off. Pretty much every song featured in this series was a single. Many of these bands were on majors. The bands gave it a shot. They weren't afraid of success. These artists had more than one song in them, and often more than one or two albums in them. In another time (which usually means the '70s in these type of discussions), they would have been nurtured and cultivated by a caring A&R man at a record label who cared about making art--or at least that's how the myth goes. I dunno. Maybe they would have tanked in any time period. No matter. This series (7-discs!) will span from 1990-1998 and try to compile the best music that either you never heard (and if you did hear it, you probably forgot all about it after you sold it to Blockbuster Music or Media Play for a buck back in '99).

(a special shout-out to my friends at AltCountryTab.ca for helping me compile the playlists. As someone who was still very young for most of the '90s, I needed lots of help from people who actually sought out cool music in the '90s.)

It Was A Good Decade, Vol. 1 (1990-1992)

1. The Posies - Golden Blunders
2. Drivin' N Cryin' - Fly Me Courageous
3. The Sundays - Here's Where The Story Ends
4. The Charlatans - The Only One I Know
5. Inspiral Carpets - This Is How It Feels
6. Soup Dragons - I'm Free
7. Ride - Taste
8. Chapterhouse - Pearl
9. Concrete Blonde - Joey
10. Ned's Atomic Dust Bin - Gray Cell Green
11. School of Fish - 3 Strange Days
12. Reverend Horton Heat - Bad Reputation
13. Material Issue - Valarie Loves Me
14. Flop - Hello
15. Miracle Legion - Snacks and Candy
16. Screaming Trees - Nearly Lost You
17. Sloan - Underwhelmed
18. Eugenius - Flame On
19. Sugar - Helpless
20. Bettie Serveert - Tom Boy
21. Buffalo Tom - Mineral

Click album art to download or just click here.

Check back next week for Volume 2!

Canadian Wonder #5: LEN - "Steal My Sunshine" (Summer Mix-Tape Edition)

2010-07-27T14:16:00.000-05:00

The Basics:

Remember these guys? No? Well you surely remember their song, "Steal My Sunshine," which answered the age-old question, "can a white, Canadian rap group who resembles extras from 'Degrassi: The Next Generation' make a hit song by borrowing liberally from an old '80s hit and looping a beat from one of the most ubiquitous songs of the disco era?" The answer was "why yes," and not only that, but this song is somehow still going to sound good eleven years later and make you want to shake your hindquarters like it is New Year's Eve 1999 (and we all remember how crazy that was. Me and Carson Daly had a big night that night. Shit was CORRECT, son. MTV NYE '99! w00t!).

Formed in 1991, made up of a brother and sister team straight outta Toronto, Len started out as a pop-punk act all the while gradually shifting towards a more hip-hop influenced sound, culminating with their major label debut, You Can't Stop the Bum Rush. But it was the appearance of the single "Steal My Sunshine" on the soundtrack to the way excellent and completely underrated Doug Liman crime-comedy Go that propelled the song and album into the nation's zeitgeist.

But Len's time in the strobe light would be--wait for it--short lived and the Canadians would go back to the Great White North where singing about this mythical "sunshine" is at best an exercise in futility and at worst considered a form of black magic--a serious crime in Canadia, meaning a man in a powdered wig and robe might sentence you to beheading by the Queen of Hearts. I know, right? Canadians are crazy.

TELL ME MORE, MAESTRO:

Thank you, I will.

Now you may say, hey! Maestro! What a Len? And I am here to tell you, dear reader, that I have no earthly idea what a Len be, but I suspect it has something to do with Newfoundlandian (a word) women's rugby players. Or maybe it's the name of some rugby dude. Yep, that is as far as I cared to Google, folks. Love it or leave it, babies.

Now that we have that out of the way, let's talk about the brother-sister duo, Mark "The Burger Pimp" Costanzo and Sharon "Why is my brother nicknamed the goddamn Burger Pimp?" Costanzo. (His nickname should be "Can't Stands Yo." Get it? Cause like on Seinf--oh, like you could do better. Jerk. You wanna go? Huh? Yeah, you better run cause I'm gonna lay you the f down.)

Anywho, in the early-to-mid '90s, the Can't Stands Yos were spending most of their days making 8-track recordings of their pop-punk ventures, and in fact, their early work was more within this genre. Before making Bumrush, the duo recorded two full-length independent albums, 1994's Superstar and 1996's Get Your Legs Broke.
Len soon picked up some new members with equally bad ass nicknames like D Rock, DJ Moves, Planet Pea, and a gentleman with the moniker Drunkness Monster--names that no doubt struck fear into the very hearts of even the most cold blooded suburban Toronto gangs. The new group produced the album that would become You Can't Stop the Bum Rush, an ode to old-school hip-hop with a sugary pop edge (bzzz! I spot a couple buzz words!) and a heavy helping of Hello Nasty-era Beastie Boys. Signing to Sony subsidiary Work Records, the obvious first single and first track on the album, "Steal My Sunshine" was placed on the electronica-centric soundtrack to the Scott Wolf/Jay Mohr action vehicle Go, in order to whet the public's appetite for more Len. The song was so successful that the album release date was moved up a month.

I think my friends from freshman year of high school would love for me to note how much I'm downplaying just how obsessed I was with this film/soundtrack/Katie Holmes in 1999. Oh well, they should get their own blog. SNAP! LMAO! BAHAHA!

The album did some dees (cool slang for "decent") business buoyed by "Sunshine," reaching #46 on the album charts and was certified Gold in the US, and no doubt record sales in Toronto alone kept the Canadian economy afloat well into 2003.

¡El Single-o Primero!

So, no doubt "Steal My Sunshine" reminds one of another massive hit from a bygone era. C'mon, you know the one!

"Ordinary World" by Duran Duran? Well, no.

"Tobacco Road" by The Nashville Teens? No, not at all.

"Kiss the Rain" by Billie Myers? Uh-uh. I don't think you're getting this.

How about, "Don't You Want Me" by Human League? AH-HA! YOU AH CORRECT, SIR! [/Perfect Ed McMahon]

Both Burger Pimp and Sharon related to various sources that "Sunshine" was indeed directly inspired by Human League's 1981 hit single.

The story went something like this: Burger Pee-yump and My Sharona got in a tiff, in which they did not speak for months. Burger, in hot pursuit of something to make his spinal fluid run backwards, attended a rave at which he downed some E and heard the classic disco song "More, More, More" by Andrea...actually, you know what? Let me allow B.P. himself to tell you the epic story of how "Sunshine" came together:

''I'll tell you how I found that sample. I had come home from a rave and everyone was on E and we were listening to disco at six in the morning when the sun was coming up and we were cooking eggs and s -- -. You can't deny that disco really works at that time. I wasn't like, 'Whoa, that's it!' We were just like, 'Let's just loop that and sing over it.' I mean, 'Sunshine' didn't look like much of a song. It was recorded on eight-track. We weren't going to put it on the record. The master was sitting under my bed, covered in dust. We were like, 'Where the f -- - is it?'''

As for the connection to Human League, the Pimp was uncharacteristically humble.

''We were down with this song when we were young. I used to think, I'm gonna make a song just like that f -- -ing Human League song, 'cause it's dope. I tried to do that with 'Sunshine.' Ours didn't go down as good, but I like it. What a f -- -ing joke. What a bad thing to try to do.''

No, dude! You did a good thing! It's the rest of your songs that were a bad thing to try to do. But this song kicks ass!

All the split screens make it look like an episode of Squawk Box! Hi-yo! CNBC humor always gets the kids.

Look. Is the rapping here stilted? Is the video (which won a slew of MuchMusic awards in Canada) one of the douchiest thing to come out of the '90s? Other than that monkey guy in Limp Bizkit, of course? Or all of Limp Bizkit? Is that Sharon girl actually kind of adorable and kind of blastin' her nips? Yes, yes, yes, yes, and you tell me.

Borrowing the "he said, she said" structure from Human League and the excellent piano-based bridge from "More, More, More," the track isn't quite as good as either of its direct influences, but it nonetheless does a bang-up job of evoking that time in your life when all you wanna do is get stupid and lie out on sweltering sandy beaches in the late-afternoon California sunshine, and it achieves this feeling without resorting to ripping off the Beach Boys or laying on any steel drums. But besides evoking a feeling, the song, like the best pop hits, lodges in your brain and not only does it refuse to dislodge itself, you actually don't want it to. This song rocks.

"Sunshine" became a top ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching #9. It also reached the top ten on the Modern Rock charts and the Top 40 and Top 40 Mainstream (no, I don't really know the difference between those two charts).

The song was nominated for "Song of the Year" at the Canadian music awards, the Junos, but tragically lost to The Tragically Hip (irony alert!).

Le Deuxième Disque

"Feeling Alright" was the follow up to "Sunshine" and one of several tracks on the album to feature guest appearances, in this case, Poison's C.C. DeVille on guitar. DeVille's apparance on the track is a natrual fit, as the song is based around a riff that sounds straight out of '80s hair metal. In fact, the song is way less hip-hop and far more "Beverly Hills"-era Weezer (before Weezer actually made "Beverly Hills): amusing and catchy rap/singing over big, dumb arena rock riffing (though, unfortunately, less of a preoccupation with half-Asian women).

Wait, Burgerpimp is one word?

The song is another excellent pop track that holds on to nostalgia and adolecense (in this case, for the '80s--imagine that) and is, above all, about cutting loose and having fun. Clearly the Burgerpimp is all about the good times, and pimping burgers.

Well, apparently we Americans don't like having fun, because "Feelin' Alright" didn't exactly repeat the success of "Sunshine." In fact, it didn't even chart. That episode of 120 Minutes was no doubt the one and only time the "Feelin' Alright" video was run MTV (and surely the last time C.C. DeVille showed up on MTV, aside from the occasional Behind the Music or reality show). Maybe it didn't have the hook-in-your-consciousness quality that "Sunshine" did, but it's still a damn fine slice of bubblegum.

It's a shame that the song didn't hit, as You Can't Stop the Bum Rush was actually a pretty stacked album when it came to potential bubblegum pop singles. Check out this glowing review from NY Times. Unfortunately, it was not to be, and Len faded, proving that even if you're a Burgerpimp and have all the chops, it can't stop you from being labeled a one-hit wonder right out of the gate.

Where Be LEN Now?

After the success of "Sunshine," Len took their success a little too well, reportedly partying it up for a couple of years, with the Pimp no doubt downing buckets of E and listening to disco songs before finally buckling down in the studio to record a follow up. Although they began the sessions for what would become Diary of the Madmen (no relation to Don Draper). The album took 3 years to complete, and the final album was more of a compilation of studio tracks compiled from 2001-2004 than a complete album. Madmen wasn't released until April 2005, a full six years after "Steal My Sunshine" hit; more than enough time for Len to be completely forgotten.

While not as strong as Bum Rush, by all accounts, Madmen is another album made to be played at parties, cookouts and beach parties. One of the few reviews available online at allmusic.com describes the album as "much more dynamic set than You Can't Stop the Bum Rush," and concluding that "LEN's sequel to "Sunshine" deserves a listen." If you can fine it, that is. Try the cut-out bins first.

Unsurprisingly, the album, despite some good reviews, did not come close to cracking any charts, leaving the band back at square one, in a wadded up grease-stained paper bag of despair.

As for where they are now, Len kept a MySpace page until September 2008, when Burgerpimp himself announced that the band would not be reuniting for a new album, but instead he and Sharon would be working on a new record, which he claimed would be done in a few "months, not years." But for those keeping count, that was two years ago! One can only assume that his side gig as an agent for ground beef burgers of the night has taken up all his time. We can only hope he didn't drag Sharon into his web of culinary deviance.

Whether or not the band ever comes back with another offering of laid-back, old-school party music and makes it back on the charts (which is increasingly unlikely at this point) "Steal My Sunshine" will always have a place on my "Summer Mixxx Jamz!" playlist alongside Thin Lizzy and The Beach Boys. Kudos, you crazy Canucks!

The First Single: Len - "Steal My Sunshine"
The Second Single: Len - "Feelin' Alright"

5 Two Hit Wonders (Often Mistaken for One-Hit Wonders)

2010-07-06T23:08:00.041-05:00

There are artists out there that manage to extend their 15 minutes of fame to a ripe half-hour--that is, they somehow double their pleasure and fun by following up one mega hit with one more lil' hit, maybe a few weeks later, maybe a few years later.

A band like Savage Garden may be the best example of the "two-hit wonder" phenomenon. Yes, they may have remained huge a while longer in Australia and Christmas Island and maybe Slovenia, but let's face it--here in the US, we heard "Truly Madly Deeply" (#1) and "I Want You" (#4) and promptly tuned out (so did the band, btw, they only made two albums). See also: Paula Cole, The Presidents of the United States of America, Eve 6, Spin Doctors, etc.

But some of these bands aren't always recognized by our collective memories as being the two-hit wonders that they truly are, and by jove, they deserve to be recognized for their overachieving efforts, if for no other reason than I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, and of being asked "when are you going to do The Rembrandts?" (Could you *be* anymore tiresome?)

So without further adieu, here's a list of 5 two-hit wonders that are incorrectly regarded as one-hit wonders.

5. Fastball - "The Way" (#-, #31 on Top 40, #1 on Modern Rock) and "Out of My Head" (#20, #10 on Top 40, #- on MR)

Formed in Austin, Texas in 1994, Fastball's major label debut, 1996's Make Your Mama Proud, went mostly unnoticed, (though the album's single "Are You Ready for the Fall Out?" later featured on some soundtrack--probably Varsity Blues--and is playing incessantly in my head as I write this) sending the band back into the studio with a fistful of new songs that would become All the Pain Money Can Buy.

The first single, "The Way"--a "based on a true story" tale of an elderly couple running away from it all--had a slightly western feel mixed with Fastball's power-pop inspired hooks that made it irresistible, if something of a novelty.

The track did gangbusters on Billboard's Modern Rock charts, hitting #1 for seven weeks and became a Top 40 radio staple for a stint, but for some reason doesn't seem to have charted on the Billboard Hot 100. Hmm.

Their second single, "Fire Escape," didn't make much of an impact and ran the standard second single route, but the third single, "Out of My Mind" was a huge hit in its own right--acheiving a success almost the opposite of the success of "The Way" by charting relatively high on the Billboard Hot 100 (#20) and failing to chart at all on the Modern Rock chart.

Still, most folks seem to remember "The Way" as Fastball's "one song." My belief is that the "Out of My Head" sounds so distinctly different from their first hit single that many people didn't make the connection that it was even the same band. Even listening to it now, with its retro '70s feel and washes of B3 organ, "Out of My Head" could easily pass for a Wallflowers song (assuming someone gave Jakob Dylan a lozenge or a glass of honey and tea to help clear his throat).

While sounding totally different from song to song should be an advantage for a band destined to be a one-hit wonder, it only seemed to take these guys to two hit wonder status. In fact, the band members later said as much, complaining that their lack of success on their follow up album (which sold 85k, compared to the million-plus ATPMCB sold) was due to their inability to be easily defined. Shame. These guys had more talent in their bohemian chin beards than all of the pop-punk bands that followed in their wake combined.

In case you're wondering, yes, Fastball are still at it, kicking out the jams for the Adult Alternative set as recently as 2009 on their album Little White Lies.

4. Sophie B. Hawkins - "Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover" (#5) and "As I Lay Me Down" (#6)
Somewhere between Sheryl Crow and Madonna is Sophie B. Hawkins, a vaguely sexy, grungy, granola eating-type (the superfluous "B" stands for "Birkenstock," har har) who gets off on seeing if she can give guys boners while dressed like a lumberjack. With 1992's "Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover," an innuendo heavy track (that would make Lady Gaga blush under her orbit helmet) where Hawkins implores the "your" in question to "come inside [her] jungle book," she no doubt managed to cause more than a few guys to pitch tents in their knickers, while also getting her single to #5 on the Hot 100. No doubt this video (which looks more like a Guess Jeans ad than a music video) didn't hurt matters. I only ask you this one question, dear reader: is she seriously dogging the floor near the end of the video? Whatever lights your candle, I suppose.

After the success of "Damn," Hawkins released two other singles from her Tongues and Tails debut, both of which stalled stateside but garnered the singer a following in the UK. Hawkins wouldn't hit again until three years later, in 1995, when the third single from Hawkins' second album, Whaler, was released. "As I Lay Me Down," a song dedicated to the memory of Hawkins' departed father, was far removed both musically and lyrically from the in-your-face-sexiness, dance-influenced sound of her first hit. "Down" is a ballad, buoyed by an organ and acoustic guitar.

As a result, the video is tempered, with Hawkins looking more like a secretly sexy poetry grad student than the erotic post-grunge star she'd played in her previous video.

Sophie B. Hawkins - Lose Your Way (Official Music Video) - Watch more top selected videos about: Sophie_B._Hawkins

The track hit only one slot below its predecessor, making it to #6 on the Hot 100. Other than the follow-up single, "Only Love (The Ballad of Sleeping Beauty)," which hit #49, Hawkins would never again chart on the Hot 100. However, Hawkins continued to do big business in the UK, scoring three Top 40 hits on their pop charts from the Whaler album alone.

After disagreements with Sony on the direction of her third album, Timbre, (the label asked her to remove a banjo from her single, "Lose Your Way"), the album limped into stores with no promotion, causing Hawkins to peace out of Sony and start her own label, where she would re-release Timbre in 2001. Since then, Hawkins has delivered one more album, Wilderness, and four minor hits on the Adult Contemporary charts--the same radio format that has not once removed her two top ten hits from their playlists.

Her fifth effort, Dream Street and Chance, is due out later in 2010.

Oh, and, er, there was also this.

3. Edwin McCain - "I'll Be" (#5) and "I Could Not Ask For More" (#37)
Remember this guy? In the aftermath of Hootie, there was a very brief interest in other college-town based, soft southern rock acts, some of whom made it (McCain, Sister Hazel) and some who didn't (Cravin' Melon).

The Edwin McCain Band was a roots rock act with a slight jazz tinge, in the same way that Dave Matthews Band has a slight jazz tinge--only less radical (just try to picture that). Signed to buddy Hootie's label Atlantic Records in 1994, it wasn't until 1998 with the release of his second album, Misguided Roses, that McCain took a vice grip-like hold of America's eardrums. The song entered the chart at #7 and eventually rose to #5 on the Hot 100, an impressive showing for an artist who had previously had only one other charting single ("Solitude," #72).

Of course, the song didn't die a quick death like so many top ten hits. In fact, some of you will probably hear it sometime this summer. Not on a radio, not on someone's iPod, but at a wedding. Yes, it's true--"I'll Be" has quickly become one of the most (over)played (and now unoriginal) wedding songs in recent history. Of course, McCain probably sees very little of this money, save for the occasional iTunes royalty check, but he should just be happy he made something next to a DJ's playlist with, um, "From This Moment On."

But somewhat improbably, lightning struck twice for McCain...sort of.

In a conscious attempt to recreate not only the success, but the actual sound and sentiment of "I'll Be," McCain recorded "I Could Not Ask For More" for his 1999 album, Messenger. While the song's showing on pop radio wasn't quite as impressive as that of "I'll Be," the follow-up actually did better on the Adult Contemporary charts, reaching #3 (over #6 for "I'll Be'). The track isn't bad, but it's so similar that it could be at best considered a sequel to "I'll Be," and at worst completely redundant.

The song also gained new life when super-duper hot country star Sara Evans covered the song for her 2000 album, Born to Fly. Evans' version became a top 5 country hit and reached #35 on the pop charts. Both versions are currently lighting up on DJ Danny's playlist at the Simmons-Weiner wedding in the Myrtle Beach area as we speak.

2. Jesus Jones - "Right Here, Right Now" (#2) and "Real, Real, Real" (#4)
In an empirical display of just how short the collective memory of Americans is, turns out Brit techno-rockers Jesus Jones weren't a one-hit wonder at all. Now, in my own anecdotal, unscientific survey of me asking various friends to name all the Jesus Jones songs they could, not a one could name anything other than their 1991 #2 Hot 100 hit "Right Here, Right Now."

Most of these conversations were followed up with, "I didn't think they ever did anything else." But people, I am here to tell you that we have all been had by our own pop culture memories. Not only did these guys have another hit song, but it was another top 5 hit, and it was their second single. These guys are the complete opposite of everything this blog stands for. They actually beat the curse (though it eventually took hold on the third single, and Americans never heard from them again).

The track, "Real Real Real" actually hit #4 on the Hot 100, though it admittedly did not fare as well on the dance and rock charts as "Right Here." Take a gander, gander takers.

Now, it's easy to see why the song was a hit. It offered more of the same as "Right Here, Right Now," a song that in itself was something of a breakthrough in the confluence of electronic and rock music, a style that became a huge influence on 75% of rock music in the '90s (remember when every artist from Oasis to Axl Rose talked about their "next album having a huge electronic influence"? Terrible time for music). No doubt folks wanted more of those sweet, sweet dance beats propelling the rocking guitar and "Real Real Real" gave them that. Unfortunately, the song becomes the red headed stepchild of our memory banks because, if I may state the obvious, it's just not quite as memorable as "Right Here," while doing the exact same thing.

So while Jesus Jones briefly beat "the second single curse," in our minds, in the long run, they just didn't. Chart positions and artistic merit aside, for all intents and purposes, time has turned them into one-hit wonders.

1. The Rembrandts - "Just the Way It Is, Baby" (#14) and "I'll Be There For You" (#17)
Oh, The Rembrandts.

If you're a follower of mine on Twitter, you'll know that my little bio says, rather snarkily, that we have not yet covered The Rembrandts. And with good reason: they're not a one-hit wonder. They're the very definition of a two hit wonder, and moreover, their two hits were spaced five years apart.

Rising like a double-headed phoenix from the ashes of the power-pop act Great Buildings, Danny Wilde and Phil Solem banded as The Rembrandts in 1989. After recording an album in Wilde's home studio, the two signed to Atlantic to release their eponymous debut. Their first single "Just the Way It Is, Baby" became a success, reaching #14 on the Hot 100 chart in 1991. The song was also a top ten hit in parts of Europe. The album itself did well, selling enough copies to reach #88 on the Billboard Album Charts.

Between 1990 and 1995, the band kept at it, releasing Untitled in 1992, and seven singles, two of which charted low on the Hot 100. It seemed that The Rembrandts were destined to follow the path of most power-pop acts--some initial exposure (especially in the late '80s/early '90s) and critical acclaim followed by complete disinterest from the fickle (and, as we've learned, forgetful) American listening public.

But then a funny thing happened. A post-Seinfeld sitcom about six young friends living in New York City (then known as Friends Like Us) went into production. The creators, David Crane, Marta Kauffman, along with songwriter Allee Willis wrote a theme song that they shopped around to various artists like R.E.M. and They Might Be Giants. Not sure why they thought Michael Stipe would ever agree to do a song so upbeat and sunny and, oh wait, "Shiny Happy People" had just been released. Now I get it.

Eventually the Kauffman and Crane landed on The Rembrandts, who, truth be told, possess a similar jangle pop sound to R.E.M. Wilde and Solem recorded the minute or so long theme song and went about recording their new LP, creatively titled, LP.

But the Rembrandts never counted on...BILLY SHEARS (not to be confused with Bernie Shears). That's right, the WLAC Nashville DJ looped the theme song into a full-length track. This version began getting requests from listeners and was picked up by various other stations. Soon, The Rembrandts' record label was knocking ont their door again, demanding they finish the track and make it a full-length tune--a sticky proposition, considering it was never really their song in the first place.

Nonetheless, the band did it, adding extra verses and a bridge. The record label tacked it onto LP. The band then recorded a video for the song, featuring the Friends cast in their prime, being characteristically obnoxious (okay, Courtney Cox and JAniston are still in their prime, but you know what I mean). "I'll Be There For You" reached #17 on the Hot 100 but hit #1 on several charts, including Top 40 and Adult Contemporary.

The interesting twist to the story is in the epilogue. Wilde and Solem themselves have never been too pleased about the path the song took. The Rembrandts were critics darlings and had a devoted fanbase, and the success of the song (and the subsequent video) made the band seem like they were cashing in, enjoying the success of a song they didn't have much hand in. Said Solem in a 2005 interview, "We lost a lot of hard-core, original fans because they thought we'd decided to take the easy way, but we felt forced to be press monkeys."

While the upshot was that the track's flipside "This House Is Not A Home" also got some record play, also reaching #17 on the Hot 100, it was too little, too late for the band, and they broke up in 1997. Though the Wilde and Solem reunited in 2005, the damage was mostly done, and The Rembrandts are still known for that one, vaguely annoying track (named one of the worst songs of all time by the pillar of publishing, Blender Magazine).

British Evasion #2, James - "Laid"

2010-06-09T18:00:00.044-05:00

The Basics: A lot of the bands covered on this blog are artists who just barely missed the big time. They were in the right place at the right time but...unfortunately, someone else got there first. This goes doubly for British artists, of whom we only seem to let a small portion on the charts each year--I'm talking true British artists, not British people who move to LA to make it big.

The '80s and '90s Brit-pop scene seemed littered with artists who snared a sizable following in the UK, but failed to make much a splash over here the way Oasis did, save maybe for a song or two. It's a shame, because many of these bands were as good, if not better than their more successful counterparts. In the US, we take a legendary band like Blur and say, "yes, we'd like that 'Woo Hoo' song but keep anything you may have that is of merit." This is why the terrorists hate us.

The funny thing about Manchester's James was that this phenomenon seemed to happen to them twice. Formed in the early '80s, James was best known as being part of the so-called "Madchester" scene, a loosely defined late-80s music scene that combined elements of rock and dance music and arose from the international success of local bands like The Smiths, The Fall and New Order. "Madchester," a term coined by Factory Records director Philip Shotton ran from the late '80s to the early '90s and latched onto by NME and buoyed by the Factory Records label and bands like the Happy Mondays, The Stone Roses, and The Charlatans.

James stood somewhere outside of the media fascination with "Madchester," (which was mostly concentrated on the Mondays and the Roses), but still benefitted from it, with their self-financed singles "Sit Down" and "Come Home" becoming local hits and eventually getting them noticed by the Fontana record label, who gave them their first major record deal. Their big break came when a certain hometown rock star publicly gave them props--a move that became a cross for the band to bear.

However, the band persevered, and because they had never been as tightly tied to the Madchester label as the other bands, they didn't suffer when the enevitable backlash arose, thus giving them ample opportunity to hit again when the cycle came back around--which it did...sort of. The band stuck around for much longer than their peers, building up an increasingly interesting and strong body of work. By the time people's interest in Britpop came around again in mid-90s, James were primed to score big. 1993's explicit-as-it-is-catchy single "Laid" from the album of the same name became a huge hit on US college radio, increasing their stateside exposure. Unfortunately, their unwillingness to strike while the Britpop iron was hot meant that by the time they released a follow-up, their US audience had dried up and the UK audience had shrunk considerably, affecting sales, but failing to have much of an affect on the band's consistently excellent material.

Tell Me More: Begun in 1982 when guitarist Paul Gilbertson and bassist friend Jim Glennie began jamming together, playing loosely improvised shows--even opening for The Fall--and eventually bringing on drummer Gavan Whelan. After running through a roster of vocalists (and names, including Venerial and The Diseases, Volume Distortion, and Model Team) the group settled on Manchester University student Tim Booth who they met at a disco. Within a year they were signed to former TV host Tony Wilson's Factory Records. If you're unaware of the history of Factory Records, I can only suggest that you immediately Netflix the Michael Winterbottom film 24 Hour Party People. A simple paragraph explaining Wilson and his relationship with the early-Manchester scene would not do the story justice.

After releasing two EPs, the group got a bit of an awkward endorsement from one Stephen Patrick Morrissey, then the lead singer of hometown heroes The Smiths for whom James served as opening act. I say awkward because, at the time, The Smiths were massive stars in their native country at the time, and being anointed "the next Smiths" by one of the Smiths is almost as much of a double edged sword as being named "the next Beatles" by Lennon and McCartney--just ask the guys from Badfinger.

Still, with their "next big thing" status cemented, the band attempted to push forward, but soon became hamstrung by internal problems. First was guitarist Paul Gilbertson's worsening drug habit, which became so bad the band kicked him out, replacing him with Larry Gott. Furthermore, it was now 1985 and the band had three EPs under their belt, but no album. Sensing Factory was more about image and partying than taking care of business (which, if you watch the aforementioned 24 Hour Party People, definitely seemed to be the case)

, the band jumped ship to Sire Records and teamed up with Patti Smith collaborator/rock writer/producer Lenny Kaye to record 1986's Stutter. The record stalled at 68 on the UK charts.

The band, sensing a ripple in the job security waters, went back into the studio and recorded Strip-mine; a conscious attempt at delivering a more conventional rock album. Instead of being grateful for the band's effort, Sire shelved the album for almost a year until a radio-friendly remixed proved worthy of official release. Strip-mine only reached 90 on the charts.

The band found a loop-hole in their Sire contract and were back on the street, unemployed and without a label. The band hit a low point, frequenting university medical studies in order to supplement their income, footage which was reportedly used to illustrate the desperation of has-been rockstars for a TV documentary.

But James weren't has-beens. In fact, their live following was still quite sizable, it simply hadn't translated into record sales. Signing with the indie label Rough Trade, the band decided to trade in on their live following and self-financed the recording of the live album, One Man Clapping, which hit #1 on the indie charts.

Back in business, the band made a couple of changes in the lineup, adding keys, violin and

trumpet to become a septet, and took to recording their third album, 1990's Gold Mother (later released as just James in the US). When frustrations arose with Rough Trade surrounding the band's perceived limited potential, the band jumped ship once again to the Fontana record label.

Just as the album was being released, the Madchester scene began to get media attention, and James were considered not only part of that scene, but also part of what was being called the "Baggy" movement coming out of their hometown. Baggy was essentially rock bands playing variations on psychedelic music with funkier, more dance-oriented beats. The association with the movement helped the band's momentum, and their next single, the infectious "Sit Down," a remake of an earlier single, sort of fit with the Baggy sound.

A re-released version of Gold Mother in 1991 including "Sit Down," which became a huge hit in the UK, hitting number 2 on the charts, but the band was (no shit) quickly labeled a one-hit wonder, despite having had three other singles from the album previously chart. "Sit Down" became one of the biggest selling songs of the year, found its was onto some US college playlists, and the album pushed around 250,000 units.

I think I had a nightmare that looked a lot like this video after watching 4 straight hours of Gap ads

Because they're a British band and Brit bands kinda like to be ungrateful a-holes when they think they're not getting their due, James began spurning audiences who only wanted to hear "Sit Down" by playing previously unreleased material at their live shows, as an F.U. to their perceived one-hit wonder status. The new material ended up on 1992's Seven, which, while not well-received by critics, became a hit based on the hit "Sound." The album and a subsequent acoustic tour with folk-rock god Neil Young brought James to a larger audience and giving them some stateside heat.

But the band had big plans for their next album and drafted U2/Talking Heads producer and ambient-rock god Brian Eno to shepherd their next album to greatness. Eno got all Svengali on James' collective white ass and took them to the next level of record production. Two albums came out of the recording sessions: the song oriented Laid and the decidedly more freaky-deaky Wah-Wah.

Laid was released first, gaining rave reviews from critics on both sides of the Atlantic. While the album reportedly did only okay in the UK, it blew up in the US, thanks to the success of "Laid" among bearded college radio DJ-types. Yeah, college radio DJs actually served as tastemakers back in the '90s. Go figure.

The First Single: Laid isn't the only album I've ever bought based on hearing only a single song by a band that turned out to be a one-hit wonder, but it's probably the best. The hit title song in question is indeed a stupendously rousing track, but, as is often the case with these unexpected hits, it is neither the best song on the LP nor representative of the album as a whole, which is really quite mellow and tends to wash over the listener.

Nonetheless, it is a track that instantly gains one's attention; in fact, having not been in college or much of a college radio listener in the early '90s (far too busy playing with my Technodrome) I didn't even hear the song until the late '90s, and in the most peculiar of places--the original trailer for the crude teen sex comedy American Pie. (Apparently I wasn't the only one. The song became the unofficial theme song for the film series, showing up in the trailer for each installment, and while James' version was never included on the films' soundtrack, an unnecessary cover of "Laid" played over the wedding scene in American Wedding.) The song's striking, explicit lyrics (which were censored for TV, instead of "she only comes when she's on top" Booth replaced "comes" with "hums"--check out the Letterman video below for proof) and folk-rock instrumentation made me instantly think it was a semi-obscure classic rock song I'd somehow missed, which, at the time seemed unlikely. If it wasn't Zeppelin, Floyd, or Stones, who else could it be? (As you can see, my musical taste was far from fully formed in 9th grade).

Only when I heard the song on a friend's mixtape (that's right, kids, cassette tape!) was I finallyt able to discern the artist. Heading out to Nashville's Great Escape (where all the good one-hit wonder albums go to be traded or sold in for about a buck) I found the album with the unusual cover of a bunch of Limeys dressed in women's clothing. I bought it for about six bucks and it's easily one of the top 50 albums I own. It's also widely considered by critics and fans alike as James best album.

"Laid" gained a huge following and eventually made its way to the charts, first the Modern Rock Tracks where it hit #3, and gaining enough momentum to crack the Hot 100, coming in at #61. Quite amazing for a song with lyrics that trace a man's unhealthy obsession with his psychotic girlfriend who has a predilection towards S&M.

Youtube commenter: "this is how I dance at home when no one's looking :D" Freak.

The Second Single: If you've learned anything on this blog, I hope that it's that there's really instance), the hard and fast rule seems to be that if your single hit with a large part of the audience for any reason other than it was simply a great song, your follow-up doesn't have a chance. Now, am I saying a song like "Laid" isn't a great song? Not at all. But I am saying that I think a large part of the audience enjoyed the song for its lyrics alone; the overtly kinky lyrics no doubt thrilled the college radio audiences, and the fact that it's a well-constructed song with fantastic singing, instrumentation and a memorable melody doesn't hurt either. It's simply a funny song, and not many people were demanding to hear more from the band. Maybe if the band had followed "Laid" up with a song called "Shagged," the same audience would have pounced, but instead, the band went a different direction.

"Say Something" is James doing what they do best. It's a mid-tempo track that builds to a stirring chorus. It's a fantastic song that makes one question why these guys never made it as big as their big brothers The Smiths or even fellow Brian Eno students U2, the latter of whom could learn a little something about subtly from James, and in particular Tim Booth, whose voice is controlled but lively, and strong while retaining a vulnerability. The lyrics are also depressing as watching a puppy freeze to death, and the song seems to slip over the listener rather than hit them--never a good sign for a song that's supposed to be a hit.

The track managed to hit #19 on the Modern Rock chart, but failed to chart on the Top 100. It would be the band's last charting single in the US.

And while hindsight is 20/20 and all that crap, one has to wonder why the men in charge didn't pick "Sometimes (Lester Piggott)," a song that had been an even bigger hit than "Laid" in the UK? The song is in the running for the band's best song ever; it's a gorgeous almost gospel ballad propelled by a ringing acoustic guitar and washed of organ. It's the kind of song that, even if it hadn't been a major hit, no doubt could have benefited from being a widely released single, maybe earning much-deserved spots on "Best Tracks of the '90s" lists that Rolling Stone and Pitchfork are intent on revising every two years. Try not to feel at least a little affected while listening to "Sometimes" and then ask yourself why A&R men are even allowed to keep their jobs?

Where Are They Now? In a bold but decidedly unwise move, the band released their follow-up to Laid in 1994, Wah-Wah--an experimental album culled from the Laid sessions recorded by Brian Eno. The album didn't sell and a proper follow-up didn't come until 1997, after a long hiatus in which lead singer Booth recorded and released a collaborative album with David Lynch composer Angelo Badalamenti, Booth and the Bad Angel, which spawned the single "I Believe." The band recorded the follow-up album in England with Booth traveling periodically from the US to add his vocal parts. This long break and unwillingness to make hay while the sun shines is arguably the reason James never became an international sensation like they could have and should have.

For an album that took four years to make, Whiplash was a slightly disappointing follow-up to Laid, but one that managed to spawn a Top 10 hit in the UK, "She's A Star." In 1998, the band released a massively successful Best of collection which paved the way for an equally massive and successful tour.

Signs that the band's popularity was waning came in 1999 with the release of Millionaires, an album that, while entering the charts at #2, failed to sell the expected number of copies. The album received good reviews from outlets such as Q, who stated that the album was a bonafide classic that should be cited alongside the likes of OK Computer and Urban Hymns. The album spawned three singles, none of which cracked the top ten.

2001 was a bittersweet year for the band. With the release of Pleased to Meet You, the band hoped to regain their foothold in British rock, but instead were met with cold indifference by the mainstream, and the album was the band's first since Strip-mine to not make the top ten. Still, with the single "Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)," James retained their critical reputation as one of the best singles bands in British rock.

After the release of the album, lead singer Booth announced he was leaving the band to pursue other interests which included recording a true solo album, Bone, and briefly appearing in Batman Begins as the villain Mr. Zsasz, directed by noted James fan Christopher Nolan.

Booth as Mr. Zsasz in Batman Begins

In 2007, Booth announced he would be rejoining James for a series of concert dates. Despite previous lineup changes, the Laid lineup rejoined for the tour and subsequent 2008 album Hey Ma. The album featured the band working without Brian Eno for the first time in nearly fifteen years, instead tapping Booth's collaborator Lee Muddy Baker to man the knobs (does that sound sexual?).

Hey Ma didn't have any charting singles, but nonetheless, the band continues to be an impressive live act with a large devoted following. The band is also in the process of releasing various EPs, DVDs, live albums, etc. including The Night Before, a mini-album released in April 2010. The album is part of a two-part series; its sequel, The Morning After, will be released in August 2010.

And as if to prove the timeless/classic nature the song has retained over the years, two-hit wonders Better Than Ezra covered "Laid" for their 2005 greatest hits album.

The First Single: "Laid"
The Second Single: "Say Something"
Bonus: "Sometimes (Lester Piggot)"

Merril Bainbridge - "Mouth"

2010-04-06T10:08:00.018-05:00

Some songs simply don't seem to fit into their decade. They seem like they were kind of always there, and even hearing them on Jack FM every so often offers little indication of their date of origin. As an adolescent, I could have sworn that Violent Femmes' "Blister in the Sun" was released around 1994 (about the same time I first heard it on the pilot episode of "My So-Called Life") instead of 1981. I also recall my sister playing me "The Joker" sometime in 1996 and thinking that this Miller fella had a bright future ahead of him.

Along those same lines, these lyrics have haunted me for years: "When I kiss your mouth, don't wanna waste it/Turn you upside down, I wanna taste it." But they never haunted me in any sort of conscious state when I could have easily Lycos'd the lyrics (yeah, I still use Lycos, what of it?). Instead, they crept up on me in the dead of night, eating away at my consciousness, daring me to figure out where the hell they came from. One thing I knew for certain, it was not Sheryl Crow, and it was not Jill Sobule.

It wasn't until about a month ago when my bass playing roommate began trying to learn the bass part to "Mouth" that I heard Merril Bainbridge come over his shitty HP speakers. That plinking piano, the upright bassline, the vocal percussion, the timeless production--it all came together at that moment, causing me to jump out of my well-worn computer chair and shout, "Eureeka!" (or rather, just poke my head out my door and say, "hey, who sings that?"--I didn't actually jump out of my chair, I was/am tired/lazy.)

The Basics: Merril Bainbridge, a native of Melbourne, Australia became a superstar in her native country with the release of the hit single "Mouth." The song became a number one hit and the album, The Garden, went double-platinum (that means it sold about 140,000 units in the land of Yahoo Serious). Bainbridge began her career as a session vocalist, trading her talents for studio time with a producer known only as "Siew," who would go on to produce The Garden. Siew helped Bainbridge sign a deal with the Australian label Gotham, and the pair spent over a year recording her 1994 debut. Due to the enormous success of "Mouth," Bainbridge was signed to Universal, and The Garden was released stateside in the fall of 1996.

First Single: "Mouth" was the key to The Garden's initial success in the country that brought us Veggemite. Released around Christmas 1994, the album was lost in the flurry of holiday releases. Later in 1995, the single was repackaged and reissued with more promotional support. The song was soon picked up by radio stations across Oz and after six-weeks, jumped from number 42 to number one, where it stayed for another six straight weeks. After spending 21 weeks on the charts, Bainbridge broke the record for having the longest running number one hit of any female in the '90s. The 4th bestselling single of 1995, the Australian Recording Industry Association accredited the song platinum.

Nearly two years after the initial release of "Mouth," the song hit the U.S. and took a similar path. Debuting at number sixty-seven on the Billboard Hot 100 and soon peaked at number four, spending a total of thirty weeks on the charts. The song sold 600k copies and was certified gold. The rare stateside success of an artist from the country that Ray Winstone once insisted he would civilize made Bainbridge an even bigger star in her homeland. Surprisingly, the song tanked in the UK and was a top five hit in Japan, Hong Kong and the Philippines.

Though the song featured lyrics that many, many dirty twelve-year-olds (cough, me) construed as graphically sexual, Bainbridge always insisted in interviews that the song was, "definitely not a sexual song. It's just honest - about a relationship, how you feel in a relationship. Sometimes you feel you're in control and the next thing, you're insecure - it's the role playing thing."

So it's not sexual, but it's about role playing? We may want to take that back to the drawing board, Ms. Bainbridge.

Second Single: "Under the Water" followed "Mouth"--an almost impossible task for any song. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, "Mouth" is a one in a million hit--an infectious track that you want to hear over and over again and somehow don't tire of. Think how you felt listening to "Hey Ya!" or "Since You've Been Gone" in the '00s. Maybe you eventually got tired of those songs, but only after putting your iPod on repeat approximately 387 times in a row. Songs like that come around once every couple of years in the pop music world, and since Bainbridge was far from an established talent stateside (unlike, say, Outkast) anything she did after "Mouth" was going to be a let down. Though more a product of its time than the timeless "Mouth," "Under the Water" is still a good song, though not terribly different than the hundred or so Lilith Fair-esque singles around at the same time.

A video featuring Bainbridge with her super haircut (bangs, bangs and more bangs!) alternating between dry and slicked with water was released.

Though the song was big enough to give her another platinum certification in Eric Bana's Home Country--where it peaked at number four--in the U.S., the song stalled at number 91 after six-weeks on the charts. "Mouth" remains Bainbridge's highest charting single.

Whatever happened to...?: Bainbridge is one of the few one-hit wonders who, after a 1998 sophomore album, has come very close to dropping off the face of the earth. In light of how other one-hit wonders have ended up, one has to respect her for not showing up on reality TV and making an ass of herself.

The follow-up album, Between the Days was in the same vein as Garden--well-produced (again by the mysterious Siew, who I picture looking like "Cloak" from the Cloak and Dagger comic book series--come to think of it, Bainbridge looks kinda like Dagger!), light pop with Bainbridge's effortless vocals leading the way. Essentially, more clever songs and tight melodies. But it wasn't enough--even for those in the Terra Australis. The first single, "Lonely" peaked at number 40 on the Australian charts and number 18 on Billboard's "Bubbling Under Hot 100" charts (a list consisting of 25 songs threatening to make it onto the Hot 100).

Cloak & Dagger = Siew & Merril?

The same year, Bainbridge released a cover of Sonny & Cher's "I Got You, Babe" with an appearance by Shaggy. The track, recorded for the Australian film Welcome to Woop-Woop starring international superstar Jonathan Schaech, must be heard to be believed (to her credit, Bainbridge never looked cuter).

The cover peaked at number sixty-two in Australia.

Since then, Bainbridge has released several one-off singles, and recorded an as-yet-unreleased untitled album in 2003. Her last single, "Girl Next Door" faired so poorly on the Austrlian charts that the album was shelved.

As to what she's up to now, an unsourced Wikipedia update suggests she is "working backstage as a composer for other Australian pop artists." I have no idea how one works "backstage" as a composer, though if I had to translate, I'd assume this means she's doing songwriting for other artists, though there's little evidence available on the net to support this assertion.

If you're out there, Ms. Bainbridge, let us know what you're up to. We were truly sorry to see you disappear like the girls from Appleyard College in Picnic at Hanging Rock. You deserved better.

Download: Merril Bainbridge - Mouth
Download: Merril Bainbridge - Under the Water

Best One-Hit Wonders of the Decade: 2001

2009-12-26T01:28:00.015-06:00

Editor's Note: First, let me lay down some ground rules. When I say "best," I don't mean these are my favorite songs or even that they're of the highest quality (though at times both of those things may be true, the opposite is probably true). Rather, these songs represent the "one-hit wonder" concept better than any other released that year. In other words, these songs came out of nowhere, became massive hits and the artists faded into obscurity. In most cases, these songs are still with us, having taken on a life of their own, with the artist in some cases entirely forgotten. We will discuss the song, the song's legacy and where the band is now. Also included at the bottom are links to some of the "runner up" one-hit wonders.

Crazy Town - "Butterfly" (Columbia Records, February 2001; from the album The Gift of Game, 1999)

What can I possibly say about LA-based rap-rockers Crazy Town that hasn't already said by anyone who has ever laid eyes on the band members (and has a decent sense of humor)? What can I say about their hit "Butterfly" that hasn't been run into the ground by the likes of Hal Sparks or Mo Rocca on VH1's umpteenth talking head list program? The answer is probably nothing, but that's never stopped me before.

According to Wikipedia, Crazy Town (who are listed in the genres of "Rapcore," "nu metal" and alternative rock, hip-hop and metal) formed in 1995 after "Epic" (Christian name Bret Mazur) and "Shifty Shellshock" (Seth Binzer) began collaborating on music, but the band did not become "serious"(clearly the Wiki writers got a little loose with the adjectives) about making a go for the big time until several years later. By the late '90s, the duo had recruited a bunch of other dudes who had gelled hair and a truly unnecessary amount of tribal tattoos, christened them with ridiculous, nonsensical names like "SQRL" and "Faydoedeelay", and finagled a record contract out of Columbia Records bosses. By Thanksgiving 1999, the group's album, The Gift of Game, was on the shelves of every Sam Goody and Camelot in every galleria in the country. Unfortunately for Shifty and the gang, the album was nothing special. Another faceless attempt at rap-metal, cashing in on the success of superior (but still shitty) bands like Limp Bizkit and Korn and ignoring anything that might make either of those bands special. The band got a spot on the 2000 Ozzfest tour which allowed Mr. Shellshock to express himself artistically by cracking open a case of Natty Light, greasing himself up, showing off his pecs and Chinese letter tattoos to hoardes of flabby white men in black t-shirts, and pretending to be a rock star. However, this pretending got him into some hot water with the powers that be (most likely Sharon "I'm a horrible person" Osbourne). Shellshock was thrown off the tour two weeks in after doing what he no doubt assumed was simply his rockstar duty--throwing furniture through a glass window.*

Now, I have to side with Señor Shellshock on this one (this is a rant, so skip to the next full paragraph if you don't want to take the scenic route). If you're in a metal band, and you're on a tour named for a man who once tried to impress Nikki Sixx by snorting a line of ants up his nose, and your band is called Crazy Town, it seems like a logical conclusion to assume that, people want you to drink like an asshole and then act like a chemically unbalanced rockstar, even if you're just a chemically unbalanced dude. It worked for Axl Rose, right? It worked for Keith fucking Moon and at least three members of Led Zeppelin, right? Ben Franklin did it. That's historical permission to get wasted and be a prick. Okay, so you could maybe argue that Percy Shellyshock should have waited until his band was headlining Ozzfest, or at least their own tour, before putting a chaise lounge through the French doors, but these are merely details--details a student rockstar cannot be bothered with when all that stands between him and complete rockstar freedom is a couple of inches of glass. So the guy isn't quite Axl--do you think Axl became Axl overnight? No! It took practice; years of pro-bono work smacking around normal girls and freaking out at concerts in dive bars before graduating to supermodels and stadiums. Throwing a chair out a window is Rock Star 101. No one was injured. This isn't Advanced Rockstar Fuckery where you smack photogs, get the cops called on you by your supermodel girlfriend, and incite riots in Canadian provinces. So screw you, Sharon Osbourne, or whoever kicked them off the tour--take a look at yourselves! People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones--they should throw chairs (or something? bear with me; this made sense in my head). And who knows? Maybe the chair really needed to go out the goddamn window.

MOVING ON. Crazy Town's brand of hip-hop-inspired "nu metal" came during the death rattle of the "rap-rock" genre: Limp Bizkit monkey man guitarist Wes Borland departed his band in order to devote his attention to his Ween-inspired band, Big Dumb Face. The likes of Kid Rock had begun to explore other genres like uninspired country-rock, and while nu metal bands like Korn continued to flourish thanks to a strong fanbase, and Johnny-come-latelys Linkin Park managed inexplicably to find success, the salad days of the genre were mostly over and the mainstream tide had begun to turn away from rap-metal. Fans were growing up and either turning their attention to lesser known metal bands, hip-hop acts, or exploring other burgeoning genres like the neo-garage rock scene spearheaded by The White Stripes and The Strokes.

So how did Crazy Town still manage to hit? Easy. Their song had absolutely nothing to do with nu metal. Sure, the guys looked like nu metal guys in their video, but they were playing what was essentially a dance song, just like a few years earlier when Sugar Ray had looked like hard rock guys (and considered themselves as such), but were playing beach music.

"Butterfly" was unleashed on an unsuspecting public in February 2001, almost two full years after the band had released their album. Clearly, someone at the record company was determined to squeeze a hit out of an album that had been sitting on shelves for 18+ months. Why this happened, we may never know, but this is my theory:

There was a lowly A&R manager at Columbia Records who just couldn't catch a break. Maybe he'd spent all his time pushing indie bands and getting nowhere, and his bosses told him he better have a hit band, or he'd soon be collecting unemployment. Desperate, the manager spent a sleepless night at the office, sifting through hundreds of already released songs on his first generation iPod, looking for a hit. Just when he was ready to give up, "Butterfly" played. At first he took no notice of the song, as it was by a band that had two DOA singles ("Toxic" and "Darkside") and an album that had stalled after selling 100,000 copies. But, as he listened to the song, (which is nothing more than a guy rapping over a 5-second sample of John Frusciante's guitar part on Red Hot Chili Peppers' instrumental "Pretty Little Ditty" from 1989's Mother's Milk) he realized, not unlike the creators of the atomic bomb, that what he was listening to had potential; the type of potential that, if exposed to humans, could harm, maim, and maybe kill millions. The A&R guy knew what he had to do. He immediately destroyed his iPod and all copies of the song he could find and, after a few hours of having "yo' my buttafly/suga, baby" stuck in his head, went home and shot the jukebox in his head (read: he killed himself). But he made one mistake: he wrote down the name of the song and artist on a Post-It note. The next morning, an even lowlier intern was clearing out the now deceased A&R guy's desk and came upon the Post-It note reading: "Crazytown (sic) - Butterfly." Within 48 hours, the intern had devliered the song to top execs, who then released the song to radio stations and Tower Records as a single. A video soon followed. When the song hit #1 on the Billboards in 15 countries and sales of The Gift of Game surpassed 1.5 million, the intern was promoted to A&R executive status and made millions of dollars, spent it all on Patrón, cocaine and a McMansion in the Hollywood Hills, joined the Church of Scientology, banged Willa Ford for two weeks, and lost it all when he put all his money and effort behind Nick Lachey's solo career. He now spends his days wandering around Silverlake, filthy, his eyes crazed, and wearing nothing but a sandwich board sign on his shoulders that reads (side 1) "What hath God wrought?" and (side 2) "Butterfly".

This video is presented without comment, but honestly, flying tattoos? What the hell?

A follow up single, "Revolving Door," enjoyed predictably poor results on the charts, but it didn't matter; the damage had been done.

*This also marked the departure of the band's DJ, DJ AM aka Adam Goldstein, who would later become famous for a) spinning at parties thrown by Kate Hudson and other minor celebs, b) boning both Nicole Richie and Mandy Moore, c) barely surviving a plane crash with Travis from Blink 182, and d) dying of a drug overdose in August 2009, two days after the reformation of Crazy Town (I don't say that to be a jerk, but his death really did make him known to people like my mom). Goldstein actually quit the band twice: once quitting after the first Ozzfest incident, only to return after the success of "Butterfly", and leaving once again before the recording of the second album. Inexplicably, Goldstein was actually the second former member of Crazy Town to die after "Rust Epique" aka Charles Lopez, the original guitarist who had left the band for a solo career while The Gift of Game was still being mixed and died of a heart attack in 2004. I'm not going to say there's some sort of curse on Crazy Town, because that Shifty Shellshock guy is still alive despite the best efforts of Dr. Drew and Andy Dick.

Charts: As previously mentioned, the song went to #1 in 15 countries and hit #1 for two consecutive weeks on two different charts (Hot 100 and Modern Rock).

Legacy: What, you mean besides having made one of the most annoying songs of the decade? Possibly ever? Or the fact that they basically gave anyone who is anti-sampling a beyond perfect example of how mind-numbing, repetitive and just plain uncreative sampling can be? Well, there was that great scene in Jake Kasdan's Orange County where the main character (played by Colin Hanks) realizes that the people at Stanford parties are just as horrible as the people at his school, illustrated by a scene of college girls dancing to, you guessed it, "Butterfly".

Where Are They Now? Besides DJ AM, Shifty Shellshock aka Seth Binzer is the only member that anyone remembers or has seen since 2001. After the band's follow-up album, 2002's Darkhorse, failed to deliver another "Butterfly" (which I realize is sort of like saying, "after the US failed to deliver another Hiroshima"), the band broke up. Also in 2002, Binzer guested on Paul Oakenfold's "Starry Eyed Surprise" single, which basically just sounded like another bad Crazy Town song, though 33% less annoying. In 2004, only a year after the band's break up, Binzer released a solo album (as Shifty Shellshock), Happy Love Sick.

2008 saw Binzer joining the cast of VH1's Celebrity Rehab and later Sober House, a celeb-reality show hosted by Dr. Drew about celebrities supposedly in the final stages of treatment, attempting to kick their habits for good. Binzer is best remembered for a relapse in which he disappeared from the premises and posted bizarre videos to his MySpace that gave his housemates (which included Andy Dick) clues as to his whereabouts. Binzer, who was addicted to crack cocaine and an alcoholic, was so good at being sober (or at least, so entertaining at being not sober), that he appeared on Sober House 2.

In 2007, someone played a sick joke on Crazy Town and told them it might be a good idea to reunite (I suspect Ashton Kutcher, though only Sascha Baron Cohen would have the balls to do something so politically charged and sick). It was announced in 2008 that they would be working on a new album, Crazy Town Is Back. According to Wikipedia, the album has been delayed (translation: Obama stepped in).

In August 2009, Crazy Town regrouped for a one-off show at Les Deux in Hollywood.

Runners-Up:

Afroman - Because I Got High

Willa Ford - I Wanna Be Bad

Alien Ant Farm - Smooth Criminal (Michael Jackson cover)

Best One-Hit Wonders of the Decade: 2000

2009-12-13T17:23:00.016-06:00

The Baha Men formed in Nassau, Bahamas in 1977 as a group called High Voltage that played traditional Caribbeean junkanoo music. Somewhere in the mid-to-late '90s the group made a decision to begin playing more mainstream fare, which is when "Who Let the Dogs Out?" came into the picture. Originally conceived as a song for Trinidad and Tobogo's Carnival season in 1998, the Baha Men recorded their cover of the track for the soundtrack to The Rugrats Movie.

The song gained popularity mainly through its ubiquitous presence at sporting events during the late '90s and into 2000. The first use of the Baha Men's version being played at a sporting event was at a Seattle Mariner's game. Originally played as a joke (and how could it not be?) for catcher Joe Oliver, shortstop Alex Rodriguez (maybe you've heard of him) took to the song immediately and requested it as his at-bat music.

For some reason, the New York Mets dispute this version of events and claim that they were the first team to use the song, even going so far as to request that the Baha Men record a version of the song with the word "dogs" traded for "Mets" and changing the lyrics to reflect the 2000 Mets lineup. "Who Let the Mets Out?" was played during the Mets' postseason run and the Baha Men performed the tune live at Shea Stadium during Game 4 of the 2000 World Series against the Yankees. The same year, the tune was used by the Baltimore Ravens in the Super Bowl against the New York Giants.

Charts: In an instance where radio and sales apparently had little or no impact on the popularity of the song, the song only reached #40 on the Billboard Hot 100. Then again, why request a song or buy the CD when you can hear it at nearly every single sporting event you attend?

Legacy: "Who Let the Dogs Out?" won a plethora of awards: including Grammys for Best Dance Recording and the much coveted Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award for Favorite Song and, naturally, Favorite Band (Hmm...I wonder how the kids who voted in 2000 feel about this choice now? Leave your answer in the comments!). The song was so widespread that it wasn't long before a backlash began, and by the time the ball dropped on January 1, 2001, the song had become almost universally reviled, with Rolling Stone magazine ranking it #3 (behind "My Humps" and "Macarena") on their list of "10 Most Annoying Songs." Besides still periodically being played at sporting events, the song is most well-known these days as a punchline, as indicated by 2009's massive hit comedy The Hangover with Zach Galifianakis' creepy (albeit hilarious) nerd character posing the question, "Are you guys ready to let the dogs out?" Also, if you're ever lucky enough to catch Snow Dogs or any other kids movie that at any time in the film or marketing features a dog wearing sunglasses, you'll most likely get that chorus of barks stuck in your head again like its 2000!

At press time there was still no answer to the song's titular question.

Where Are They Now? After 2002's Move It Like This, the band's took two years to release a follow up album. 2004's Holla!, was an unexpected success among the Pitchfork indie rock crowd, with the Baha Men taking their talents to the next level by recording an intricately constructed song-cycle about an impoverished child rising through the ranks of the Caribbean drug trade. The band worked with producer Nigel Godrich and guests included Beck, Frederick "Toots" Hibbert, Lauryn Hill, and members of the Wu-Tang Clan.

OKAY, so none of that actually happened, but it sounds a lot more interesting than the reality of Holla!, which was basically just more of the same from the Baha Men, with the title track being written specifically for the abysmal Garfield movie (and includes references to indicate such). The lyrical content didn't improve much over "Dogs," with lines that urged the audience to shout, free of charge, "Come on everybody holla/You don't have to bring a dollar." Reportedly the band is releasing their next album in 2010.

Here's a fantastic video for "Holla!" set to clips of the 11,000th iteration of Power Rangers, Power Rangers: SPD:

Runners Up:

Alice Deejay - "Better Off Alone" (Billboard #27)

Macy Gray - "I Try" (Billboard #5)

Aaron Carter - "Aaron's Party (Come Get It)" (Billboard #35)

The Rentals - "Friends of P"

2009-09-17T08:00:00.001-05:00

The Basics: In 1995, original Weezer bassist Matt Sharp turned a small, low-budget side-project into a minor hit with "Friends of P"--a new wave-ish tribute to producer Ric Ocasek's supermodel wife Paulina Porizkova. The Return of the Rentals--a collaboration between Sharp and members of that dog. as well as Weezer bassist Pat Wilson--was picked up by Madonna's Maverick Records label and thanks to the success of "P," the band grew a life of its own. Though Sharp returned to Weezer for 1996's Pinkerton , he exited the group not long after (under what initially seemed to be friendly terms, but later--following a lawsuit levied by Sharp on Weezer--seemed vaguely not-so-friendly). He turned to The Rentals full time, releasing a sophomore effort, Seven More Minutes, in 1998.

Tell Me More: Born in 1969 in Bangkok, Thailand, Matt Sharp's family soon moved to Arlington, Virginia (assuming dad had some job with the government). Fed up with the classic rock-heavy music scene of his hometown, the punk-influenced Sharp made his way to California at the tender age of 16 and ended up in San Diego. After playing in various metal bands, Sharp met drummer Patrick Wilson. Wilson and Sharp drafted guitarist Jason Cropper to make up the band known as The Wrong Sausage. At the same time, Wilson was in a band called Fuzz with former metal guitarist gone alternative singer/songwriter Rivers Cuomo. Soon, Wilson convinced Cuomo to move into he and Sharp's apartment so they could take advantage of Cuomo's 8-track recorder.

In the summer of 1991, Sharp moved to Berkley, California to work on his own "symphonic keyboard sequencing" music, but by January, he had reconnected with Wilson, Cuomo and Cropper and by Valentine's Day of that year, the band known as "Weezer" was holding their first rehearsal.

After being signed to Geffen Records, the band hooked up with Cars frontman Ric Ocasek, who would produce their eponymous debut (widely nicknamed "The Blue Album"). With the surprise success of that album, Sharp spent the downtime from touring recording his own songs with members of Weezer and that dog.

Though originally intended as a personal project with no plans for release, record companies soon became interested, and the "band" (the lineup was never concrete) signed with Madonna's Maverick Records.

The First Single: To start, let's get this "Who is P?" nonsense out of the way. As rumored, the song is indeed about Ocasek's wife Paulina Porizkova. From a 1998 Addicted to Noise interview with Sharp:

"It was one of the first songs I'd ever written at the total infancy of all that stuff. I think at the time it came about because [Porizkova] had mentioned that the only people who would write songs for her were bad heavy-metal bands or something like that. And all her friends were getting these songs written about them and all these other supermodel girls were getting all these songs written about them. So it may have been kind of off-handed like that. That song was written when we were making the first Weezer record, when she was around quite a bit, very pregnant and very large."

Okay, so now that that's through, let's talk about the rest of the song. A fuzzed out pop song using the aesthetics of new wave (notably Moog synthesizers) to create a lighthearted, upbeat composition far removed from the darker and more sinister synth-heavy new wave of the early '80s. While most new wave was concerned with adapting the concerns of 1984 and Brave New World--depersonalization and alienation caused by technology--into musical form, here Sharp uses the same aesthetics to make a fun, power-pop tribute to those soulless robotic songs made popular by bands like Tubeway Army. It'd almost seem like sacrilege to the synth-pop purists if it wasn't so damn catchy. The "big sound on a low budget" aesthetic makes it even more charming--there's all sorts of synths, violins and harmonies going on, but you can't get away from the feeling that this was made on some very dated analog equipment--like Depeche Mode with a 4-track. But the fact that it sounds like it was made for pennies is part of the beauty of it: at times, it sounds like the lost work of a garage band from the early '80s who was more concerned with writing theme songs for their Atari 2600 games than cynical notions of futuristic dystopias.

So as a one-hit wonder, was this just another novelty hit? Most likely. People forget that Weezer started out with not one but two novelty hits--"Buddy Holly" and "Undone - The Sweater Song," before getting some recognition for the heavy emotions of "Say It Ain't So." "Friends of P" offered another hit in line with "Buddy Holly," but even weirder and maybe not quite as friendly--though undoubtedly just as catchy. The song reached #7 on Modern Rock charts and just barely dented the Hot 100 at #92. The accompanying video's aesthetic was keeping in line with the music's--cheap, antiquated, static, weird and funny.

The Second Single: "Waiting" was an odd choice for a follow-up single. Used as a tie-in with MTV Films' first feature, the singing cockroach comedy Joe's Apartment, the song was given the big (and seriously, it looks huge) budget video treatment and made its debut on 120 Minutes (note Afro'd keyboardist and future SNL alum Maya Rudolph):

The Rentals - Waiting

Personally, I think "My Summer Girl" would have been a more obvious follow-up single. It's not quite as fast as "Waiting," but it's twice as catchy. Regardless, The Rentals were probably destined to be a one-hit wonder. "Friends of P" was hung with the dreaded "novelty" tag early on, and as we've learned from a good 50% of the artists the blog has covered, that's almost as bad as not having anything good to follow it up with. It's almost more infuriating that audiences rejected follow-ups that were just as good if not better, simply because they'd decided the novelty had worn off. It's a shame really, cause, in a just world, most of the songs on Return of the Rentals could have been released as singles. But as any power-pop act from Fountains of Wayne and Matthew Sweet to Cheap Trick and Big Star will tell you: simply having catchy, well-written songs doesn't mean shit in this day and age.

"Waiting" failed to chart and wasn't included in heavy-rotation on MTV.

Whatever Happened to...?: In the ensuing years since the release of Return of the Rentals, a myriad of odd things have happened concerning Sharp/The Rentals.

1999: First, Sharp and Weezer parted ways sometime after Pinkerton. Whether he was fired or left is still unclear (Sharp claims he never left or quit). Then, The Rentals made a big, gorgeous, Brit-pop influenced follow-up album called Seven More Minutes, released by Maverick in 1998. The album featured appearances by Blur's Damon Albarn, Ash's Tim Wheeler, Elastica's Donna Matthews, and a song co-written by former Weezer band mate Rivers Cuomo. Despite being completely commercial and pop-oriented, the album tanked. There were a myriad of factors going against the album--the changing tide of rock music, the failure of Weezer's Pinkerton, the fact that SMM sounded a lot different than ROTR. While not an entirely different sound from their debut, the group took it in a whole new direction, no doubt disappointing or confusing fans of the first album who wanted more of the same. I still know people who love ROTR and hate SMM or vice versa. It's quite literally two different bands. Following the failure of the album, Sharp exited the limelight without a word--some assumed for good...

2000: But it wasn't for good. After the success of Weezer's comeback album Weezer (2000) aka the Green Album, people were suddenly interested in Matt Sharp again. The reasons were numerous, but the number one reason was this: Weezer didn't sound like Weezer anymore, and many assumed that was due to Sharp's absense. Despite the fact that Sharp had no songwriting credits on either album, fans posited that he must have had some creative influence over the band that was irretrievably lost upon his exit (more on this later). And with the release of 2002's Maladroit--another disappointment to longtime fans--the theory picked up steam. Sharp quickly became considered something of a martyr by Weezer fandom--a secret genius who had refused to be relegated to the role of sideman by a tyrannical frontman, and Sharp's silence only helped this legend grow. So when Sharp finally broke his silence, people--or at least, hardcore Weezer fans--took notice.

2002: Word began to leak that Sharp had decamped to rural Leiper's Fork, Tennessee (about an hour outside of Nashville) to pursue a solo project. The music was reported to be more stripped down and folky--most songs consisting of Sharp and his acoustic guitar, with maybe some organ here and there. At the same time, Sharp became the subject of controversy when he filed a federal lawsuit against Weezer alleging he was owed royalties for co-writing the hit "Undone (The Sweater Song)" and "owned a 25% interest in the first nine tracks of Pinkerton," all of which were credited solely to Rivers Cuomo. He also charged them with a bunch of other legalese stuff--in the end, they settled out of court. Around the same time Sharp remarked that, despite his lawsuit, his influence was not that large, and the new albums would be just as bad if he were still with the group (noting he hadn't heard the new albums).

Around this time Cuomo himself had taken to chat rooms and message boards to interact with fans. When asked why he never released Weezer's proposed space opera Songs from the Black Hole (written after the Blue album, before Pinkerton), he answered simply "ROTR" (Return of the Rentals). Geeky fans (such as myself) deduced that Sharp may have been influenced by the new wave influenced/moog heavy demos Cuomo had recorded for Black Hole. Listening to the demos available on Cuomo's ALONE collections (as well as B-sides culled from the sessions), there are some sonic and aesthetic similarities, but nothing to implicate Sharp in any sort of creative thievery.

Others have speculated that Sharp was not in fact ripping off Cuomo's ideas, but rather was working in collaboration with him on Black Hole and decided to use the songs for his own project instead. Since Return of the Rentals would be released before the next Weezer album, the incenuation was that Cuomo did not want to be accused of ripping off The Rentals. Parts of Black Hole ("Tired of Sex," for instance) ended up on Pinkerton. All in all, what you really need to know is that Weezer has some of the geekiest fans around (yours truly included).

2004: In 2003, Sharp released a solo EP Puckett's vs. The Country Boy, and a year later released a self-titled full length. Both albums were culled from the sessions in Leiper's Fork. Around this time, Sharp began doing acoustic solo tours and, to everyone's surprise, on February 12, 2004 (two days before the 12th anniversary of Weezer) Cuomo joined Sharp on stage at UCal - Fullerton where they played a couple of joint compositions from back in the day. The performance lead to rumors of a Sharp and Cuomo collaboration which never came to fruition due to what Sharp describes as the duo's "special brand of dysfunction." However, by this time the lawsuit had been settled out of court and there was brief talk of Sharp re-joining Weezer as a third guitar player--however, this did not come to fruition.

2005-present: Instead, Sharp went back to The Rentals, where he has been steadily working for the past four years with a (mostly) all new group of musicians. In 2007, the group released an EP, The Last Little Life and toured during 2006-2007. At the moment, the band is preparing to release Songs About Time, described as "three mini-albums to be released in April, July, and October as digital downloads. At the end of the year, the band will release a limited deluxe edition box set of the project, available both as compact discs and 180-gram vinyl records." Note to Sharp: Sounds complicated. Just give me a new CD, guy.

Based on the new songs on the group's MySpace page, the sound is sort of a combination of Seven More Minutes, Return of the Rentals and a surprising amount of influence from Sharp's solo acoustic work--the sound is far more organic than the fuzzed out futuristic sound of the band's albums. All in all, the new songs are essential for any old-school Weezer or Rentals fan--while I can't say I'm too eager for the next hopelessly ironic new Weezer album, Ratitude, Sharp still seems like a serious artist who's ready to make some cool music.

April Seven from The Rentals Dot Com on Vimeo.

Download: The Rentals - Friends of P
Download: The Rentals - Waiting
Download: Matt Sharp & Maya Rudolph - Not Tonight (Tegan & Sara cover)

The Refreshments - "Banditos"

2009-08-25T16:08:00.031-05:00

The Basics: Cutting a balance between alternative rock and Americana that owed a debt to their Southwestern roots, the Tempe, AZ-based group The Refreshments never reached the levels of fame of their hometown compadres the Gin Blossoms. And while they briefly sneaked their way onto the modern rock charts with the clever tale of a Mexican crime caper, their lasting contribution would be the TV theme to an animated network sitcom by that dude from Texas who made Beavis & Butthead.

Tell Me More: In 1993, Arizona State University graduates and drinking buddies Roger Clyne, Brian David Blush, Arthur Edwards began playing together on a lark and completed The Refreshments lineup when P.H. Naffah joined on drums. By 1994, the band had two independently releases under their belt which sold extremely well in their local Tempe. Noticing their success, Mercury pounced, signing the band the next year. In 1996, the band released their major-label debut, Fizzy, Fuzzy, Big & Buzzy, which featured professionally recorded versions of songs from their independent releases Wheelie and Lo, Our Much Praised Yet Not Altogether Satisfactory Lady EP.

The First Single: "Banditos," the band's only real hit was a fun slice of Tex-Mex influenced power-pop--though more on the alt. rock side of things than say, Old 97s. Featuring irreverent and, at times, hilarious lyrics describing an underachieving outlaw couple discussing their run for the border (as in, Mexico, not Taco Bell) after a planned hold-up. They have fake IDs with names like "Capt. Jean Luc Picard," but it won't matter cause the border guards can't "read English anyway." The narrator ironically believes that, because "the world is full of stupid people" that it's only fair that he should get his "pesos." Think of it as the story of what might've happened to the passionate but strategically inept Pumpkin and Honeybunny from Pulp Fiction had hightailed it to Mexico after they left that diner.

The song hit #11 on the Mainstream Rock Charts and #14 on the Modern Rock charts. The song propelled the album to #1 on the Heatseekers charts--the chart that tracks albums from new artists--and #97 on the Billboard 200 album charts.

And unlike even the most clever rock groups of the time, The Refreshments weren't afraid to make a humorous video that made it look like they were actually, ya know, enjoying themselves:

The Second Single: "Down Together" - Surprisingly not as successful, "Down Together" is perhaps a better and more conventional song than its predecessor. After seeing "Banditos" chart performance--good, but room to improve--they picked this one, perhaps hoping that the people who didn't like the idiosyncrasies of the first single would enjoy this wry take on the standard love song. As usual, this was a mistake. This type of thinking ignores the fact that "Banditos," like so many other one-hit wonders, struck a balance between commercial and completely unique. "Down Together"--and I reiterate that I indeed like it better than "Banditos"--is not quite as outwardly unusual and funny as that track. "Down" is fun and poppy and rockin' on the outside, and sweet--but not cloying on the inside--though not without its share of snide remarks, including one directed at the grungy fashion stylings of friends and fellow Arizonans, Dead Hot Workshop. As with most of The Refreshments material, the lyrics make the song, but they're far more subtle here than on the hit, and admittedly lack the LOL qualities of "Banditos."

The song reached #38 on the Modern Rock charts, failing to chart on Mainstream. The group did film another video for it with director Dave Dobkin (director of Wedding Crashers):

Whatever Happened to...?: Lucky for us (and the band), the story doesn't end there.

In 1997, Beavis & Butthead creator Mike Judge selected The Refreshments' instrumental--built off a jam they played at soundchecks--"Yahoos and Triangles" to be the theme song to his new Fox animated series, King of the Hill. Though I'm not a huge fan of the show, the theme song, along with Sanford and Son, The Simpsons and The Office US, ranks up there with the best of instrumental TV show theme songs. After millions of reruns and a few hundred episodes, the song never fails to make me wanna get my hoedown on.

Like so many '90s bands ready to spend a record company's money and spread their wings of musical maturity, the band followed up their successful major-label debut with a less-commercially-more-critically successful sophomore effort, The Bottle and Fresh Horses. The songs moved away from the clever "smirk-rock" (TM Allmusic.com) in favor of more country influenced story songs--though that's not to say there wasn't still a lot of pop and rock n' roll going on.

Produced by Butthole Surfers' Paul Leary, the album is really quite good--a forgotten gem of sorts. Unfortunately, audiences either didn't care for a more mature Refreshments and the album peaked at #150.

Here's the band in a 1997 morning TV performance doing the failed Mexa-reggae single "Wanted":

And a live performance of the Old 97s-ish "Broken Record":

Following the relative failure of The Bottle & Fresh Horses, the band split with Mercury Records and each other in 1998. However, lead singer/songwriter Clyne and drummer Naffah reteamed to create Roger Clyne and The Peacemakers. The Peacemakers are a bit of an Arizona supergroup, with members of Gin Blossoms and Dead Hot Workshop among their ranks. Releasing their first album, Honky Tonk Union, in 2000, the new music--true to its title--showed Clyne indulging his Americana influences with a more country sound, while still retaining some of the alt. rock that made them so enjoyable in the first place. The lyrics, while still revealing Clyne's trademark wit, were decidedly more reflective.

Ten years and seven albums later (including a live one that featured the band playing some of the Refreshments' better known songs), the Roger Clyne and Peacemakers are still at it, still bringing their witty brand of heartland rock.

Download: The Refreshments - Banditos
Download: The Refreshments - Down Together

Seven Mary Three - "Cumbersome"

2009-08-04T17:13:00.013-05:00

Hell has frozen over! I've written a new blog post. I apologize for not updating this blog regularly and can't make any promises about the future, but I will try my best to make this a consistent thing. I've gotten requests to do this band since the beginning, so hope you all enjoy.

The Basics: Seven Mary Three (aka 7M3--their decal ready abbreviation) were a mid-90s grunge band who released the single "Cumbersome," which his #1 on the Mainstream Rock charts, #7 on the Modern Rock Charts and #39 on the Hot 100. At the time, the band was heavily criticized for being Pearl Jam imitators. If the accusation is indeed true (spoiler: it is) then 7M3 were some sort of pioneer--one of the first in a long line of PJ imitators that would come to include Nixons, 3 Doors Down, Creed, Nickleback, and yes, even my beloved Stone Temple Pilots. The band cried all the way to the bank as their first album, 1995's American Standard sold millions.

Tell Me More: 7M3 originated in Williamsburg, VA. The songwriting duo of Jason Ross and Jason Pollock met while attending the College of William & Mary and began an acoustic duo--Ross sang, Pollock played guitar and they split the song-writing duties. Soon, the duo were joined by drummer Giti Khalsa and bassist Casey Daniel, and the band (named from a bit of dialogue from CHiPs) toured bars and clubs throughout the Southeast. In 1994 they released their independently produced debut, Churn. The album caught the attention of several entities including the label Mammoth Records and was given airtime by rock-radio DJs in Orlando, FL. Spurred by the attention their single "Cumbersome" received, the band moved to the crap-music mecca Orlando re-recorded Churn, added two new songs and slapped a new title on it: American Tradition. "Cumbersome" became a mega-hit, and soon the band was offered a contract with Atlantic Records. After seven months of bad reviews and hundreds of hours of airplay, the album went platinum.

The First Single: "Cumbersome" is an extremely hateable song. If one was so inclined, it would be quite easy to trace a path that led from this song to the entire post-grunge movement. Nickleback, Puddle of Mudd, Creed, Staind, even Daughtry--this song is the cornerstone for that sound in the same way glam rock was kicked off by Marc Bolan's "Ride a White Swan," or how "6 in the Mornin'" by Ice-T started gangsta rap. It's arguable, but when you hear it, you just know. This is the birth of the sound that has ruled rock radio for nigh on fifteen years.

Now, am I blaming Seven Mary Three? Not at all. They were just doing what was popular at the time. The sound was still somewhat vital then--at least in parts of the country outside Seattle. They were there for the last gasp--the death rattle--of grunge. They didn't know that sound would rape radio listeners' ears for over a decade--pouring sludgy riffs, hoarse vocals and unnecessarily angsty and laughable lyrics into the heads of teens (though 7M3's careers would be in much better shape right now had they had that kind of foresight). They were just college guys in a bar band mimicking the music they loved, like tons of bar bands imitate the Stones or Stevie Ray Vaughn or Dave Matthews. I can't hate them for that--but I don't have to like the music either.

It's not that it's a bad song, really. It rocks pretty hard and has a decent hook and it does a fine approximation of the Seattle sound (if a bit more straight forward and wholly without much in the way of nuance or dynamics), but it's hard to hear it with fresh ears after being subjected to the bands that sprung fully formed from 7M3's crusty afterbirth. Granted, if forced to choose between 7M3 and the bands they influenced, I'd take them any day of the week. But at the end of the day, why listen to the east coast facsimile of the Sub Pop sound at all? Why not just throw on Ten instead? Or one of the less-successful but far superior Washington-area bands like the Screaming Trees or Mudhoney?

As noted in the first part, the song was a huge hit on radio and MTV and gave way to another single that did surprisingly well.

The Second Single: "Water's Edge" A surprisingly lame song considering it was rumored to be based on the badass '80s Keanu Reeves movie River's Edge. Like the film, the song is about a young narrator finding a dead body by the river. Just like with their hit, 7M3 kept things dreary and gray on the second single. The one thing you can say for this song is that it may be the entire basis for (ultimate-crap rockers) 3 Doors Down's entire sound. Honestly, I'm getting more and more fired up about trying some sort of voodoo thing where we cut off the collective head of 7M3 with the idea that their minions--3DD, Daughtry, Hoobastank, etc.--will turn to ash.

The video featured a young boy walking in the woods and spotting a strange man and discovering a tent and...you know what? This video is pretty fucking boring. I apologize, but I can't be bothered to finish it. I read the description of the rest of it on Wikipedia and there's some shit about puppets cavorting in a tent and harassing a woman or something. Sounds like I should have kept watching but c'mon--there's a full minute of an old man walking before the song even starts, what do you want from me? If you can make it through, kudos, tell me if I'm missing something great.

"Water's Edge" reached #7 on Mainstream charts, #37 on Modern Rock charts and failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100.

Where are they now? Seven Mary Three's day in the sun didn't last long. Their follow-up album, RockCrown, veered away from the hard-rock angst towards a more folky-acoustic angst, but it didn't matter--they were seen as grunge and grunge was dying (or hibernating). Reviews were no good (Rolling Stone gave it two out of five stars), sales were poor, and the rock radio DJs who had previously championed the band had turned their backs on 7M3 in favor of the pop-punk, rap rock and nu metal that would soon slither their way into the tape decks of every rock radio station in the country. RockCrown reached #75 on the Billboard charts. If we've learned nothing from this site, it's that more often than not, the public can smell a one hit wonder before even the record label. Atlantic gave them another album.

Orange Ave. arrived in 1998 to poor sales, although it spawned a minor hit with "Over Your Shoulder." The single reached #7 on the Mainstream Rock charts, a position they would reach once more in 2001 with "Wait" from The Economy of Sound, their first album after the departure of founding member Jason Pollock. The album also featured a return to Mammoth Records (no longer affiliated with Atlantic). The song (which also appeared on the soundtrack to the Kirsten Dunst vehicle Crazy/Beautiful) featured a decidedly lighter 7M3; far more classic rock oriented than their previous output--they no longer sound like they're auditioning to be the background band in Cameron Crowe's Singles. It's actually not half bad as far as turn of the century rock radio goes--but that could just be the scantily clad Dunst from the video hynotizing me with her dance moves.

Two more albums have followed with minimal fanfare and terrible titles--2004's Dis/Location and 2008's day&nightdriving. 2008 also saw a re-release of their independent debut, Churn. The new songs feature a band that has moved far closer to folk and roots-rock oriented sound. In other words, they sound like a band from Virginia, instead of a band from Virginia trying to sound like they crawled out of a rain-drenched Seattle suburb. Can't say I blame them, and actually give them props for it. Not sure I'd ever buy their albums, but by making a point to move away from "the song that launched a thousand shitty bands" towards something more enjoyable, I gain a new found respect.

7M3 can still be found touring the country, and in fact are coming to my neck of the woods this October. If there's any interest, I may trek out to the club to see them and write up a review. "The Second Single -- ON THE SCENE" how does that sound? Or is this one of those ideas that sounds better on paper?

Download: Seven Mary Three - Cumbersome
Download: Seven Mary Three - Water's Edge

Whoops! The Second Single apologizes

2009-06-28T16:53:00.007-05:00

So, sorry for the long delay. I finally got a job in this economy and haven't had as much time to devote to posts as I might like.

Unfortunately, after doing some research I came to find that Lisa Loeb is not, in fact, a one-hit wonder. Not even in a technical sense. She had two top twenty hits ("I Do" and "Do You Sleep?") following her number one single, "Stay."

Nonetheless, here's a few of her videos so you can enjoy her in all her sexy librarianness...

"Stay" (1994) from the Reality Bites soundtrack

"Do You Sleep?" (1995) from the album Tails

"I Do" (1997) from the album Firecracker

Bummer! Normally I'd feel completely justified in writing about someone whose only other singles had ranked low on the charts, but, well, I actually remember these songs. And they're pretty damn good to boot.

Plus, Lisa Loeb is just too dang cute for me to rip on too much. Basically, what I'm saying is that I have no integrity. Typical blogger! You're off the hook, Ms. Loeb.

I know what you're thinking. "Why the eff was this picture taken?"
Well, I have one thing to say to you: would you ask Tom Petty that?

However, don't fret, I will absolutely have another entry up in the next few days, and I KNOW you'll like this one. (Note: that was a hint)

For all you jonesin' for some Loeb

2009-05-30T19:16:00.000-05:00

Next week, I promise...

Reality Bites Soundtrack Pt. 1 of 2, Big Mountain

2009-05-20T15:13:00.019-05:00

Few movies encapsulate an era like Ben Stiller's Reality Bites. That's not necessarily a compliment. I'd argue that only 1995's Empire Records bests it in the "middle-aged studio exec attempts to cash in on the humor and angst of the grunge generation using sub-John Hughes script, indie actors and eclectic soundtrack" department.

Released in 1994 and starring Gen X superstars Ethan Hawke and Winona Ryder, the film tells the story of four twenty-somethings living in Houston, TX in the mid-90s. Though Stiller and producers would later deny it, the initial idea was to make a film about the Generation X crowd and everything that went along with that lifestyle:

shitty 9-5 jobs - Ryder is a morning show PA, Hawke is unemployed for the 13th time in two years while roommate/friend Janeane Garofalo works as a manager at the ultimate '90s microcosm, The Gap.
relationships - Ryder's stuck in a love triangle between the wannabe philosopher, grunge rocker and all around loser Hawke, and the educated, successful yuppie-ish sell-out Stiller).
pop culture-centric conversations - endless references to '70s kitsch--half of Hawke's lines are either quoting a commercial jingle ("I'm a Pepper", "This girl is cukoo for Cocoa Puffs!") or throwing down some trivial tidbit about Good Times or Diff'rnt Strokes.
modern, sexually-based fears - at one point Garofalo takes an HIV test and fourth roommate Steve Zahn struggles with his sexuality.
living off fast food - Ryder at one point works at a burger place and, while on a date with Stiller, pontificates on the joys of 7-11's Big Gulp.
the fear of selling out and becoming like their parents, i.e. doing something not in the arts - Hawke repeatedly fails to live up to his potential due to the fear of selling out to "the man," Ryder sabotages her own job and later breaks up with Stiller when he dares to allow the MTV-like network he works for to edit a boring yet artistically sound documentary she made about her friends' lives into something commercial and entertaining.
Janeane Garofalo - does anything scream "'90s!" more than the grungy, sloppy, deadpan, cynical, "I'm studying for an M.A. in gender studies so fuck 90210" humor of Ms. Garofalo? MTV even made a cartoon based on her persona with Daria--and to make her even angrier, didn't give her any credit.

Of course, all of this was done better two years earlier in Cameron Crowe's Altman-esque survey of Seattle singles in the grunge era, titled, er, Singles. Audiences' initial reaction to Reality Bites was markedly less than Stiller and co. had hoped. Despite the indie-cred the film gained by playing at Sundance Film Festival, Reality Bites failed to connect with the ever-cynical Gen X crowd, and didn't really connect with anyone else either, grossing a reasonable-but-not-impressive $20 million at the box office. In recent years it has become something of a hit on video and DVD, buoyed by the meteoric rise of '90s nostalgia in the latter half of this decade. If nothing else, the film is extremely entertaining as a time capsule of the brief time period when Doc Martens with Guess Jeans shorts was considered the height of fashion, Kurt Cobain was the new Jim Morrison and the worst thing post-adolescent white people had to worry about was how bad it would look if they worked at The Gap.

The soundtrack, however, was a different story. A mish-mash of '80s new wave and indie, '70s hits, new covers and contemporary alternative rock, the album played like your average '90s college student's mixtape, and somewhat inexplicably birthed two left-field hits: Lisa Loeb's "Stay" and Big Mountain's cover of Peter Frampton's "Baby I Love Your Way."

This week we'll focus on the latter--next week, Loeb will get her own entry.

So, Big Mountain was a reggae band formed in the early 1990s and hailing from the decidedly un-Jamaican land of San Diego. For some reason, early '90s audiences welcomed non-Jamacian white dudes playing reggae (see also: UB40) and believe it or not, Big Mountain had hit the Hot 100 a year or so prior to Reality Bites. "Touch My Light," from the album Wake Up, had reached #51 on the Hot 100. The minor hit spurred Bites producer Ron Fair to approach the band about recording a cover of Frampton's song for the soundtrack.

Why didn't they just include Frampton's original recording? I honestly don't know. The original Frampton recording (which reached #12 on the Billboards) is featured in the actual movie during a scene where Stiller playfully berates Ryder for not knowing Frampton Comes Alive! (the metaphorical overtones of Stiller's yuppie-ish love for corporate rock are not lost on this viewer). My guess is that licensing Frampton's original recording would have cost the producers too much money, and reggae bands--as anyone who has ever eaten at a restaurant in the islands can attest to--are dirt cheap. It's also probable that the producers were looking for a hit single for the soundtrack and took a page from the 1993's Sliver soundtrack, which featured a UB40 cover of Elvis' "Can't Help Falling In Love With You."

I'm convinced the black guys were hired for the picture and are not actually members of Big Mountain

Turning Frampton's song into a reggae jam wasn't much of a stretch--the original was clearly influenced by reggae with Frampton doing a sad white man's imitation of an island singer. Still, Big Mountain's version turns into a full-on soft rock reggae jam, with lightly plucked acoustic guitars, a prominent saxophone and three-part harmony. And if there was any doubt in your mind that this wasn't a group of non-Jamaican white (and Mexican) dudes with dreads from So. Cal, the video--which looks to have been shot at a lame resort in Sandles--quickly changed that.

Big Mountain - Baby I Love Your Way
by POMSNESTABOB

If reggae didn't die after this video, then it must have already been long dead, and this was merely another long, cheesy nail in the coffin. Any lingering memory of reggae that had concerns about injustice, poverty, religion (or basically that it had anything do with anything other than act as a soundtrack to your rockin' the gange and making love to your second wife on a beach in Sandles while a guy with dreads brings you a margarita) were washed away by this video. Dashikis, Steinberger guitars, unwieldy headset microphones, shots of Winona Ryder's ass in jeans...doesn't get much better than this, folks.

But as awesome as this version may be, it has nothing on the Spanish version, "Baby Te Quiero A Ti." Oh yeah, this actually happened.

Full disclosure: I recall loving the shit out of this song when I was all of 10 years old. As cheesy as it may be, it's infectious. That key change used to blow my mind. It made me want to play sax for about five minutes, and it very well could have been the first reggae song I ever really listened to (This could explain why I have no real use for reggae these days).

The song was a smash crossover, hitting #6 on the Hot 100, #1 on the Top 40, #10 on Adult Contemporary, #19 on Hot Latin Tracks (huh?) and #8 on Rhythmic Top 40 (double huh?). And thanks in part to that amazing Spanish version, the song was a worldwide hit. To make matters stranger--this wasn't the first time a cover of Frampton's song charted: in 1988, Will to Power had a #1 hit with their cloying medley of "Baby" and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird."

The Reality Bites soundtrack sold 1.2 million units and reached #13 on the Billboard charts. The track was also included on their album Unity, which reached #174 on the album charts.

So where did Big Mountain go from there? They released two more singles. The first, an original called "Sweet Sensual Love" was very much in line with the sound of their hit; that is, safe, soft-rock reggae with all the edges smoothed out. The problem? It wasn't a cover! It stalled at #80 on the Billboard charts. Lead singer Quino and co. must have had their dreads tied too tied if they thought folks wanted to hear their original music. Luckily, the group smoked some of that Jamaican Gold and decided the public wanted a smooth-reggae version of another classic feel-good favorite.

They chose The Youngbloods' "Get Together," which in 1995 was somewhat popular again, having been featured on the monster-selling Forrest Gump soundtrack. Featured on their 1995 album, the vaguely political sounding Resistance, "Get Together" featured production that would have sounded dated in 1988, but brought the goods on the "feel-good smooth reggae" front, so I guess for that reason it could be called a success. As far as I can tell, there's not much to separate it from any of those Reggae Tribute to Paul Anka album. Listening to this song makes me feel like I'm in a shitty bar in inland Florida, watching some sunburned middle-aged fat guy in a sales rack Tommy Bahama shirt order up yet another Pina Colada with one hand while he gropes the frizzy haired 35-year-old divorcee in the bikini top and belly jewelry with the other hand. If that's not a ringing endorsement, I don't know what is.

The cover trick worked a second time and "Get Together" did surprisingly well, reaching #44 on the Billboard charts, and #28 on the Adult Contemporary charts.

The band was dropped from Warner Bros. after on more album, Free Up, in 1997. Since then they've been recording some originals, but have mostly fallen to recording reggae cover albums that no doubt are played in Jamaican themed restaurants throughout the midwest. So check out the lazily titled Versions Undercover for Big Mountain's take on John Lennon, James Taylor and others, or just sit near the speakers next time you go to Bahama Breeze (order the West Indies Ribs!). Hell, Big Mountain might even be playing at your location! (They live off tips, people! Have a heart!)

One love!

Next Week: the sexy librarianness of Lisa Loeb
Download: Big Mountain - Baby, I Love Your Way
Download: Big Mountain - Sweet, Sensual Love
Download: Big Mountain - Get Together

Big Mountain website

Letters to Cleo "Here and Now"

2009-04-19T12:58:00.013-05:00

What was it about '90s rock music that lent itself so easily to female-fronted rock groups? How many times did you turn on MTV to see a cute girl sporting a dress she probably stole from her grandma and a hair color not found in nature standing in front of a wall of Marshall stacks singing about how much guys suck? They certainly weren't invented in the '90s. Janis Joplin, Patti Smith and Debbie Harry had held their own as the only girl in serious rock bands decades earlier, and certainly the '80s had their share with Chrissy Hynde of The Pretenders leading the way.

To look at it from an academic point of view, perhaps it was inspired by third-wave of feminism, which started in the early '90s and suggested that women's sexuality was a positive thing that could be empowering, challenging earlier views of sexuality as exploitative. It also allowed women the ability to "take back" words such as "bitch" and "whore." But perhaps that's a discussion probably best left for the Meredith Brooks entry...

Whatever it was, it was certainly popular. Besides the ultra-feminist bands of the riot grrrl movement like Bikini Kill and L7 (the latter infamous for an incident at a concert in which the lead singer removed her tampon and tossed it into the crowd, shouting, "Eat my tampon, fuckers!" in response to mud being slung at the stage), popular bands like The Breeders, No Doubt, The Cardigans, Veruca Salt, Hole, Luscious Jackson, and Belly all featured women in prominent roles--usually serving as lead vocalist and songwriter. At this point I could probably use Freudian analysis to dissect why so many of those type of bands--that is to say, bands in which a small, cute female lead singer surrounds herself with an all-male backing band--were so popular with male audiences, but that sounds kinda boring, so instead, I'm just going to talk about Letters to Cleo and how cute Kay Hanley is.

Letters to Cleo was formed by Hanley and guitarist Greg McKenna in Boston in 1988. McKenna had begun another band and drafted Hanley, then a member of a new wave group. When that band dissolved, McKenna and Hanley decided to continue their partnership with a new power-pop based project. With the addition of Mike Eisenstein on guitar, Stacy Jones on drums and Scott Riebling on bass, the project became Letters to Cleo, named for a box of letters from Hanley's childhood pen pal named, er, "Cleo".

LtC spent a few years gaining a following and sharpening their skills in the Boston area before recording their first album, Aurora Gory Alice, released on the local Boston label Cherry Disc Records in 1993. The album was successful enough to gain the attention of major label Giant Records who signed the band and re-released the album in 1994. The band already had another album in the can--Wholesale Meats and Fish--but would have to wait another year to release thanks to the success of an Aurora track that had been included on the soundtrack for Aaron Spelling awesomely cliched and horribly acted prime time soap Melrose Place--"Here and Now."

Besides Hanley's cuteness, not much impressive about the video as evidenced by this video, complete with color commentary by these two dudes from Texas

Thanks to the exposure of the song on the soundtrack (and the show, where it was played during the closing credits) the song went up the charts and the band found themselves playing the single that they'd recorded some three years previous on hip late night shows for young people like Jon Stewart's short-lived talk show and Conan's still-in-its-infancy Late Night program.

Again with the pigtails, Kay? You're making it really hard for me to not go Freudian on you here.

Equal parts hard rocking grunge and power-pop--and buoyed by Hanley's powerhouse vocals-- "Here and Now" showcased the band's sound nicely, and the song turned into a hit on the Modern Rock chart (#10), and even crossed over to the Hot 100 (#56) and Top 40 (#40). Oh, and in case you're wondering, here the really fast lyrics during the chorus...

The comfort of a knowledge and I'll rise above the sky
above I'll never parallel the challenge of an acquisition
In the here and now...here and now

I'm pretty sure we'll all stick with mumbling our way through that part when it comes on the iPod, but thought it would be nice to see, right?

The follow-up, "Awake," came off Wholesale Meats and Fish--the sophomore effort that was finally released after the success of "Here and Now." "Awake," while still poppy, had a harder-edged sound than "Here and Now." With the guitars turned up and the sound a little messier, the band sounds almost Weezer-ish. In fact, one could call Wholesale Meats and Fish the band's Pinkerton, which would make Aurora Gory Alice their Blue Album--only, you know, not quite as good. It's also clear that the sweetness of Hanley's vocals has been toned down a bit--they're less overpowering here.

Letters To Cleo - New Music - More Music Videos

The sweetness of the vocals may be what ultimately kept Letters to Cleo from achieving real success. There's some really great power-pop here, but Hanley's vocals run the risk of being sickly sweet and free of the sort of attitude that would make Gwen Stefani and No Doubt so successful. As good as the melodies and music were, there wasn't a whole lot in this single to separate the band from the other girl-fronted rock bands of the day.

"Awake" went to #17 on the Modern Rock charts and #88 on the Hot 100.

Still riding high on the success of "Here and Now," in 1996 Letters to Cleo turned their attention towards recording cover songs for movie soundtracks, starting with a cover of The Cars' "Dangerous Type" for the soundtrack to the completely boring teen-witch movie The Craft.

While the song failed to chart, it probably went a long way towards getting them the role as themselves in 1999's underrated teen comedy 10 Things I Hate About You. In the film--a retelling of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew--Letters to Cleo are mentioned as being the favorite band of Julia Stiles' character (the shrew). Later in the film, the band actually shows up playing a cover of Nick Lowe's "Cruel to Be Kind" alongside '90s ska no-hit wonders Save Ferris:

Caution: Clips include Heath Ledger which might make you sad, and Alex Mack, which might make you aroused

The film also features the band playing a cover of Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me" on the roof of the high school.

Fast forward to 1:48 to see the band on the roof...on second thought, dont'--this trailer is like a trip back in time. Watch the whole thing.

Letters to Cleo's music was also used in other forgotten teen girl-centric '90s films like Jawbreaker and The Babysitters Club. Kay Hanley also served as the singing voice of "Josie" in the horrific live-action Josie and the Pussycats movie. Sorry, no clip for that one--if you want to burn your retinas, do it on your own time.

A year later--after four albums, including 1997's Go! and 1998's Sister--the band called it quits after a final show in their home town in May of 2000.

Since then, each member has followed his or her own muse, with Kay Hanley releasing two solo albums (Cherry Marmalade in 2002 and Weaponize in 2008), drummer Stacy Jones forming American Hi-Fi and McKenna starting his own side project, Murder Capitol of the World.

But, like many one-hit wonders, the band has had to do some terrible things to make ends meet. I'm sure she's not proud of it, but on the 2007-2008 Hannah Montana tour, Kay Hanley sang back up for Miley Cyrus.

I know, I know. Take a moment. Pull it together. Now, let's move on.

Lucky for us (and for them, it would seem), in September 2008, the band announced their reunion, which kicked off with a series of shows that will continue May 20, 2009, starting with a free show in New Orleans and continuing into Texas. In 2008, the band also released an odds and sods collection, When Did We Do That? Find more info at their Myspace and official site.

Here's the band playing at a Boston club last December, with the band sounding as good as ever and, of course, Hanley looking as cute as ever. Even the evils of Miley Cyrus can't take down this sprightly woman.

Download: Letters to Cleo - Here and Now
Download: Letters to Cleo - Awake
Download: Letters to Cleo - I Want You to Want Me (Cheap Trick cover)

Freedy Johnston "Bad Reputation"

2009-04-07T19:09:00.008-05:00

A funny thing about pop music is that there's always room for the singer-songwriters. A movement begun in the '70s thanks to the popularity of Bob Dylan (who was really just doing his best Woody Guthrie), "singer-songwriter" became a genre in its own right and was made popular by artists wielding nothing more than a piano or acoustic guitar, their sweet voice, and some lyrics that, more likely than not, told a story about heartbreak. Think: Paul Simon, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Carole King, Gordon Lightfoot, Don McLean, Carly Simon, Cat Stevens and a ton of other artists that you may have never heard of, but your parents love to play full-blast in their SUVs.

While there's yet to be a huge resurgence of the guy-and-his-guitar music since the '70s, its something that's really never gone away either. There's always a few breakthrough artists trickling onto the mainstream charts, and, incidentially, a lot of these turn out to be one-hit wonders (at least, as far as the mainstream is concerned), regardless of how talented they are (think David Gray, Daniel Powter, Aqualung). Many of these artists have similar histories--toil in the coffee houses for years, put out a few indie albums, get one brief shot at the big time, get played endlessly on VH1, and go back to square one. However, today's subject is such a good songwriter that, despite having a familiar history, he's managed to transcend it with critical acclaim and a fan-following.

Freedy Johnston grew up in Kinsley, KS--a rural farming town best-known for its distinctive location on the U.S. map: it's equidistant from New York City and San Francisco. Johnston was always musically inclined, but living in a town without a record store or music store of any kind, had difficulty developing his talent. At 16, Johnston bought a dirt-cheap guitar through a mail-order catalog, and at 17, convinced a friend to make the 35 mile drive to the closest record store so he could buy Elvis Costello's debut, My Aim is True. Moving to Lawrence, KS for what would be an abbreviated academic stint (he stayed less than a year at U of Kansas), Johnston immersed himself in the college town's music scene, which was then mostly New Wave. Johnston utilized his close proximity to an actual record store and began broadening his musical horizons, listening to everything from Neil Young to XTC to country music to Lawrence's local legends The Embarrassment.

In a move that sounds straight out of a Preston Sturges movie, Johnston left behind the farms and bars of Kansas for the coffeehouses and bars of New York, with nothing more than a four-track recorder and knapsack full of demo tapes. In 1989, four years after his arrival in the city, Johnston's music caught the attention of Bar/None Records--a respected, Hoboken, NJ-based label.

In 1990, the label released his debut, Trouble Tree--an album that was well-received by critics, who called Johnston a "post-punk Donald Fagen," despite its rough edges. The album did little business in the U.S., but became a minor hit in Holland and the song "No Violins" received some airplay. Unable to continue his venture monetarily, Johnston sold off a piece of the family farm--a painful decision, considering Johnston had inherited the farm from his grandfather (the incident is the subject of the album's lead track). The outcome was worth the risk as 1992's Can You Fly ended up on album of the year lists from Spin, Billboard, and The New York Times. Famed critic and Village Voice writer Robert Christgau gave it an A+ and called it "a perfect album." Critics compared his wry, character-based lyrics to the writings of Raymond Carver. Despte the lack of a single, DJs routinely played cuts from the album. Johnston's momentum was riding high, and he quickly signed to a major--Elektra Records, and drafted a mega-producer--Butch Vig (Nirvana's Nevermind, Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream) --to man the boards for is follow up LP.

1994's This Perfect World was deemed a fine follow-up by most critics, although most agreed that it lacked the consistent greatness of its predecessor. Rolling Stone named Johnston songwriter of the year for 1994. But others were dismayed at the album's slick approach--Johnston's champion Robert Christgau later called the songwriter's team up with the uber-slick Vig a "mismatch" but Vig's jangly (if admittedly a little too smooth) production gave Johnston his first and only hit: "Bad Reputation."

This Perfect World's leadoff track, "Bad Reputation" is an excellent example of Johnston's songwriting prowess--both melodically and lyrically--and melancholy vocals. The song features Johnston's speaker admitting his past as an unreliable lover--"do you want me now?" he asks in the refrain. Translation: "yeah, I'm a pretty sketchy dude--you still interested?" The song is gorgeous, beginning with Johnston's vocals and acoustic guitar before giving way to a full scale ballad, complete with guitars so jangly, The Byrds may have asked him to ease off on the treble. When the song breaks back down to just Johnston and his voice again, he proclaims, "nobody's gonna tell me who to love," a line that's at once sad and proud--and a perfect example of Johnston's songwriting style.

Despite lots of radio airplay--particularly on college radio--"Bad Reputation" wasn't a huge hit, though it did show up on three separate charts--hitting #54 on Billboard Hot 100, #29 on Top 40 and #28 on Modern Rock. Oddly enough, the song didn't show up on the Adult Radio charts, despite Johnston being tailor-made for the format. Maybe didn't help that the song's video would be nominated for Most Generic Video of all time.
"Let's film Freedy singing in the streets of NY, and intercut it with some funny/interesting looking locals and hot, arty looking chicks...but here's the kicker, it's all going to be in sepia tone. Yeah. Fuck with that, Hype Williams."
&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.joost.com/082000a/t/Freedy-Johnston-Bad-Reputaion-Video-Version"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Freedy Johnston - Bad Reputaion (Video Version)&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

(Apologies for the annoying ad)

The song was also featured as the closing credits song for Noah Baumbach's supremely excellent post-college indie comedy Kicking & Screaming (no, not the one with Will Ferrell. The one that's actually funny). It was also featured in the not-half-bad trailer:

"Are you wearing mascara?" "No...yes."

Johnston's one and only real hit (if you could call it that) was, unlike many one-hit wonders, a great example of his work. It's not surprising that it didn't hit as much as Elektra might have liked it to--it wasn't grunge or post-grunge, and the big college rock explosion of Dave Matthews Band and Hootie & The Blowfish was just beginning to happen. There wasn't much room for a melancholy singer-songwriter with a strong pop sense.

Still, Elektra released a second single, and an excellent one at that. "Evie's Tears" is a gorgeous track. Buoyed by a sweet little Rickenbacker riff that might have had R.E.M.'s Peter Buck calling his lawyers, the song gives way to a creepy story about a guy disturbed by his girlfriend's admission that she was or is currently being sexually abused by a Catholic priest. No, it doesn't exactly go along with the otherwise jubilant music, but that's the brilliance of Johnston--marrying pop smarts with literary smarts. Still--not something one wants to hear Casey Kasem talk about for one of his "requests and dedications," so maybe we should be grateful the track didn't make it to the airwaves.

Though Johnston never again met the success of This Perfect World, he stayed on Elektra until 2001, and ended up scoring a minor hit on the Adult Contemporary charts with a play-it-straight cover of Edison Lighthouse's "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)". But despite a lack of big success, Johnston continued to be well-respected by critics and his fellow songwriters (he's been referred to as a "songwriter's songwriter" for his genius structure and lyrical ability) as well as maintain a strong following. The following has enabled him to continue recording and releasing albums, including a demos compilation in 2004 and a live album in 2006. In 2007, Johnston recorded a mail-order only album of twelve cover songs by other artists as eclectic as NRBQ, Dionne Warwick, Eagles, Marshall Crenshaw, Tom Petty, and Paul McCartney & Wings. The album, called, My Favorite Waste of Time, is available on his website.

Johnston has also left behind his adopted city of New York for my hometown, Nashville, TN. He's currently recording a new album titled Rain on the City, slated to be released sometime in 2009.

So while, no, Freedy Johnston did not become the next Dylan or even reach the status of the new Paul Simon--new Todd Rundgren, maybe?--he helped to prove that, every once in a while, the public just wants some good music that doesn't rely on fancy production, loud guitars or pained vocals. Shocking, I know.

Download: Freedy Johnston - Bad Reputation
Download: Freedy Johnston - Evie's Tears

Bonus download: Freedy Johnston - Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)

Read a recent interview with Freedy
Buy Freedy Johnston music from Freedy himself

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British Evasion #1 - Robbie Williams

2009-03-30T04:00:00.005-05:00

You know when a friend of yours keeps pushing a band/movie/TV show on you, and you've tried your best to like it, but it's just not catching? For instance, the HBO comedy Flight of the Conchords. Most of my friends dig the show, and I love the hell out of it. But I have one friend who just can't get into it. He's seen an episode or two OnDemand, but it didn't catch. He'll tell me a line that he thought was funny, or maybe a character that made him laugh, but overall, his reaction is "meh." It could be his sense of humor, it could be the circumstances or environment under which he watched the episodes, but whatever it was, it's just one of those things that might not ever happen. He couldn't see what the big deal was.

Such is the case of many British music exports. In the 1980s, bands like Frankie Goes to Hollywood were considered huge artists in Britain. But when they tried to take that success to the Americans--well, we liked that one song, "Relax," and those t-shirts were nifty, but that was about it. It just didn't stick. Cool band, we collectively remarked, but what's the big frickin' deal?

And in the '90s, there were multiple exports. Artists who were absolutely massive in their home country and in Europe--they sold tens of millions of albums, sold millions of tickets and had three hits in the Top Ten at the same time. But...when they sent the artists over here to the U.S., more often than not our reaction was, "meh."

Such was the case of many Anglo-artists who I will discuss in this new series, cleverly titled "British Evasion." (Get it? Cause they evade success stateside. No? Please?)

We'll begin with one Robert Peter Williams, better known to the masses (at least across the pond) as Robbie Williams. A sharp, good looking, hedonistic, former boyband member of ambiguous sexual proclivities, Williams was propped up by record labels as the new George Michael--but one that actually might like girls as well as guys.

Having served as a member of the ultra-successful boyband Take That since 1990--the UK's answer to New Kids on the Block--Williams was primed for solo success when he struck out on his own in 1995 (or, as some reports had it, was fired from the group). Williams had been known by fans and the press as the rebel of the group, so his exit didn't come as a surprise. Williams made a big thing making sure everyone knew his solo career would be very different than Take That's music. He claimed he was leaving dance pop behind in favor of a more rock n' roll sound, even namedropping Noel Gallagher in interviews, saying the Oasis leader had planned on tossing Williams a couple of songs. But while his time with Oasis yielded no music, it instead increased the public's awareness of Williams--as a hard partier who liked to drink and drug with the best of them. Williams became something of a tabloid target during this time, but by the end of 1996, he'd started his solo career. In a move that was more than a little symbolic, Williams' first single was a cover of George Michael's "Freedom," which reached #2 on the UK Singles chart--actually better than Michael's original showing.

Take That in their prime

Soon after, he recorded and released his solo debut album, Life Thru a Lens. While the first two Oasis-influenced singles did well on the UK charts (though the third single tanked), he was not to reach the European charts until the album's forth single, the Elton John-esque "Angels" was released. The song was a smash, blowing up the European and Latin American charts and helped send album sales through the roof. The album stayed in the top ten for forty weeks and quickly became one of the best selling albums in British history, selling 2.4 million copies and another 3 million in the UK. Of course, in the U.S., it tanked, reaching only #120 on the album charts and selling a pitiful 16,500 copies.

Williams' next single from his sophomore effort was "Millennium," a song clearly inspired by John Barry's James Bond scores (particularly Goldfinger). The new album, I've Been Expecting You, released in October 1998, did even better than his debut, selling 2.7 million copies in the UK and another 5 million in Europe. The album had four singles, most of which did extremely well on the charts and a few even won awards. In 2005, Expecting You was ranked the 91st Greatest Album of All Time by British television's Channel4. In the US, the album did better than the previous, selling over 100,000 copies, but it was still far from what one might expect from an international superstar.

At this point, Williams was one of the biggest stars in the world in every country except the U.S. And thus began the plan for Robbie Williams to take the U.S. by storm. No doubt realizing the success of the Spice Girls and other British pop stars, in 1999, Williams' stateside record company, Capitol Records, decided to repackage his first two albums as a compilation. The compilation's title--The Ego Has Landed--played not only as a nod to the pop star's now infamous tabloid exploits, but also as a bit of an immodest statement that, "yeah, this guy's gonna be huge." Unfortunately for Williams and his record company, just because you say something is going to be big, doesn't necessarily mean it will be.

Reaction to the compilation was mixed--critics agreed that Williams had some good songs, but the decision to compile six songs from his first two albums made for an awkward listening experience. It only reached #63 on the Billboard album charts.

Meanwhile, the record company and Williams had decided on "Millennium" as the first single. In a thinly veiled attempt to remind Americans of their other favorite roguishly charming UK export, the video features Williams in a tuxedo surrounded by throngs of beautiful women and references (some might say parodies) numerous Bond films.

Somewhere between George Lazenby and Roger Moore lies Robbie Williams.

Nonplussed by Williams' James Bond references, the American people said "meh" to Williams and the song peaked at #72 on the Billboard Hot 100. However, the video did receive a good deal of airplay on MTV and that year was nominated in the Best Male Video category, and while he didn't win, the exposure helped album sales.

Convinced Williams had what it took to make it big in the states, Capitol Records kept pushing. For his second single, they wisely chose "Angels," the song that originally shot Williams to stardom in his home country. The record company ordered a new album to be filmed and promoted the hell out of Williams to radio and on TV.

But America simply wasn't taking the bait. Though it did better than "Millennium," the #41 showing on the Billboards and a platinum status for The Ego Has Landed wasn't enough for Williams to stick around. He packed his bags (metaphorically, at least) and focused on his star status in the rest of the world.

While Williams continued his success in the UK and the rest of the world, he failed to score anymore high charting singles in the US, being relegated to the US Dance charts for his subsequent singles.

As if to illustrate just how low-profile a celebrity Williams is, he's stated that he lives in Los Angeles because it affords him a level of "freedom and privacy" that wasn't available to him in the UK. Yes, this man is living in the home of all media and celebrity obsession as a means to hide out. Let that one sink in.

But outside the U.S., Williams continued to be a huge star. In 2002, he signed a contract with EMI reportedly worth $80 million. Still, his subsequent albums, Sing When You're Winning and Escapology, never caught on with mainstream audiences--though several of his singles have snuck onto the Adult Top 40 and dance charts and done quite well. Because of this relative antipathy by U.S. audiences, subsequent albums Live at Knebworth, Intensive Care and his latest, 2006's Rudebox, were not released by any label in the U.S., but were instead made available on iTunes.

Though Williams is still a sensation in the rest of the world, his popularity has dropped slightly. Despite 2004's Intensive Care going 5x platinum in the UK, it was his least successful album in the country. The electro/dance collaboration album Rudebox did even more poorly in his home country, only going 2x platinum (which equates to 500,000 copies in the UK). However, the album fared better in the rest of Europe where it had sold nearly 5 million copies by 2007. In 2004 he was inducted into the UK Hall of Fame for his contributions to music.

Williams himself has had ups and downs. In 2005 he sued a tabloid for libel after claiming Williams was a closeted homosexual. He has been in and out of rehab several times, most recently in 2007 for addiction to an anti-depressant.
Williams is reportedly working with partner Guy Chambers and mega producer/DJ/Sam's brother Mark Ronson on a new album, and no, it will probably not do very well in the states. In March 2009, Williams expressed interest in rejoining Take That for a worldwide tour.

So, no, maybe Robbie Williams didn't hit quite like he'd wanted to in the U.S., he is probably crying into his piles of money, or maybe in a vault in his mansion, swimming around in a sea of coinage a la Scrooge McDuck in Ducktales. The dude's worth approximately £90 million, so don't feel too bad for him.

Oh yeah, and before I leave you, take a look at his infamous CRIBS episode--a tour of a house in L.A. that's probably like, oh, one of twelve or so that he owns. Here he can be seen actively fighting against the gay rumors, er, or something.
robbie williams on cribs

Download: Robbie Williams - Millennium (link removed)
Download: Robbie Williams - Angels (link removed)

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Straight Outta the Buzz Bin #2: Toadies and a rant on post-grunge

2009-03-23T14:04:00.001-05:00

In the wake of Nirvana's success, tons of bands deemed "grunge" got signed to major labels. I'm not talking about the indie, alternative bands that majors raided to fill up their rosters in a vain attempt to discover the next Nirvana. No, I'm talking about the bands that were heavily mining Nevermind for how to construct this new sound even before Nirvana's tragic end.

Around the same time, a young, unknown comic progeny named Ben Stiller had a short-lived show on the Fox network entitled, The Ben Stiller Show, featuring Andy Dick, Janeane Garafalo and Bob Odenkirk and written by some dude named Judd Apatow.

Anyways, the show featured skits mostly making fun of movies or TV shows, and a whole lot laughing at the self-seriousness of the Gen-X movement. One of the best was a parody of the '60s live-action cartoon show The Monkees--The Grungies.

The Grungies

Ahead of its time, if you ask me.

Grunge was still cool at the time of Stiller's show and the genre hadn't yet given way to the awful crap that was to come--a type of music that essentially was a parody of the Seattle scene. Indeed, this genre continues to plague us almost 15 years later. You hear it any time you turn your dial to the modern rock station, under the guises of bands with nonsensical names like Hoobastank and Nickleback. It spills out of the car windows of teenagers driving their grandma's car while they sit bobbing their head in the driver's seat wearing their backwards hats and black t-shirts they bought at Sam Goody. That's right, it's POST-GRUNGE!

I will give you a minute to clean up, because you no doubt just shit yourself at the very mention of that name. Now, what is the difference between grunge and post-grunge? Funny you should ask.

Grunge - adopting the sludgy sounds of metal gods Black Sabbath and the lyrical and musical attack of punk godfathers like The Stooges, grunge conveyed elements of heavy metal and punk with loud, distorted guitars, apathetic lyrics, and loud-soft dynamics. Hardcore punk/sludge metal bands like Black Flag and the Melvins--from nearby Montesano, Washington--were often name checked as huge sources of inspiration. However, there was also a notable influence from indie-rock, an influence which grew after heavier grunge bands like Mudhoney, Soundgarden and Green River gave way to more melodically inclined bands like Nirvana, who were as influenced by indie-rockers like R.E.M., the Pixies and Dinosaur Jr as they were hardcore and metal. Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and their hybrid, Temple of the Dog, also show a large classic rock influence--namely that of Led Zeppelin.
Other grunge bands of note: Mother Love Bone, Screaming Trees, Alice in Chains.

Post-grunge - (with help from allmusic.com) a subgenre of alternative rock and a derivative of grunge music that began after the mainstream success of bands out of Washington like Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam around 1994. Post-grunge incorporates many of the features of grunge music: loud-quiet dynamics, distorted guitars, angst-ridden lyrics, lead singers with scratchy, angsty voices or voices that flat out rip-off Kurt Cobain or Eddie Vedder, BUT, the music is generally more slickly produced, radio-friendly and without the idiosyncrasies and nuances of the bands that influenced them. Post-grunge bands generally took the loud guitars, angsty singers, perceived self-seriousness, and of course, the long, greasy hair and flannel shirts, and homogenized it into faceless commercial radio-rock. Also note that post-grunge started off okay, quickly became mediocre and now is the scourge of the music world.
See: Days of the New, Bush, Live, Collective Soul* and later Creed, Hinder, Seether, Staind, etc. As of 2009, post-grunge has gone from being "alternative rock" in the mid-90s to taking over modern rock radio almost entirely.

That's not to suggest that all post-grunge bands were bad and all grunge bands were good. Post-grunge had some great acts like Local H, and grunge had its fair share of crappy acts, one of which I choose not to name for fear of an enormous backlash from their rabid fanbase.

One of the bands who came straight out of the gates following the success of Nevermind--and happened to be actually decent--was the Ft. Worth, Texas band, Toadies. Clearly influenced by the Pixies as much as Nirvana and grunge, the band mixed their post-grunge sounds with a menacing psychedelic influence and an occasional touch of southern blues rock (think a hard-edged ZZ Top).

Started in 1989 by head songwriter/lead vocalist Todd Lewis, the band issued a series of self-released cassette singles before releasing an EP titled Pleather in 1993. The EP--which featured an early version of the soon-to-be-classic "Possum Kingdom"--gained the attention of major record labels and after singing to Interscope, the band released their first full-length, Rubberneck, in 1995.

The first single, "Possum Kingdom" (or as it was listed on Napster back in the day, "Do You Wanna Die?") is one of the best and best-known hard rock singles of the post-Nirvana era. It's one of the few classics to come from this period, and one listen to the song shows why. Something of a grunge epic, the tune features a crushing riff, three distinct (and equally ass kicking) sections, a time signature change, and tells a strange story that--depending on whom you ask--is either about vampires, the Zodiac killer, a girl losing her virginity, a rape, or some kind of ghost story. Taking a cue from Phil Collins, whose "In the Air Tonight' has experienced years of success based on its creepy plot, Lewis never gave a straight answer to the press or fans, but did explain his inspirations. The song is named after Possum Kingdom State Park and Lewis claimed at the time that it was inspired by stories he'd heard concerning the park's "eerie lake" where he and his family used to barbecue. Nevertheless, the group reportedly gained a large vampire following--that is to say, lame Buffy fans in Tampa liked to put in fake teeth and dress like Dracula and come to Toadies shows and sing along. Think of the old SNL skit, "Goth Talk" with Molly Shannon and Chris Kataan and you've got a good idea of this fanbase. Don't get any ideas, Twilight fans.

The supremely creepy music video--which opens with a body bag being pulled from a lake--did nothing to dissuade any creepy interpretations of the song. (Oh yeah, and that is a chick bass player--the ultimate sign of a good alternative rock band. Or at least a sign that you like the Pixies and/or Sonic Youth.)

The song was a smash hit, charting high on the Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts and even cracked the Hot 100. Not bad for a song that repeatedly asks the listener if they would like to die.

"Possum Kingdom" was one of five singles off Rubberneck released by the label, which may sound like overkill, considering that means nearly half the album being played on rock radio--not a common occurence unless you're Red Hot Chili Peppers. Despite the airplay, "Mister Love," "Backslider" and "Tyler" all failed to chart, even though the latter even featured its own video. The only one that had any staying power was "Away"--the direct follow-up to "Possum Kingdom."

"Away" starts out like a Nirvana deep cut with its soft-loud-soft dynamics and guitarist Darrell Herbert's snakey lead fills which sound possessed by the Pixies Joey Santiago. But once you get past the obvious influences and realize that the Toadies concern themselves more with crafting great riffs and writing above average lyrics than creating something original, you start to realize just how good the song is. It's not quite as epically awesome as "Possum Kingdom"--though it does feature a similar, truncated structure--but it's got that same underlying creepiness, a bone-crushing riff and a good level of head-bangability. When Nirvana has ended prematurely and the Pixies have folded, and you're still yearning for some heavy, well constructed rock, the Toadies--and "Away" especially--fit the bill.

"Away" went to #23 on the Mainstream Rock chart and #28 on the Modern chart.

I also have to include "Tyler," just because it's a great rock song. Talk about unoriginal--I'm fairly certain this song is on Doolittle by the Pixies. But guess what? I don't care, cause the song is so goddamn hooky and fun. If you're going to steal, do it well, and steal from the best (but maybe don't let Frank Black hear you, he might start asking for royalties). While it wasn't a hit, it became a favorite at Toadies shows and still received tons of airplay.

So now then. With a hit album that went gold immediately and platinum a year later, the Toadies were primed to be a successful band, and not just a one-hit wonder. So what the hell happened?

Like with most of these bands, their label screwed them. After touring for two years with bands like Butthole Surfers and Red Hot Chili Peppers, the band eventually headed back into the studio. After recording a full album titled Feeler, which was being eyed for a 1998 release, the band handed the finished recordings to Interscope--but the label rejected them. After the rejection, the band, worn out from the road and without an album to promote, decided to take a break to write new songs and didn't reconvene until 2000. Salvaging some of the Feeler songs, the band finally went back into the studio with Rubberneck producers Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf, and came out with Hell Below/Stars Above. The album was a commercial failure

That's when the real trouble began. The album was released in spring 2001, seven years after their debut and things had changed. Five months after the album's release, Lewis called the Dallas Observer to announce that bassist Lisa Umbarger had quit and that the rest of the band would not be continuing on as the Toadies. The band would reconvene sporadically to play a few dates in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area but did not officially reunite until 2007.

During the interim, Todd Lewis began a new band, Burden Brothers, with Reverend Horton Heat drummer Taz Bentley. The band released a full-length in 2006, but a funny thing happened with the Toadies. The band released a couple of live albums in 2002 and 2006, and sales were enough to suggest to Lewis that maybe the Toadies weren't dead after all. With some old members and new bassist Doni Blair, Lewis brought the Toadies back for a couple of local festival shows in 2006, and a year later, the Toadies hit the road for a small tour around Texas, hitting spots in Houston, Austin and Dallas.

After a couple of years of activity on their MySpace page, in May 2008, the group announced the release of their third album of all new material, No Deliverance. The album was released in August 2008 and received a big promotional push from the Toadies new label, Kirtland Records. The single "Song I Hate" shows the Toadies back to doing what they do best--hard, catchy rock that's derivative as hell, but still damn good.

So for all my blathering about post-grunge (and really, there is some horrendous crap out there), there are a lot of worse things in music than being unoriginal. If you're looking for a solid rock band that will bring to mind the greats of '80s indie rock/grunge, check out Rubberneck or Hell Below/Stars Above next time you're in a a CD store with a cutout bin or used section. And catch these guys on tour this year, their live show will melt your sneakers.

Download: Toadies - Possum Kingdom
Download: Toadies - Away
Download: Toadies - Tyler
Download: Toadies - Possum Kingdom (live)

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*Collective Soul was really more of a pop-rock band that had been marketed and styled as grunge, but had no real connection to the genre and are unfairly labeled "post-grunge," even by assholes like me

New Superdrag albums streaming

2009-03-21T23:55:00.005-05:00

Hey all,

There was a bigger-than-usual response to the Superdrag post last week, so I thought I'd follow up a bit on the band's new album.

Industry Giants was released Tuesday, March 17, and is currently available in stores. If anyone wants to listen to it before you buy it, it's streaming over at Buzzgrinder.

Also, Superdrag frontman John Davis did some blogging over at the same site early last week. Read his posts here.

Look for a new post early next week.

Don't forget to follow us on Twitter!

Straight Outta the Buzz Bin, #1: Superdrag - Sucked Out

2009-03-16T06:00:00.003-05:00

SPECIAL NOTE: "Straight Outta the Buzz Bin" posts will be reserved for hit rock singles that were huge on Modern Rock radio and especially MTV, but may not have achieved the Top 40 or Top 100 status that might normally be required to make them a one-hit wonder. Future installments may include (but are not limited to) Wax, The Refreshments, and others.

Superdrag have a similar story to many other alternative rock bands in the mid-90s. It's so similar that--sadly--it became something of a cliche: After some initial success as an indie band, band gets noticed by a major label during the post-Nirvana indie boom. They soon sign to a major label, release an album and have one major (or minor) hit on radio and MTV. But when second single/album comes around and fails to hit, band gets its funding cut and/or get dropped. I'd guess a lot of bands got cut from the label rosters when alternative/indie rock gave way to nu-metal and rap/rock in about 1997-1998.

Some bands collapsed from the fallout--unable to continue--but Superdrag managed to persevere.

Superdrag were formed in 1992 in Knoxville, TN when the band The Used (not the emo band) started playing songs demoed by their teenaged former drummer, John Davis (Davis played all the instruments himself on the demos). Because Davis' songs were stronger than their own material, The Used fell to the wayside in favor of Superdrag.

By 1995, the band had released three vinyl singles and an EP, The Fabulous 8-track Sound of Superdrag o the Darla Records label (historical fact for the kiddies: people in the '90s loved absolutely anything having to do with the '70s, much like people enjoy '80s kitsch and fashion in the '00s, hence the 8-track reference).

Thanks to rave reviews in various publications, the EP started a major label bidding war. Elektra Records eventually won out and the band recorded and released Regretfully Yours in 1996. The sound was a perfect combination of Weezer-esque power pop (hard guitars mixed with catchy melodies) and classic rock (a strong emphasis on riffage and solos; Davis' throaty vocals).

"Sucked Out" was the first released single. While not quite a novelty song in the sense that label mates' Nada Surf's "Popular" was, the song's chorus in which Davis screams, "Who sucked out the feeling?" made it into something of a slacker anthem; something the always cynical youth of America could relate to. Problem was, Superdrag weren't grungy slackers. Davis wrote what were essentially pop songs. "Sucked Out" may have struck a chord with the slackers, but it was far different than the grunge clones (Collective Soul, Bush) that had become the sound du jour of alternative rock; there was more far more Husker Du in their songs than the sludgy Seattle sound started by bands like Mudhoney and Soundgarden.

The tightly constructed single is built around a killer chorus where everything drops out but the bass and Davis' scream. And yes, like so many '90s rock hits, the chorus utilizes the Pixies' soft-loud-soft dynamic, but the verses are straight out of a hit single by a '60s British Invasion band. Because labels and sometimes fans seemed to miss the pop influences inherent in Nirvana (the barometer by which all alternative rock bands were gauged), the pop-centric Superdrag would not be long for the Hollywood music world. Incidentally, the song's lyrics seem to be a cynical take on the music industry. When Davis sings, "This is my dream - playing out rocking routine/Who sucked out the feeling?" you wonder if he even wants the success. Still, the track is a knock-out, and clearly hit single material.

"Sucked Out" only reached #17 on the Modern Rock Charts, but its placement in MTV's "Buzz Bin"--a status designated to videos deemed "cutting edge" by the network--helped put the Chris Applebaum-directed video in heavy rotation. The "Buzz Bin" status--along with an extended tour in which the band played hundreds of dates--helped push 300,000 units of the album. With all the play on MTV, radio was practically an afterthought.

Sidenote: Just how '90s is this video? On a scale from 1-10, I give it a high 8. We've got the retro '70s diner/coffeeshop--made chic by Seattle, Starbucks and iconic '90s films like Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and Swingers--the young slacker working his minimum wage job (shades of Clerks) and dreaming about quitting and fulfilling his lifelong dream of rocking out (Singles, anyone?). While it may seem fairly generic at first glance, you can soon tell why it couldn't have been made in any other decade.

Their second single, "Destination Ursa Major" failed miserably on the charts. Ironically, it's probably the song on the album that best defines the band's sound. Led by a building riff consisting of a series of bent notes that give way to jangly bridges and sing along verses, the song is a marvel of song construction and undeniably catchy, but the song's appeal is far closer to something by lo-fi stadium rockers Guided By Voices than anything that might appeal to the MTV crowd. It's still a hell of a song, and is regarded as one of the band's classics.

Still, thanks to the success of Regretfully Yours, Elektra allowed the group a shot at another album. Silly record labels--when will they learn you never give a second record to a songwriter who is both talented and ambitious? Head Trip in Every Key was the follow-up, an ambitious semi-concept album featuring a broader sonic pallet--besides guitar and piano, Davis plays theremin, organ and a freaking sitar--longer songs and fewer radio-friendly singles. The album was well receieved by critics, but the label was unhappy with Superdrag's direction and cut their funding, leaving them unable to make a video for the single "Do the Vampire" and without any support for a full-fledged tour.

Upset about what was happening with their label, the group decided to release their odds and sods compilation Stereo 360 Sound independently, and experienced a minor success. After signing a two album extension deal with Elektra, the band headed to Woodland Studios in Nashville to begin work on their third album, but were bothered by the label's insistence that they write "hit songs" (yes, this happens in real life, not just That Thing You Do!) and soon demanded the label drop them. This was a most unusual move, especially for a group who had been relegated to "one-hit wonder" status, but, as the kids say, Superdrag didn't give a care, and the group continued on independently, recording and releasing their third album, In the Valley of the Dying Stars in 2000 on Arena Rock Recording Co. Ironically, the album was a combination of the radio-friendly hits of Regretfully Yours and the experimentation of Head Trip.

By the time Superdrag began recording their fourth album, Last Call for Vitriol, John Davis had become an alcoholic, later remarking that he had a "charter membership in the Bon Scott Club," referring to the original AC/DC frontman who drank himself to death in 1980.

However, Davis claims that, while driving in his car one night, he had an experience that he described as "a combination of being struck by lightening, getting hit by a cannonball and having a piano dropped on your head." The feeling was overwhelming, and Davis took it as a sign from God that his life could not be filled with alcohol, but rather by "the power of the Lord." Davis soon gave up alcohol and became a Christian. Davis finished recording the album and completed a tour with Guided By Voices, but soon after decided to leave the band, saying his "heart wasn't in it anymore." The group disbanded in 2003. (read Davis' thoughts about his conversion here)

In 2005, David released a self-titled Christian-oriented album. Playing all of the instruments himself, Davis broadened his palette even more with this release, displaying a range of influences from country and folk to gospel and R&B--not to mention a heaping glob of '60s rock. The heaviest influence is Brian Wilson and Pet Sounds in particular--for instance, "Salvation" does what R.E.M.'s recent Beach Boys tributes could only attempt. (Honestly, if you've ever wanted to know if Christian themed music can be any good, pick this one up. It's great, and doesn't preach or beat you over the head with any message--ed.) In 2007, Davis released a follow up, Arigato! and joined the Christian rock band My Red Hot Nightmare as guitarist, back up vocalist and part-time drummer.

Since then, Davis and the other guys in Superdrag have served as studio musicians in Nashville, Knoxville and L.A. not to mention some production work and a few side projects. But in 2007, the original lineup reuinited for a few shows, followed by a full-fledged tour in 2008. The band even has a new album recorded called Industry Giants that will be released this Tuesday (March 17, 2009). Yet again, the guys are self-releasing and you know they wouldn't have it any other way (read more about it here).

FIRST SINGLE: A
SECOND SINGLE: A

Download: Superdrag - Sucked Out
Download: Superdrag - Destination Ursa Major

BONUS DOWNLOADS!
Download: Superdrag - Do the Vampire
Download: John Davis - Salvation

Go see Superdrag on tour!
Go buy their albums!

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When Indie Goes Top 40, #3: Butthole Surfers - A Brief History

2009-02-23T16:00:00.011-06:00

There is perhaps no less likely candidate for mainstream Top 40 success than the San Antonio, TX band Butthole Surfers. The name alone is probably the most profane thing Casey Kasem ever uttered--at least on air, sending up a red flag for parents and family groups all over the country. And that's not even to mention their bizarre brand of offensive psychedelia influenced noise rock and absolutely bonkers and at times even dangerous stage shows. These guys weren't cokeheads or potheads or heroin addicts like most rockstars--these guys were on acid all the time, and it showed in everything they did. Life through the eyes of frontman Gibby Haynes most likely looks something like an ink-splattered Ralph Steadman illustration from the pages of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

The Surfers started in a most unusual way. While students at Trinity University in San Antonio in the late '70s, Haynes--captain of the school's basketball team and student of accountancy--and Paul Leary Walthall--an MBA student and son of the dean of the business school--met and bonded over their shared love for avant garde music and general weirdness. After graduating, Haynes got a job at a prestigious accounting firm, but was fired when he was found with a xeroxed photograph of mutilated genitalia meant to be published in his self-published magazine dedicated to ficticious ailments titled Strange V.D. Haynes headed to Southern California and Walthall, with one semester left, dropped out of school to join his friend. The two soon returned to San Antonio to start a band, which would become the Butthole Surfers.

After adding a bassist and drummer, the band played a few shows to little success. Originally the name was not Butthole Surfers--that was merely the name of one of their early songs. Early band names included Dick Clark Five, Nine Foot Worm Makes Own Food, the Vodka Family Winstons and The Inaliable Right to Eat Fred Astaire's Asshole. Butthole Surfers was settled on after the band was asked for a name by a promoter, forgot whatever name they were being called at that time and used that one as a placeholder.

Having failed to gain a following in their hometown, the band moved on once again to Southern California. The early shows were performance art pieces which, according to Paul Leary, included "lots of stuffed dummies and toasters and Big Mac hamburgers." Leary added "music was an excuse. We had to de-learn how to play." The setlist included lots of TV themes (including Perry Mason and The Brady Bunch) done in a thrash-punk style with Haynes singing through toilet paper rolls. Often opening for hardcore punk bands, the show would leave the hardcore fans "too dumbfounded...to boo."

While in California, they were discovered by Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra who was so impressed with the live show, he asked them to do a record for his label, Alternative Tentacles. With the promise of reimbursement from Biafra, the band returned to Texas and obtained a new drummer, Jeffrey Coffey aka King Coffey--who is still with the Surfers to this day. The band recorded their self-titled EP, which would later be listed by Kurt Cobain as one of his top ten albums of all time.

The band soon added a second drummer, Teresa Nervosa--better known as "Madonna Pap Smear Girl" in Richard Linklater's Slacker--to add to the spectacle of their insane stage show. Due to the physical similarities between the drummers, Nervosa and Coffey referred to themselves as siblings, although they were not related (take that, Jack White!). The band returned to a substandard studio in San Antonio and, while living in a tool shed, recorded enough material for two albums. The first released was Psychic...Powerless...Another Man's Sac in 1984. Released on the famous indie label Touch & Go records, the album was a combination of psychedlia, punk, hardcore and country and used various avant garde techniques like tape editing, non-traditional instrumentation and Haynes singing through a bullhorn--techniques that would soon define their sound.

A couple of years later, the band embarked on a national tour and made fans across the country--even some famous ones, like Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil and members of Sonic Youth. The band soon found themselves living in Winterville, Georgia, located near Athens--according to the band, the locale was chosen so that they could stalk their favorite band, R.E.M.

Word of mouth about their, um, nontraditional stage shows began to spread and audiences started to grow. At various times, the stage show included Haynes putting condoms filled with red dye in his pants, which would eventually burst and look like a painful genital wound, Haynes stripping down and performing completely nude, two drummers playing in unison, various pyrotechnics and fireworks, strobe lights, 16-mm film footage of gross medical procedures were projected alongside clips from Charlie's Angels, and a nude stripper named "Ta Da! The Shit Girl" who would, on command, spray projectile diarrhea on the stage--I wish I were making this stuff up. Teresa Nervosa later commented "The full-on shows would make people puke and scream and run out, that kind of thing. It was what we'd always wanted."

Around this time the band began living together in a ranch in Driftwood, TX 30 miles outside Austin, where they shared money, food, clothes--anything that could actually be shared. Lots of experimental audio and video recording went on at the time. This video may or may not have been recorded at this time:

Note: for more on the Butthole Surfers truly insane exploits, read
Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life

By this time, the band was on their their third full-length album, 1987's Locust Abortion Technician--often considered their finest album, containing classics like "Human Cannonball" and a rewrite of Black Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf"--"Sweat Loaf." Recorded in their home, the album was made using only one microphone and an 8-track recorder. This album also featured the culmination of Haynes' vocal experiments--an effects setup dubbed "Gibbytronix." The album was also the last for drummer Teresa Nervosa.

In 1988, the Surfers released a bizarre Texas Chainsaw Massacre-parody video directed by and featuring Alex Winters (Bill from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure) titled Bar-B-Q Movie. This may give you some indication of what these guys were like back then. The end actually includes a staged recreation of the band's live show, performing "Fast (aka Fart Song)" and features actor John Hawkes (Deadwood, Eastbound & Down, Me, You & Everyone We Know)
NSFW!:

After the release of their fourth and to date most accessible album, Hairway to Steven (a play on Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven"). After releasing a live record, Double Live, and an EP Widowermaker for Touch and Go, the Rough Trade label showed interest and signed the band to a reportedly generous one-album deal which birthed 1991's pioughed. Though the album was something of a bust commercially and from the perspective of the band, it enabled them to join the Lollapolooza tour.

The same year, Rough Trade filed for bankruptcy and--in a move that could be deemed more shocking than having a woman defecate on stage--signed to a major label, Capitol Records. In another shocking move, Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones agreed to join the band in the studio for their major label debut, Independent Worm Saloon. The band experienced their first real mainstream success when the single "Who Was In My Room Last Night?" which reached #24 on the Mainstream Rock charts. The album itself even managed to crack the Billboard 200. That's right, the Butthole Surfers--a band that featured a frontman who once had sex on stage with a nude girl covered in gold paint--were now considered mainstream and being shown on MTV.

Capitol also began to spread the group's music to TV shows and soundtracks, putting their trippy 1991 Donovan cover "Hurdy Gurdy Man" on the Dumb & Dumber soundtrack.

Harkening back to their old days as TV theme cover artists, the band released a cover of the Underdog theme song for the Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits compilation. (No, I don't know what Drew Barrymore is doing here)

As if their mainstream success wasn't strange enough, Haynes began a sideproject with Johnny Depp and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and began playing with them around Hollywood as P. P is now best remembered as the band playing at Depp's club The Viper Room the night actor River Phoenix overdosed on a speedball.

P, featuring Haynes (center) and Johnny Depp (right)

At the time, Haynes was also strung out on hard drugs like crack and heroin and the band was losing members who had grown tired of Haynes' behavior. He soon checked himself into rehab where he roomed with Kurt Cobain who would kill himself days after checking himself out of the facility. The band credits the reunion of the band to record a new album, not rehab, with Haynes' finally getting clean.

The band headed to Bearsville Studio in New York with producer Steve Thompson, who had a background in heavy metal and dance--a perfect combination for the sound they wanted. The band spent several months crafting the LP and eventually Thomspon left, leaving Paul Leary to produce the remaining tracks. The band used another parody of a classic album to title their record, Electriclarryland (a reference to Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland). It was their second choice after realizing the title Oklahoma! could present legal problems. No, seriously.

The record label immediately recognized the album was going to be a hit and sent out the first single "Pepper" to rock radio. Laced with a hip-hop beat and rapped vocals as well as a prominent sitar, "Pepper" was essentially the Surfers doing their version of Beck's "Loser," but doing it better than Beck ever did. A gloriously silly, catchy and stupid song, call "Pepper" parody or a Ween-like tribute to Beck's style, but the similarities are anything but coincidental.

In some stores and on radio stations that refused to say the name, the band's name was shortened to "B-Hole Surfers" or sometimes just "Surfers." "Pepper" went all the way to #1 on the Modern Rock Charts, #19 on the Mainstream charts and did indeed crack the Top 40 charts at #38. (NOTE: If anyone has a clip of Casey Kasem saying "Butthole Surfers" or even just "B-Hole Surfers" PLEASE let me know.) Electriclarryland reached #31 on the Billboard album charts and was certified gold.

The second single, "Jingle of a Dog's Collar" was a tribute to the Surfers' myriad of influences, with an R.E.M. guitar line turning into a more surf-rock guitar part, with Haynes singing in a talk-singing style that would make Lou Reed proud. The song is fine, but it's not close to being the best song on the album (nor is "Pepper") and it's unsurprising that it failed to crack any of the charts. Songs like "The Lord is a Monkey" or "Birds" are more indicative of the album's style, humor and quality and show the band at their tightest and best (not that they would have been hits either). The album is consciously all about being stupid and making dumb rock n' roll, and "Jingle" just isn't dumb enough.

At the time, the band began losing good will with the indie and punk community (most notably Minor Threat and Fugazi frontman Ian MacKaye) by initating a lawsuit over royalties with Touch and Go Records. The band argued that the label head was not honorable in his financial dealings. They eventually won the lawsuit and were able to release their first four albums on their own label, Latino Buggerveil.

In 1998, the band recorded another album, After the Astronaut, that was put into limbo when the band had a falling out with their manager and had difficulties dealing with Capitol. However, by 2000, the issues were resolved and the band rerecorded most of the tracks as Weird Revolution with Green Day producer Rob Cavallo. The album was a modest hit, reaching #124 on the album charts. Never afraid of being stupid the single, "The Shame of Life," was co-written by Kid Rock, peaked at #24 on the Modern Rock Charts. As to why Haynes chose Kid Rock as a writing partner:

According to Haynes, Kid Rock wanted to use a sample from the Surfers' Black Sabbath parody "Sweat Loaf." "We were like, 'Oh, Kid Rock, ka-ching, sure,'" Haynes says. As a swap, he asked Kid Rock for help with the chorus of their planned single. "He came to my house in his big white limousine with his five-hundred-pound bodyguards. He says, 'Let's just write a new song,' and I'm like, 'Uh, okay.'"
In record time Kid Rock is singing "I love the girls and the money and the shame of life." "We were all kind of like, 'Yeah, way to go, Kid,'" recalls Coffey. "I mean, you can't really slag him for writing it there on the spot. And how do you tell a guy who's doing this out of charity that it's so, so, what's the word . . . bad?"

Haynes was genuinely charmed yet admits, "It took me a long time to do the verses because it's hard to embrace a song that says 'I love the girls and the money and the shame of life.' It's tough."

From the underground to MTV and Ta Da! The Shit Girl to Kid Rock, the Surfers had been around for 20 years at the release of Weird Revolution. Since then, Haynes released a 2004 solo album under the name Gibby Haynes and His Problem, and in summer 2008, the band reuinited with Teresa Nervosa and long-time bassist Jeff Punkus for a European tour. Haynes has mentioned in interviews that a new album is "likely" but no release date has been named.

While the Surfers' music can't really be duplicated, many bands have tried to out-hardcore the Butthole Surfers' live shows, but few have actually done it. Jackass is probably closer to the Surfers' show than any current band. Still, the multi-media carnival aspect of their live shows continues to influence bands, most notably long-time acid rockers, The Flaming Lips. Haynes actually comments in the Lips documentary The Fearless Freaks that the band straight-up copied the Surfers' live show.

The Top 40 charts will see bands come and go, but never will there be a band as bizarre, obscene or unlikely to be there as San Antonio's Butthole Surfers. I love this band.

FIRST SINGLE: A
SECOND SINGLE: B-

Download: Butthole Surfers - Pepper
Download: Butthole Surfers - Jingle of a Dog's Collar
BONUS Download: Butthole Surfers - The Shame of Life (co-written by Kid Rock)

Buy stuff, download official bootlegs and more

Semisonic

2009-02-17T17:08:00.014-06:00

The ubiquitous nature of some one-hit wonder songs cannot be measured by singles charts or requests to Casey Kasem or Rick Dees. Take, for instance, "Mickey" by Tony Basil. A number one hit, yes, but the song has had staying power, showing up in all kinds of movies, TV shows, commercials, sporting events, and absolutely anything that has to do with cheerleaders, legitimate or not. It's a song that pretty much anyone under the age of 50 could select and play in their head from start to finish. I'd wager you couldn't go a month or two without hearing the song in some form if you're a regular media consumer. I have nothing but anecdotal evidence to support this theory, but so what? Likewise Devo's "Whip It" or Yello's "Oh Yeah."(note--Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" is on a whole other level, which I call the "Right Said Fred/Sir Mix-A-Lot Level"--I'm sure I'll come to those one day).

For anyone who came of age in the '90s, Semisonic's "Closing Time" no doubt holds that same power. It may not be on the level of a "Whip It" yet, but it's getting there and its popularity hasn't waned in the past decade. For a few years, that song was absolutely everywhere. Strike that, it continues to be used everywhere. It's been used countless times as the soundtrack for clip montages and as the closing credits song for TV shows like Friends, Melrose Place, Cold Case, and Entourage. It even showed up in an episode of The Simpsons aptly titled, "That '90s Show." And, thanks to its extremely literate lyrics, even a decade later, some a-hole bartenders tend to think it clever to play the song over the P.A. when the early morning hours roll around at the corner pub.

"Closing Time" seems to ask the question--what would Ben Folds Five sound like if they were a little more slickly produced and had some rocking guitars? That isn't meant as a slight. It's a great pop song, with an indelible piano part and a rousing chorus that really hasn't left my head for a decade. Anytime the name "Semisonic" gets mentioned in casual conversation (more often than you might think) my mind's jukebox starts playing "I know who I want to take me home, take me hooooOOOOooome." And I don't even hate it. That's got to say something, right?

And that innovative split-screen video (with each screen showing an uninterrupted shot) directed by Chris Applebaum (notable for directing videos for other one-hit wonders like Everything, Superdrag and Luscious Jackson) didn't hurt much either.

Semisonic - Closing Time
by hushhush112

The song also gained entry into an elite corner of the pop-culture zeitgeist--it was parodied by "Weird Al" Yankovic on one of his polka medleys, in this case "Polka Power" from 1999's Running with Scissors. Screw the Grammys--getting parodied by "Weird" is what cements you as a pop culture phenomenon.

It's been purported that the song is actually about the birth of singer/songwriter Dan Wilson's child (the womb is what's "closing"?), and despite drummer Jacob Slichter giving the theory credence in his book So You Want to Be a Rock N' Roll Star, Wilson himself has refuted the interpretation, insisting the lyrics are deliberately vague.

I can hear you yelling at me to get on with it: who the hell were Semisonic anyway and where'd they go?

The origins of Semisonic began in Minneapolis, Minnesota with a band called Trip Shakespeare. Trip Shakespeare were an obscure indie band that played arty indie music and were made up mostly of Harvard grads and dropouts. With an emphasis on instrumental interplay, the band was a far cry from the tight-pop of Semisonic, though a strong melodic force was already present in Dan Wilson's songwriting. Originally on the Twin/Tone label, the group eventually signed to A&M where they released two records, their last being Lulu in 1991. In 1995, four years after the break up, two members--Dan Wilson along with bassist John Munson--teamed up with a drummer, Jason Slichter to form a band called Pleasure.

Tripping Shakespeare

Pleasure released a self-titled EP on the Boston label, CherryDisc, and somewhere along the way renamed themselves Semisonic. In 1996 they signed to Elektra and due to some management problems, ended up being dropped and were picked up by MCA. That year they released Great Divide to favorable reviews. The album had a semi-successful single on the rock charts, "F.N.T."

Their sophomore effort, 1998's Feeling Strangely Fine (bands loved those non-sequitur album titles in the '90s, didn't they?) featuring "Closing Time" would be their breakthrough.

The band recorded the album in an unusual fashion, recording only basic demos (guitar or piano and vocals) so that the album recordings would be the first full-band recordings of the songs. They also insisted on having no deadline. Using an old antique store as a studio (and at times a professional studio) the group took four months to complete the album and used computer software to graft the songs together--no doubt something of a pioneering step for an album produced in 1997. Going into the studio with 60 songs, the group recorded 20 and ended up with 12 on the final album.

The album peaked at number 43 on the album charts and by 1999 would be certified platinum, but "Closing Time" took off, hitting #1 on the Modern Rock charts, #8 on Top 40 and #11 on the Hot 100.

The follow up single was "Singing in My Sleep," a song about falling in love with somebody over a mixtape they made--something we music nerds like to imagine happens everytime we slip a girl a CD with Sharpie written all over it. The song failed to chart on the Hot 100, which is appropriate as the song shows off the band's rock side--well, power-pop, to be exact--more heavily than "Closing Time." The song still gets played on rock radio occasionally, and with good reason, it's a terrific song featuring a ridiculously catchy repeating keyboard riff and hasn't aged a bit. Unfortunately, the song had the problem so many power-pop songs have--not poppy enough for pop radio but too sugary for rock radio. Still, "Singing in My Sleep" put in a good performance hitting #11 on the Modern Rock Tracks. As a side note, I'm pretty sure this is one of those songs that tons of teen dramas and MTV reality shows use as transition/montage music. Don't ask me for examples, cause I have none, but trust me on this one.

Worthy of mention is their last single, "Secret Smile," a '70s sounding, Todd Rundgren-inspired love song that became a big hit in the UK, where it hit #13. Not surprising the Brits enjoyed it as wah-wahs, Rhodes pianos, a Wurlitzer and disco strings threaten to turn this thing into Electric Light Orchestra at any moment. A true soft-rock classic and one of the best songs on their album.

The band took their time with their follow up, releasing their third album All About Chemistry in 2001. Despite receiving some of their best reviews, the album failed to catch on in the US but managed to eek out a few more hits in the UK. The album even featured a collaboration between Wilson and Carole King, appropriate enough for a band whose songwriting is something of a throwback to the well-produced, tightly written '70s California rock sound that King helped popularize.

The band went on hiatus the same year, and frontman Dan Wilson began work on a solo career. He struck up a friendship with producer Rick Rubin who employed Wilson's songwriting skills for the Dixie Chicks album Home in 2006. He helped craft the song "Not Ready to Make Nice" with the Chicks and ended up winning a Song of the Year Grammy for his efforts. He eventually released his solo album, Free Life, on Rubin's record label American Recordings in 2007 to good reviews and poor sales.

Semisonic have reunited in concert several times since their hiatus, most recently at the McNally Smith River Rocks Music Festival in St. Paul, MN in September 2008. No word yet on an official reunion tour or album.

FIRST SINGLE: B
SECOND SINGLE: A-
THIRD SINGLE: A-

Download: Semisonic - Closing Time
Download: Semisonic - Singing in My Sleep
Download: Semisonic - Secret Smile

Visit Semisonic's official website and buy their stuff

Dan Baird "I Love You Period"

2009-02-08T15:22:00.009-06:00

This week we're talking about an artist who has the rare distinction of having been a one-hit wonder twice...Dan Baird.

Who is Dan Baird you might ask? If the name might not ring a bell, perhaps his first band will--The Georgia Satellites. A Southern Rock group out of Atlanta who owed as much to the The Faces Ronnie Lane and Ron Wood as Skynyrd's Ronnie Van Zant, the Satellites formed in the early '80s and made several great--if decidedly uneven albums--before breaking up before the end of the decade.

But not before they left their mark on the decade with the novelty hit "Keep Your Hands to Yourself"--a tongue-in-cheek Chuck Berry-esque number that stood out from the monster ballads and synth-driven pop of Top 40 radio in 1986.

The song concerns a man lamenting the words of his "cruel" virginal girlfriend who tells him "the story 'bout free milk and a cow" and puts her foot down when it comes to hanky panky: "and she said no huggin' no kissin' until I get a wedding vow/my honey my baby don't put my love upon no shelf/she said don't hand me no lines and keep your hands to yourself."

Now you remember? You should, cause the song hit #2 on the Billboards.

That gap-toothed front man being forced into a literal shotgun wedding is Mr. Dan Baird. As I mentioned, the song was labeled a novelty hit, and to an extent it was, but not from the Satellites' point of view. That's just what they did. They were a rock n' roll band in the classic style--their songs are about girls, drinking, and girls. There's no pretense here. And when you think about it, a song about a girl who won't give up the goods--no matter how tongue-in-cheek--isn't really that much more jokey than Rod Stewart's "Lost Paraguayos" in which the singer attempts (unsuccessfully) to fend off the advances of an underage girl. Maybe the novelty aspect was that it was a kick-ass rock n' roll song in an era where that kind of thing barely existed without a big dollop of irony.

After three albums, and a couple of non-starter singles (check out the fantastic "Battleship Chains") the Satellites' original lineup called it quits in 1989. Soon after, Baird announced plans to continue as a solo artist. As the lead singer and songwriter for the group it wasn't surprising that Baird went solo, but the question was--if Baird essentially was the Satellites, what would there be to differentiate his solo work from his work with that band?

The answer: not much. But who cares?

The problem with the Satellites' wasn't the songwriting, or even the playing--it was the energy. The energy from their live shows simply couldn't be caught on tape, and in turn their recordings came off as flat. Working to correct that, Baird teamed up with producers Brendan O'Brien and Rick Rubin and hired a crackerjack group of sessions players (including Benmont Tench of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers). What came out was 1991's Love Songs for the Hearing Impaired--an album that was far more consistent than most of the Satellites' output, even if it didn't quite reach the same heights as their debut.

Released on Rubin's Def American (later just American), the album featured more of Baird's patented wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say no more lyrics and big helping of barroom ready blues rock. What Baird lacks in originality, he makes up for by crafting songs that are just plain fun. They're made for the jukebox--specifically for a drunken barroom singalong (or maybe a drunken ride down a country road in your pickup--your choice). That's not to say they're generic--they're far from it. Sure, Baird is playing riffs and chord changes that have been played a million times before, and maybe more skillfully, but he's a true original--turning blues-rock on its head and pushing it to the limits while still tipping his hat to the greats.

The first single featured possibly the most tongue-in-cheek lyrics of Baird's career. No doubt sensing another chance at a novelty hit, Baird pumped out "I Love You Period," a song that's at first cringe inducing--until you get it stuck in your head and find yourself singing along before the chorus even comes around the second time. It's a funny concept--a kid writes a love letter to his teacher (who he always wanted to impress, but would mentally undress), who then critiques the letter for punctuation. The chorus is the teacher explaining what corrections should be made to the letter:

I love you period
Do you love me question mark?
Please, please exclamation point
I wanna hold you in parentheses

The kid in the song then goes on to high school, where he has trouble meeting girls. But when he remembers what the teacher told him, he becomes something of a Casanova (or Cyrano De Bergerac, at least) writing letters to girls with correct punctuation and telling them the chorus once more--which the narrator discovers is better than Spanish Fly.

The song was a hit--if only a minor one--reaching #14 on Top 40, #26 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 on the Mainstream Rock Charts. Luckily, it also featured one of those "guy walks down the highway playing his guitar" videos that seemed so popular in the early '90s. Here it seems the director was instructed to make Baird's David Letterman-esque gap-tooth something of a trademark for the man, perhaps in hopes that Baird would start a gap-tooth craze wherein kids would buy prosthetic toy gap-teeth and maybe even spur people to undergo controversial dental work. I can see it now: "Gimme 'The Baird,' Doc."

But back to the music. If I may go off on a small tangent--here's the problem with novelty songs: they're nearly impossible to follow up.

Take Beck's "Loser." A complete novelty song--a good one, no doubt, but still a novelty song. What was the next single? "Pay No Mind"? "Snoozer"? Either of those ring a bell? Probably not, and they shouldn't, because "Where It's At" was the first true follow up--a whole two years later. He had to wait until his next album, Odelay, on which he didn't have one song that sounded even close to his hit. Genius! The guy knew he had talent, and knew that he had been and always would be more than one novelty song, so he didn't even attempt to go back to that well--he moved forward, and he was successful. Of course, it didn't hurt that he had an insane amount of talent, but had he not signed to a major label, he might still be part one-hit wonder and part underground phenomenon (which was how he'd started).

The problem with novelty songs is that the people appreciate the actual novelty. Not the songwriting. Not the musicianship. Not necessarily the sound (unless it's sung in a strange voice, a la "Disco Duck")--though in Baird's case, that may have been part of the novelty. Usually, all of the above are involved, but it's really the lyrics that send it over the top. "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" is another example--if it weren't for the lyrics, that song would be just another soft-rock ditty. But it made people laugh, and they remembered it and it's still played endlessly.

Novelty songs aren't as popular as they used to be--and that's probably because they've been usurped by YouTube and viral music videos. Hell, Andy Samberg has practically built a career off viral videos (and a damn good one)--his digital shorts are really just music videos for novelty songs. But even most viral videos are one-hit wonders. For example, I do not expect Tay Zonday to be the next Bob Dylan (please prove me wrong, Tay!). Samberg is lucky enough to have a venue like SNL that shows more of his work to a massive audience. Had "Lazy Sunday" come out a decade ago on the radio, that might have been it for Samberg. We might not have ever heard "Dick in a Box" or "Jizz in My Pants."

Think, for a minute, about a world without "Dick in a Box"--on second thought, don't. It's too painful.

With that in mind, we check out Baird's follow-up, "The One I Am," the lead-track off the album.

Musically, it's every bit as rockin' and exciting with its crunchy riffs and call and response vocals. In fact, it's probably a better song. It doesn't try so hard to be cute and clever, it just plain rocks. And the lyrics aren't lacking either with gems like: ""I can't afford to buy you no four star dinner/but by god, my love's a winner." That's gold, Jerry, gold. But it still isn't "I Love You Period"--and while that was mostly good news for listeners who wanted the real Baird and not just another jokey song, it was bad news for Baird. While the song did a strong #13 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks, it didn't crack the Billboards or Top 40.

Baird followed up his debut with a five-year long break. When he finally did release an album, 1996's Buffalo Nickel, the album tanked. The Georgia Satellites reformed the same year without Baird. Perhaps in response, Baird started a new band with two other more then capable songwriters to form The Yayhoos. The band toured behind Baird's album and in 2001, released Fear Not the Obvious, followed by Put the Hammer Down in 2006. Around this time, Baird also began producing and guesting on other musicians' recordings.

In 2007, Baird introduced a new band in his newly adopted home town of Nashville. Made up of players from various bands, including Georgia Satellites and Yayhoos, the band may be Baird's best yet. In 2008, Dan Baird & Homemade Sin released their eponymous debut to critical acclaim, along with an outtakes compilation, Out of Mothballs.

Here's the group playing "I Love You Period" last year at the Exit/In in Nashville. Clearly, Baird is continuing on his one-man mission to preserve kick-ass rock n' roll.

THE FIRST SINGLE: B
THE SECOND SINGLE: B+

Download: Dan Baird - I Love You Period
Download: Dan Baird - The One I Am

Visit Dan's MySpace
Visit Dan Baird & Homemade Sin

Jars of Clay

2009-02-01T16:58:00.013-06:00

Like a lot of bands we cover on this blog, Jars of Clay are not really a one-hit wonder at all, but rather, a band with a huge fan base who only had one hit song that made the leap to mainstream radio.

Jars of Clay were also the band that put the Christian alternative rock scene on the map. Christian Rock itself didn't come fully formed until the late 1980s and early 1990s. Up til that point, "Christian rock" seemed like either an oxymoron (as many fundamentalist groups had denounced rock n' roll, particularly after John Lennon's oft-misunderstood statement about his group being more popular than Jesus), or something to describe more gospel influenced blues or country music. While some secular artists like Elvis Presley may have released popular gospel recordings like "He Touched Me," Elvis's persona was denounced by the more conservative fundamentalist groups.

The '60s gave rise to "Jesus Music", which was just what it sounds like-- hippie folk musicians who had converted to Christianity, singing songs about Jesus. This style of music was largely rejected by most American churches, which tended to favor the rise of "Contemporary Christian" music (CCM), which was essentially Christian flavored pop (no doubt buoyed by the success of religious-themed musicals like Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell). The '70s saw artists like folk-rocker Larry Norman pioneer the idea that it was okay for Christians to like and and even create rock music with songs with telling oh-so-subtle titles like, "Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?" Hard rock artists like Stryper came along a decade later, making their way onto MTV with Christian-inspired songs like "To Hell with the Devil" and "Honestly."

Stryper - To Hell with the Devil

But many tend to credit U2's willingness to use Christian themes and imagery in their brand of arena-ready post-punk rock in the '80s with the emergence of the Christian Rock scene (specifically Christian alternative rock) in the early 1990s. Combined with the alternative rock made popular by bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and R.E.M., young Christian musicians found a way to get their spiritual message across to young audiences in a way that was appealing and, well, cooler than Amy Grant. Whereas in the '60s and '70s and well into the '80s, so much of the lyrical content in popular rock music had centered around rebellious themes like, well, sex, drugs, rock n' roll and sometimes Satan, alternative music dealt more with personal and existential themes, making the transition to singing about faith all the easier.

Jars of Clay began in 1993 at Greenville College in Greenville, Illinois, a liberal arts college located outside St. Louis and affiliated with the Free Methodist Church. Lead singer Dan Haseltine met guitarist Steve Mason after noticing Mason was wearing a Toad the Wet Sprocket t-shirt (incidentally, a band that would be a huge influence on Jars of Clay's sound). Along with keyboardist Charlie Lowell, the group originally collaborated on some songs for music composition and recording classes they were taking at the time.

In 1994, the band submitted a demo to the Gospel Music Association talent competition and were selected to travel to play at the finals in Nashville, where they ended up winning. The band soon released a demo album, Frail, that began to garner attention from labels. It was at this time that the band decided to leave school and set up camp in Nashville permanently.

Jars of Clay signed to Essential Records--a Contemporary Christian record label owned by Sony and located just outside Nashville in Franklin, Tennessee. With former King Crimson vocalist/guitarist Adrien Belew producing, the band began work on their eponymous debut album.

Released in 1995, the album's first single, "Flood," began to climb not just the Contemporary Christian charts, but mainstream charts as well. Given a huge promotional push by Essential Records parent company, Silvertone Records, the album was soon certified 3x platinum--making it one of the few Christian albums of the decade to achieve platinum status.

"Flood" itself became something of a phenomenon. The tune is heavily in debt to the aforementioned bands like Toad the Wet Sprocket and R.E.M. in the use of jangly acoustic guitars, strings and the overall melancholic tone. But whereas their contemporaries' lyrics may concern jilted lovers or any number of personal issues, Jars of Clay's lyrics are directly about religious enlightenment and using faith to overcome hardship and sin. You won't find a lot of preaching or judgment in the song's lyrics. That said, you will find an incredibly catchy song with a powerful chorus that ranks among the best of any mainstream alternative rock of the '90s--Christian or not. It may be derivative of the aforementioned bands, but the songwriting is top notch. "Flood" was a multi-format smash: Billboard Hot 100: #37, Adult Top 40: #29, Modern Rock Tracks: #12, Top 40 Mainstream: #20, Mainstream Rock Tracks: #16

Around this time there was a rather despicable backlash from some mainstream radio stations and listeners who hadn't realized the Christian roots of the band, and an equally despicable backlash from some Christian quarters for the band's decision to tour with secular artists like Duncan Shiek and Matchbox 20.

While the album would give way to four more singles on Christian radio, the band would have to wait until their next album, Much Afraid, before their music would hit the mainstream radio waves once again. After the success of Jars of Clay, fans were eagerly awaiting the follow-up. The album would end up going platinum (even debuting at #8 on the Billboards) and winning a Grammy, but this time out, critics and mainstream radio weren't so keen on the band. The lead single, "Crazy Times" sported a more electric, lush production, betraying the skeletal, folk-rock sounds of their debut. The songwriting was still strong, but the edges are too smooth--it borders too heavily on the Adult Contemporary side of their sound. And the lyrics were more interpretive this time around, and less easily tied to the "Christian rock" label, which may have been offputting to some of the Christian fans. "Crazy Times" made it to only #38 on the Modern Rock charts.

Jars of Clay had one more mainstream single, "Unforgetful You," released in 2000 and barely barely squeaked into the Adult Top 40.

But while the band may have fallen from mainstream radio, their position in the world of Christian Rock is cemented. As a band who took their name from a Bible verse, Jars of Clay have never strayed far from their roots or shied away from the label of a "Christian band." In the past ten years, tons of bands like Creed, Switchfoot, Collective Soul, and Evanescence have attempted to downplay their beginnings as Christian rockers in favor of appealing to the mainstream, but Jars of Clay opened the door for Christian bands like Relient K and Sixpence None the Richer and even hard rock acts like P.O.D. to exist, not to mention for them to be successful in secular music. Beyond that, after fourteen years, they still sell records--their albums routinely sell hundreds of thousands of copies and Sony even issued an Essential Jars of Clay compilation in 2007. And a quick listen to their recent output shows how much the band has evolved sonically since their early days.

It's easy to make fun of Christian rock, and while the stereotype may be partially true--that so many of the bands out there really are nothing more than Christian versions of secular artists (not that that's different from the huge number of rip-offs in secular music)--there is also real talent within the scene, and Jars of Clay are proof of that. It's a shame there's such a stigma attached to the genre--I can even remember when "Flood" was popular people mentioning they were "Christian--but good." What does that make Creed? Christian, but bad? I for one have to like a band who knew they would be more successful if they downplayed or outright denied their religious beliefs, and decided against it. When you can reach #8 on the Billboard album charts without compromising yourself, you've instantly got my respect.

FIRST SINGLE: A-
SECOND SINGLE: B-

Download: Jars of Clay - Flood
Download: Jars of Clay - Crazy Times

Visit Jars of Clay and buy stuff

BoDeans

2009-01-24T23:07:00.010-06:00

Most bands--no matter how long they've been around--get one shot at the big time. Seniority doesn't mean squat in the music business--you're only as good as your last charting single.

Take the BoDeans. The band was named "Best New American Band" by Rolling Stone in 1987, following the release of their second album. Yet they didn't have a hit until 1995--and even then, it was a complete fluke, and turned out to be their first and last brush with the big time.

The beginnings of the BoDeans reach back to 1979, when singers/songwriters/guitarists Sam Llanas and Kurt Neumann started playing together in their hometown of Waukesha, Wisconsin while still in high school. The band later added a drummer and bassist and in 1985, signed to Slash Records, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. and entered the studio with famed producer T-Bone Burnett (Counting Crows, The Wallflowers). The debut, Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams was released in 1986.

Their sophomore effort, 1987's Outside Looking In managed to reach a broader audience. With the Talking Heads' Jerry Harrison (Live, Crash Test Dummies) at the helm, the band broke into the big time, opening for U2 and breaking into the Top 100 best sellers album charts.

Home and Black and White followed in 1989 and 1991 respectively and were met with mixed reviews, but it would be 1993's Go Slow Down that would eventually help break the band to mainstream pop radio--eventually being a key word here. Hooking up once again with producer T-Bone Burnett, the group decided to return to a more acoustic folk-rock sound. The album was released in October of 1993, and, while being critically acclaimed on its initial release, didn't fare much better than their previous works commercially.

The single may have had something to do with it. On an album filled with great pop-rock songs, the band released "Feed the Fire," a standard rock song that has "'90s alternative" written all over it. Pained howls, tremolo-ed backing vocals, a coda repeated to the point of annoyance. It's what I call "Collective Soul rock"--music that sounds like a Seattle band and hits all the right notes a Seattle band might, but ultimately is lacking. It's made by guys who don't get it--which isn't good, since, in my opinion, that type of Seattle rock--with a few exceptions--is pretty damn boring to begin with. "Fire" isn't a bad song, but it sounds more like a filler track than a hit single, and it's far from being the best representation of the album.

But a funny thing happened--two and a half years after the release of Go Slow Down, the producers of the uber-'90s Fox primetime soap Party of Five selected the lead track, "Closer to Free," for the show's theme song.

NOTE : Matthew Fox's awesomely floppy hair.
Why he doesn't sport that on Lost, I will never know.

"Closer to Free" was a driving, jangly pop song in a similar vein to '80s R.E.M. and was indicative of other folk-based college rock that became popular in the post-grunge rock scene (Hootie and the Blowfish, Blues Traveler, etc.). Slash Records released the song as a single--there had never been a follow up to "Feed the Fire"--and thanks in no small part to its weekly presence on the show, the song became a hit on the Billboard Hot 100 (#16), Top 40 Mainstream (#6) and Adult Contemporary Top 40 (#3)--nearly three years after the album's release. Oddly enough, it didn't chart on either the Modern Rock charts or the Mainstream Rock charts, where the band had charted five times before.

To capitalize on the success of "Closer to Free," the BoDeans headed back into the studio and released Blend in 1996, led by the single "Hurt By Love." "Hurt" is a fine ballad, and sounds a bit like a slowed down version of "Closer." With its jangly guitars and emotional vocals, it could easily pass for a Gin Blossoms song. The problem was, the popularity of that brand of catchy college rock was starting to fade (except from colleges, where the BoDeans continue to do a business). Had the record company given the BoDeans the same kind of push even a year earlier, their success might have had a chance to continue. The song was a minor hit on Top 40 (#39) and the AC Top 40 (#33). It is their last charting single to date.

In the late 90s, Neumann and Llanas decided to take a break and make time for solo projects. Their next release wasn't until 2001--a greatest hits compilation called Slash and Burn followed two years later by The Leftovers, a rarities comp. During this time they also found themselves in a three year long court battle over their contract with Warner Bros. Their next album, Resolution, wasn't until 2004--a full eight years after Blend. It was released on the independent label Rounder.

2005 saw the release of a 2-disc live album and DVD, Homebrewed: Live from the Pabst--fittingly, the set on the live disc ends with "Closer to Free."

The band continues on--touring occasionally, usually using an acoustic set up after losing their upteenth drummer (shades of Spinal Tap--lets hope it wasn't spontaneous combustion). They released their latest album, Still, in 2008.

I think it's fitting to end this post with the opening of Party of Five's mercifully short-lived spin-off 1999's Time of Your Life which featured the BoDeans covering The Beatles' "I've Just Seen a Face."

Now if someone could just tell me what the hell a BoDean is, we'd be all set.

FIRST SINGLE ("Closer to Free"): A-
SECOND SINGLE ("Hurt By Love"): C+
Random Single: ("Feed the Fire"): C

Download: BoDeans - "Closer to Free"
Download: BoDeans - "Hurt By Love"
Download: BoDeans - "Feed the Fire"

Visit Bodeans.com and buy BoDeans stuff

The Cardigans

2009-01-11T15:24:00.011-06:00

One-hit wonders come in so many forms. For some, it's the only decent song they ever wrote. For others, it's just the only one that hit big.

But for a band like the Cardigans, it's a different story. The Cardigans are a Swedish band who have been making music since 1992, and have had continual success before and after their big U.S. hit "Lovefool" in the UK and other non-English speaking European countries like Sweden, France, Norway and Germany. We in the U.S. usually measure the success of a band by how big they are in our country, which is hard not to do when you see that, for instance, '80s rockers Night Ranger sell out stadiums in Japan. But that line of thinking causes us to miss out on a lot of great music.

The Cardigans came together when two heavy metal musicians, Peter Svensson and Magnus Sveningsson decided to record a pop demo with singer Nina Persson--who, with her petite frame and steely blue eyes, is/was one of the most beautiful women to emerge in rock n' roll since Deborah Harry. In 1994, the group released their debut, Emmerdale, and their first single "Rise & Shine," which would go on to become a hit on Swedish radio. The group followed it up with Life, which sold over a million copies worldwide and went platinum...in Japan.

Around this time, U.S. labels began to take notice of the international sensation that The Cardigans had become. The group signed to Mercury Records and released 1996's The First Band on the Moon. Persson's lyrics delved into darker places than their previous recordings, dealing with heartbreak and infidelity. Thanks in part to the first single "Lovefool," the album went platinum in Japan in record breaking time and achieved gold status in the U.S.

"Lovefool" is a feather-light pop ditty with a melody and beat so catchy, it has since been used to comedic effect as the prototypical song that can get stuck in your head after uttering only a few lines of its bubblegum chorus (see The Office (US) Season 3, "The Initiation"). Love me, love me, say that you love me...See? it's stuck in your head already.

The song's success was buoyed by its appearence on the highly successful William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet soundtrack. And like so many other one-hit wonders of the '90s, the band appeared on Beverly Hills 90210, all but cementing their status as one-hit wonders.

The song also birthed two different videos--a disturbingly funny and sexual one for European audiences and a more cartoony, MTV friendly one for U.S. audiences. The European version features a group of men (who I assume are the male members of the band) entering a warehouse that turns out to be a brothel offering sometimes garishly made up middle aged prostitutes. The men all look extremely bored as the hookers grind in their face. Off to the side, the video cuts between one of the men is listening to a tape made by Nina Persson, and Persson herself recording the tape (which is made up of the lyrics). At the end of the tape, the man appears to be crying while one of the hookers grinds on him, that is until Persson enters the brothel and the two are reunited at last. It's as weird as it sounds, and probably weirder. This one is superior for many reasons, not the least of which is that Nina Persson looks like some beautiful Nordic pixie goddess that will have you scrambling on Priceline for a ticket to Sweden (not that she looks bad in the U.S. version, but there's just something about her in this one...).

The second one is the one you always saw on TV if you live in America, the band stuck in a bottle that was passed out to sea by a castaway. This one was often shown with clips from Romeo + Juliet interspersed throughout.

"Lovefool" charted in practically every country on God's green goodness:
Sweden - #15
Australia - #11
Austria - #7
France - #31
Germany - #6
Latvia - #2
Switzerland - #22
UK - #21 (rerelease hit #2 in 1997)

And of course, in the U.S. it was #1 on the Billboards with a bullet. And when a band has known that high a level of international fame, it's nearly impossible to follow up--but as usual, they tried.

"Been It" was the follow up single. And what can you say? It's far more in line with the rest of the album and the band's other material than the lite-pop of "Lovefool." It's a beautifully catchy pop-rock song, though admittedly, it isn't as immediately toothache inducing as the hit. It's a little more rockin' (okay a lot more rockin', with a pretty sweet little riff to boot), a little less poppy and the lyrics couldn't have helped:

I've been your mother, I've been your father
who can ask for more
I've been your sister, I've been your mistress
maybe I was your whore
who can ask for more

Not the stuff pop hits are usually made of, Nina.

"Been It" only reached #72 on the Billboards U.S. and #56 in the UK . This is one of those things where there's seemingly no rhyme or reason to it, except that the song was so overplayed at the time that people came to associate The Cardigans with "Lovefool" and only "Lovefool." It was the last Cardigans single to chart on the Hot 100 in the U.S.

No matter though, the band went on to make great music and experienced continued success in Britain, Japan and other countries outside the U.S. (they've charted nearly a dozen times in the UK since "Lovefool"). Their follow up album, 1998's Gran Turismo, outsold First Band on the Moon by a half a million copies, though it only made it to #151 in the US. The album did birth one hit on the Modern Rock charts, "My Favourite game" hit #16 after being included on the video game also titled Gran Turismo. The controversial video didn't hurt either.

That album also features one of the band's best songs, a deep cut introduced to me by a friend on a mixtape--"Junk of the Hearts," an absolutely gorgeous country-ish love song with some lovely pedal steel work and some great rock flourishes.

The Cardigans have released two albums in recent years, 2003's Long Gone Before Daylight and 2005's Super Extra Gravity. While the album sales aren't what they used to be (note: the drop in sales correlates directly to the bands decision to stop including Black Sabbath covers on each album; coincidence, I think not), the band hasn't called it quits just yet. They're currently on hiatus, though there are plans to reunite. And in the meantime, Nina Persson has released two albums with her husband, ex-Shudder to Think member Nathan Larson under the name A Camp. Their new album, Colonia, is to be released February 2, 2009. Persson is currently touring in support of the album.

In 2008, a 2-disc Best Of compilation released in Europe cemented their status as international superstars. Appropriately enough, there are no plans to release the album in the U.S., though it can be purchased as an import. U.S. listeners owe it to themselves to give The Cardigans a chance; they really are better than your average pop band.

Oh, and Nina Persson is still gorgeous.

THE FIRST SINGLE: B+
THE SECOND SINGLE: A-

Download: The Cardigans - Lovefool
Download: The Cardigans - Been It

BONUS Download: The Cardigans - Junk of the Hearts

Buy Cardigans stuff!

Second Single Update! Jamie Walters

2009-01-10T12:51:00.008-06:00

Erstwhile teen soap star and singer Jamie Walters is appearing alongside other obscure former teen idols like Jeremy Jackson, Eric Nies and, er, some other dudes who will test your pop-culture trivia knowledge (their use of the word idol is about as loose as your average Rock of Love contestant...hi-yoooo!) for a new VH1 show entitled Confessions of a Teen Idol. The show sports the tagline "Fame is a bitch. And they all want her back." So you know it's gonna be good.

Check out this interview with Walters on Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch blog for more info on the show, what the man has been up to since his fall from grace, why he has so many damn tattoos now, and why the 90210 writers didn't redeem Ray Pruitt after he threw Donna down the stairs.

Also, if you haven't, read the Second Single entry on the guy and download his hits "How Do You Talk to an Angel?" (with The Heights) and "Hold On."

Belly

2009-01-05T14:43:00.014-06:00

Of all the negative things to come out of the '90s alternative music boom, one of the positives was how the surge of interest in alternative styles of music allowed female fronted groups to move to the forefront. While women rockers like Janis Joplin, Blondie and Joan Jett had experienced success in the male-dominated rock world with and without the use of their sex appeal, those artists seemed to be the exception to the rule.

But in the post-Nirvana world, the likes of Kim Deal of The Pixies and The Breeders, Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, Liz Phair, and to some extent, Courtney Love, were able to move to the forefront without having to sex themselves up or down to either appeal to men or to blend into the male-dominated scene. They could be girls but they could still rock, and in a real way, not in the pop songs in rock clothing way that Avril Lavigne and Ashlee Simpson have made so popular this decade. Yet their songs retained a distinctly and unabashedly feminine sound. These women weren't trying to make up for anything, they were self-assured enough to do their own thing, knowing it would attract an audience.

Belly was not only part of this emerging scene, they were, in a sense, a product of it. Having cut her teeth as a songwriter and singer in female dominated indie bands Throwing Muses and the aforementioned The Breeders, Newport, Rhode Island native Tanya Donelly decided to start her own project which she dubbed "Belly"--a word she found "both pretty and ugly." Formed in 1991, Belly hit the scene just in time for women-in-rock's big break--a break that would pave the way for everyone from 4 Non Blondes to Luscious Jackson (incidentally, both upcoming installments to The Second Single).

Belly first hit with the Slow Dust EP in 1992, which shot to number one on the British indie charts. At first listen, the group's sound wasn't dissimilar from that of Donelly's old groups--but there's a bit more of a shoegaze influence going on with Donelly's vocals buried in a mix of sparkling reverb behind a wall of distorted guitars all enveloping the hooky melodies. The group often drew comparisons to so-called "dream pop" bands like The Sundays and Lush, and the influence is clear--but Belly were contemporaries of these bands, and most likely the artists all had a reciprocal relationship.

It wasn't long before Belly had a full length record in the can and a big hit on their hands in Britain--the album, 1993's Star (Sire/Reprise), hit number two on the British charts. The group's success in the UK wasn't unexpected--they had been signed to the Brit label 4AD across the pond--but Belly's success in their home country was a bit more surprising.

The first single, "Feed the Tree" is what did it. The strangely intriguing lyrics, powerhouse chorus, sexy vocals and of course, the oddly literal video, garnered the group top spots on MTV's Buzz Bin and Alternative Nation (a big deal at the time for all you youngsters). The song reached #1 on the Modern Rock charts and while it barely eked into the Billboard 100 (it reached #95), it didn't matter--by that time modern rock radio had emerged as the format to be reckoned with and MTV was beginning to have as much impact as Top 40. Star was a certified gold record.

Belly feed the tree
by extremevampyr

The group followed "Feed the Tree" with a song from their first EP that had been rerecorded for the album, "Gepetto." The song is a beautifully constructed singalong, perhaps even catchier than "Tree," though it lacked the unusual sensuality that the hit possessed. The song reached #8 on the Modern Rock charts and failed to chart on the Billboards. A third single, "Slow Dog" was released and hit #17 on the Modern Rock charts.

Belly - Gepetto

Belly would only make one more album, 1995's King. The album revealed Donelly delving even further into mainstream pop-rock, leaving behind any indication that she was once an indie queen. The album was a risk--leaving behind the old indie fan base in favor of mainstream success. Unfortunately, the plan backfired--King wasn't a hit with mainstream audiences and left old Belly fans either angry or scratching their heads. Not to mention it was ill-timed--the same modern rock radio that had embraced Belly two years earlier had now turned its attention back towards male dominated hard rock, leaving little room for the spacey pop Belly provided. It might be a good time to note that Belly's appearance on Rolling Stone (top of the page) was published during their promotion for King.

The band broke up in 1996. Immediately after the break up, Donnelly embarked on a solo career, releasing a solo EP, Sliding and Diving, the same year. A year later she released her full length debut, Lovesongs for Underdogs and has since released three more solo albums to little fanfare but much critical acclaim. Her sound has veered away from the pop-rock she was known for and towards sparsely arranged country influenced acoustic folk-pop.

In 2000, Donelly reunited with the Throwing Muses for a couple of shows, and while a Belly reunion has yet to materialize, Donelly still plays her hit songs at her solo shows.

FIRST SINGLE: A
SECOND SINGLE: A

Download: Belly - Feed the Tree
Download: Belly - Gepetto

Buy Belly music!
Buy Tanya Donelly music!

The Proclaimers

2008-12-18T20:54:00.010-06:00

Often times, one-hit wonders come from the soundtrack to a hit movie, whether they be a theme song or just a track off the original motion picture soundtrack. But rarely does a previously released song from an album that came out half a decade earlier shoot to the Top Ten.

Such is the unusual case of The Proclaimers--the slightly freaky looking Scottish twins duo Craig and Charlie Reid straight out of Auchtermuchty, Fife, Scotland. The brothers formed the band in 1983, getting a big break when they toured with The Housemartins (aka that UK band that Fatboy Slim played bass for). Their first album, 1987's This is the Story featured a successful single with "Letter to America," which reached #3 on the UK charts. The album went gold. Their follow up album, Sunshine on Leith, was another hit and featured three singles in the UK, including "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)," which hit #11.

Now here's the interesting part. The band took a six-year break, and during that time became international stars. How?

A small, quirky movie called Benny & Joon starring Aidan Quinn and that guy from 21 Jump Street came along in 1993 and heavily featured "I'm Gonna Be" on its soundtrack, propelling the song to full-blown phenomenon status in the U.S., shooting it to #3 on the Billboards a full five years after its initial release.

The song was unusual, even for a surprise hit--a highly energetic, extremely catchy, post-punk/folk-rock song with the brothers aggressively highlighting their thick accents as they traded off lines and verses. As with so many one-hit wonders, the video--which featured clips from the film featuring Johnny Depp performing humorous, Chaplin-esque physical comedy routines--came in handy. The song soon gained massive airplay on the radio and the success followed in other countries, making the song an international hit and ultimately eclipsing the film it came from.

The Proclaimers were thrust into the spotlight, appearing on late night shows and MTV and getting spots on other movie soundtracks. Luckily for them, they had just finished their follow up to Sunshine, allowing them to capitalize on the success of the old single. Right? Well, not quite. The follow-up album, Hit the Highway didn't achieve the kind of recognition the brothers might have wanted, most likely overshadowed by the continued success of "Gonna Be." The single "Let's Get Married" offered a similar brand of pro-love (pro-marriage), energetic pop sung by heavy-accented Scotsmen, but it would seem America could only take so much of that sort of thing. The song was a nice, fun ditty, but lacked the simple and immediate rush of their hit. "Gonna Be" felt like a once in a lifetime/impossible to duplicate hit, and lo and behold, it was. The hit was a fluke in the first place, so to expect a long term career in the U.S. was probably barely an option for the duo. And it probably didn't help that Highway's album cover resembled a Wal-Mart family portrait of serial killer twins.

After the failure of the album in the U.S., the duo disappeared almost entirely except for in the UK where they continued to chart, though at a far less impressive level than they had in the '80s.

The brothers would wait another seven years before releasing their next album, Persevere, and soon after, began a prolific five years with some independent releases like Born Innocent (2003), Restless Soul (2005), and Life With You (2007).

The band continues to play and tour occasionally. "I'm Gonna Be" continues its ubiquitious nature, popping up in movies and TV shows like How I Met Your Mother. The song was re-released in 2007 as a single and reached #1 in the UK. Naturally, the song is still very popular in their native Scotland where it's played at soccer matches at Hampden Park anytime the home team scores. It's also been covered by at least 15 bands you've never heard of, so you know those guys are making some coin.

I leave you with a nice little blast from the past--an acoustic performance of the song on a show (I assume on the MTV show Alternative Nation) hosted by the one and only frizzy haired, horn-rim glasses wearing Republican VJ, Kennedy.

FIRST SINGLE: A
SECOND SINGLE: B-

Download: The Proclaimers - "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)"
Download: The Proclaimers - "Let's Get Married"

And because I love my readers, here's an extra special bonus track from the band's first album that was used to great effect in Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket:
EXTRA SPECIAL BONUS TRACK: The Proclaimers - "Over and Done With"

Buy Proclaimers Stuff!!
Proclaimers MySpace!!

Spacehog

2008-12-07T15:38:00.022-06:00

Note: This week's installment will see the introduction of a new grading system. I know these posts can get a little long winded, so I thought it might be easier for people to go to the bottom and check out a grade. Both the first and second single will receive a letter grade: A, B, C, D, or F, minuses and pluses will be added where necessary.

I'd like to start this installment with a quick note about one-hit wonders. While many of these artists weren't really deserving of even that one hit, but rather were the product of intense marketing and payola on the part of the record label (or maybe just a novelty video that got into heavy rotation on MTV and VH1) some of these artists did in fact make a genuinely great song. It just might have been the only one good enough (or catchy enough or marketed enough or had a sexy enough video or any number of reasons) to connect with the US audience at that specific moment in time. Thousands of bands are started on a daily basis, and to even get far enough on your own talent and merit to connect with the US radio audience, even if it's only once, is a feat that should not be scoffed at--even if it only lasts the standard issued fifteen minutes. So for as many artists that don't really deserve much respect, there's a few that do.

One of these bands that I feel deserves this respect is Spacehog.

Spacehog came around in that post-grunge world when America was falling in love with everything British and poppy just like they had 30 years previous. All those crazy Brit movies like The Full Monty, Trainspotting, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Wings of the Dove were being released and winning Oscars, and America was falling in love with the likes of Ewan McGregor, Hugh Grant, and Gwyneth Paltrow--who was and is American, but enjoyed pretending she was British, and it delighted American audiences so that we collectively accepted her as such.

The music that became popular during this Angophilic time was mostly part of the Britpop invasion (the electronic/techno scene was just beginning to bubble over stateside). Bands like Oasis and Blur were gods in the UK--their chart battles, not to mention the verbal barbs traded by Oasis's Noel Gallagher and Blur's Damon Albarn are the stuff of legend-- and that was bound to bleed over to the states, albeit in a less intense form. The UK's brand of hooky throwback pop was a welcome diversion for US audiences after years of listening to rockers moan about the adverse effects of the crispy Seattle weather.

But while Oasis, Blur, and second tier bands like Supergrass, and Travis would make their own respective splashes that would continue to ripple throughout the decade in the US, Spacehog made one big splash before being forgotten by the mainstream almost immediately thereafter.

Spacehog was formed in 1993 when two British ex-pats--Anthony Langdon, a guitarist and drummer Jonny Cragg--met in a coffee shop in New York City. Langdon's brother Royston soon joined along with second guitarist Richard Steel. The group soon garnered the attention of Sire Records who released their debut album, Resident Alien, in 1996.

Their first single, "In the Meantime" became an instant hit on alt. rock radio. After a short intro of spacey keyboards and a prominent bass solo, the song takes off with a killer hook that melds a searing guitar lick with howling vocals (and you have to love any song that opens with its hook) it delves straight into spacey glam rock, '70s era Bowie to be exact, eschewing the likes of The Beatles and post-punk artists that influenced Oasis and Blur respectively. It was also decidedly less Brit-centric than those artists offered up; Langdon's voice owed a lot to David Bowie and Ian Hunter (of Mott the Hoople), but was far removed from the more foreign sounding Lennon-if-he-were-from-Manchester-whine Liam Gallagher offered or the Kinks-inspired vocals of Damon Albarn. In that sense, Spacehog was probably easier for Americans to swallow than the other UK bands, but may not have appealed as strongly to their Anglophile side. This point is underlined by the fact that Spacehog did not achieve much success in their homeland, and actually turned out to be more popular in the US.

The song also spawned an appallingly boring video. For guys weaned on glam-rock and knowing both their band name and album title, you'd think there'd be a bit of a sci-fi theme...maybe some kitschy '50s B-movie theme or a cool remake of Dune or 2001? No. It's just a performance video where a lot of people stand around listening to the band looking bored.

"In the Meantime" was a huge hit on rock and pop radio formats--hitting #1 on Mainstream Rock charts, #37 on the Top 40 and #32 on the Hot 100. A follow-up single was released soon after and, as you might have guessed, didn't quite reach the heights of its predecessor.

"Cruel to Be Kind" (not a cover of the Nick Lowe classic of the same name) was the follow-up, and frankly, it's a pretty good one. Where "Meantime" is all space-rock production and took advantage of alt. rock's loud/soft dynamic, "Cruel" is just a straight forward pop song. Under all the walls of distorted guitars and more Bowie vocal inflections is a catchy, bouncy bubblegum pop song that seems to tip its hat to '70s power-poppers wrapped in glam packaging, Sweet (who released singles like "Fox on the Run," "Ballroom Blitz," "Action"). For all the talk of Bowie, Spacehog were really just an updated version of Sweet--taking the popular sound of the day, adding a little Bowie to it and throwing the sound on some fun pop dittys.

They at least had a little crazier video this time.

But perhaps it was too much of a throwback tune. Despite its timeless feel, the song failed to adhere to any of the current trends of 1996. If Spacehog had waited a decade or so, they probably would have made it a little further, because they were essentially doing a variation on what The Darkness would do only a few years later, only with less camp value and a tad (maybe just a smidge?) more originality. Although looking at that band's success maybe proves that there's only a limited market for this brand of classic rock aping.

"Cruel to Be Kind" hit #29 on the Mainstream Rock charts but didn't chart on the Hot 100 or Top 40.

Spacehog released another album in 1998, The Chinese Album (1998) and were dropped from Sire/Elektra soon after. In 2001, they signed with Artemis Records and released their last album to date, the WTF titled Hogyssey (2001).

Things were relatively quiet for a long while. It seemed that Royston Langdon was content with being a kept man, being married to the elvin princess, Liv Tyler.

In 2004, Langdon joined a short-lived band called "The Tender Trio" that featured two members of the band Blind Melon. After an aborted attempt at touring, the Trio called it quits in 2006 and Langon joined his brother Anthony and his other brother Christian along with Spacehog drummer Cragg in a new project called "Ackrid." Since then, Anthony has left to form a solo project and collaborate on an album with Joaquin Phoenix (yes you read that right. Should probably note that Phoenix is also Liv Tyler's ex-boyfriend). Ackrid has yet to officially release any material.

In the summer of 2008, Spacehog played two shows at the Viper Room and a sold-out show at the Troubador in LA. Soon after, an interesting and brand new rumor mill started. The rumor was not that Spacehog would go on a full-fledged comeback tour or record a new album, but rather that Royston Langdon's name was being bandied about as a possible replacement for the um...unreliable Scott Weiland in Velvet Revolver. Those rumors seemed to have died out by the end of the summer, and few announcements have been made about the future of Spacehog, although the band has created a MySpace page offering up "exclusive tracks."

Will the Hog bring the fans more of their special brand of post-grunge glam-rock or will we be left hungry and stuck with these three albums? Only time will tell...in the meantime (chuckle!) enjoy this crappy video of Slash and Royston Langdon rocking out to David Bowie's "Suffragette City" this past July.

FIRST SINGLE: A-
SECOND SINGLE: B+

Download: Spacehog - In the Meantime
Download: Spacehog - Cruel to Be Kind

MySpace
Official Site

Update next week...I feeeeeeeel

2008-12-04T16:37:00.002-06:00

Had some bad computer problems this week so I was unable to update...will be back next week with a new entry.

Until then, here's one of the best directed one-hit wonder videos ever by the amazing Michele Gondry. It was nominated for a Grammy and MTV Video Award (!!!)

Lucas - Lucas with the Lid Off (1994)