3 posts tagged “90's music”

Gin Blossoms' "Til I Hear It From You' came on the radio the other day, and I was immediately taken back to the mid-90's, this song like a bookmark in time. I got such a warm fuzzy feeling while listening to the song that I realized this might be the best song from last decade.

I know so many people think that Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" would be better choices for best song from the 1990's, but the Gin Blossoms evoke the Generation X spirit in this song in so many ways.

First, "Til I Hear It From You" takes the Generation X slacker attitude and puts a positive spin on it.

I don't wanna take advice from fools/I'll just figure everything is cool.

Never before has apathy sounded so pretty and almost romantic.

Second, author Douglas Copeland coined "Generation X" in 1991 with his international best-seller Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. In it, Copeland defined the group as many things (including "underemployed" and "overeducated"), one of which was "unpredictable." "Til I Hear It From You" was from the film Empire Records, which many banked on being a hit at the box office before it tanked in 1995.

Plus, the fact that the Gin Blossoms are perhaps the most underrated band from the 90's is another testament to defining the decade. They, too, are "underemployed."

I don't care what the naysayers might say about this song. It still sounds as good as it did nearly fifteen years ago. It's likely that they're just jealous and jaded.

While watching the Michael Jackson Memorial yesterday, I wasn't surprised to see Mariah Carey covering "I'll Be There," as she did for her MTV Unplugged special nearly twenty years ago. However, I was surprised to see Trey Lorenz reemerge for a cameo in the song.

Carey even did the, "Trey Lorenz. Sing," bit in the middle just like she did in the original Unplugged (personally, I always found this demeaning for Lorenz, almost like a command for a dog).

Trey Lorenz looked great! I know Lorenz had a solo album back in the early 90's that didn't do as well as planned and that he's been doing background work in the music business ever since, but maybe this is the second coming for the guy. I personally was excited to see him appear in the song -- since I remember thinking he was cool when the Unplugged album came out. My vote is for more collaborations between Carey and Lorenz, as I think they are a great pair for duets. 

Two nights ago, I was forced against my own will to see Third Eye Blind in concert. There was no hostage situation, just the lure of the experience as a music critic, dangling like a carrot.

I had no expectations going in to the concert, except that I would be traveling back in time to when I was pretending not to watch "Dawson's Creek" and thinking that Freddie Prinze Jr. was the next Tom Cruise. Yet, on May 20, Third Eye Blind played to a sold out show in Greensburg, PA -- nearly a decade after their peak in popularity. One dude who looked like he was probably 10-years-old when 3eb was hot, said to me, "Third Eye Blind is my favorite band. EVER"). Perhaps the band makes people nostalgia for their past.

Yet, Music has changed in ten years time, however. At the concert, "3eb" almost seemed like a new up-and-coming band, passing out flyers with fan blog information as well as displaying their web site on a screen behind them on stage. Nowadays, the Internet rules. When opening band Upwelling played, I wasn't worried about not getting enough information about them because I assumed they had a Myspace page (every band has a myspace page!). And I was right.

Third Eye Blind also did something I'd never seen a band do before. They played one of their new songs in the middle of the set, then revisited it at the very end of the show (the final encore), just to drill home the melody one last time. This seemed a tad desperate for me. The tossing out of candy pushed the desperation a little further.
Here's a clip of their "new" song from a concert from a few years ago:

The sad thing is, when I woke up the next morning, I had the opening line of the song stuck in my head. I suppose for bands like 3eb, they have to remarket themselves to a new group of fans, since the prime listening audience is high school and college students. I should have seen a lot of people my age at the concert, but instead I found myself as the oldest in the room at one point. Perhaps 3eb appeals to only one audience -- an age group that stays the same but brings new listeners year after year who eventually move on to different bands once they reach age 24. Does everyone at one point in their life go through a Third Eye Blind period? I don't think I went through mine.