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Give it up for the fucking Gin Blossoms

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Oh, and "Hey Jealousy" > "Dyslexic Heart," but "Waiting for Somebody" is arguably just as good. And "6th Avenue Heartache" is way better than "One Headlight"

― The Good Dr. Bill (Andrew Unterberger), Monday, 6 September 2004 04:40 (twenty-one years ago)

"one headlight" is the only song i like by them because of the aforementioned disco effect

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Monday, 6 September 2004 04:41 (twenty-one years ago)

"Good," "In the Blood," "Desperately Wanting" are all fine songs.

Word. Actually, I picked both BTE albums up really cheap. Not very good, and "In The Blood" sounded awful - I remember it being less harsh. Must have been a single mix that I liked. "Desperately Wanting" is really, really good though.

― edward o (edwardo), Monday, 6 September 2004 04:42 (twenty-one years ago)

"In the Blood" is my favorite, actually.

Haha, recently I found both Soul Asylum's Grave Dancer's Union and BTE's Deluxe for $3 each, and I could only buy one--I ended up going with Soul Asylum, but now I'm not so sure.

― The Good Dr. Bill (Andrew Unterberger), Monday, 6 September 2004 04:45 (twenty-one years ago)

such purchases would disrupt the immaculate purity of my record collection

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Monday, 6 September 2004 04:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I still like In The Blood, but having not heard it in five years when I bought that album, for it to sound completely different, more jagged and less poppy than I'd remembered, was really weird. I do think you made the wrong choice buying Soul Asylum, though. DW has probably aged the best, King of New Orleans has not aged well at all, and it wasn't very good back then. A lot of the BTE hate must stem from that song.

― edward o (edwardo), Monday, 6 September 2004 04:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I already said all of this, though:

Top Ten Mediocre Post-Grunge/Alternative Bands

― The Good Dr. Bill (Andrew Unterberger), Monday, 6 September 2004 04:49 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm so glad the 90s are over

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Monday, 6 September 2004 04:49 (twenty-one years ago)

What can I say, I'm a sucker for "Somebody to Shove".

― The Good Dr. Bill (Andrew Unterberger), Monday, 6 September 2004 04:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, it was nice seeing a few other people out of the woodwork on that. Is holystoning on here?

― edward o (edwardo), Monday, 6 September 2004 04:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't think so. He writes for I Love the 90s though.

― The Good Dr. Bill (Andrew Unterberger), Monday, 6 September 2004 04:54 (twenty-one years ago)

I cannot believe this thread. I cannot believe this band has champions. I need to go outside and get some fresh air.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 6 September 2004 13:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Alex, your venom is delightful, but you're not always right.

― edward o (edwardo), Monday, 6 September 2004 13:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh yes I am. Hahahaha. My wife better not read this.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 6 September 2004 13:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Really, I was just listening to Follow You Down today, and it reminds me that at the time (I'd have been 13 or 14) it sounded like the sort of music that mid-20s, vacuous office workers would have on while they typed away, sort of humming along.

I've become one of those people and life's not all bad, and Follow You Down is still bloody great.

― edward o (edwardo), Monday, 6 September 2004 13:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Alex, your venom is delightful, but you're not always right.
-- edward o (edwardo...), September 6th, 2004.

he's right in this instance.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 6 September 2004 13:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd let out a big, boistrous "FUCKIN' A!",...but I'm sitting in neighborhood coffee shop/internet cafe.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 6 September 2004 13:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Your claque doesn't faze me!

― edward o (edwardo), Monday, 6 September 2004 13:26 (twenty-one years ago)

:::goes to look up 'claque' in the dictionary:::

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 6 September 2004 13:28 (twenty-one years ago)

(I mean the word in its less insulting sense, obviously)

― edward o (edwardo), Monday, 6 September 2004 13:33 (twenty-one years ago)

one month passes...
Found Out About you is a bad Byrds rewrite with a lazy chorus and the rest of those bands are awful, but Hey Jelousy is pretty undeniable if you enjoy hooks.

― danh (danh), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 16:16 (twenty-one years ago)

one month passes...
i'd rather not have to wait for the singles poll to load to have continue this discussion.

from there:
The Replacements couldn't work up the same dippy enthusiasm for lightweight stuff that the Gin Blossoms did, cuz they weren't as dippy.

I guess it depends on the meaning of the word "lightweight". Lightweigh in what way?

― john'n'chicago, Wednesday, 10 November 2004 22:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I also sort of wonder if some people hold the band's later singles against "Hey Jealousy"--songs like "Allison Road," "'Til I Hear it From You" and "Follow You Down," while all still excellent, are far wimpier and much less energetic than "Hey Jealousy"'s vitality, and perhaps make the song lose any sort of edge through association. There's nothing "lightweight" about "Hey Jealousy," though, not really.

― The Good Dr. Bill (Andrew Unterberger), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 22:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Personally, I love "Allison Road". It may not ring as "true" or "genunie" as "Hey Jealousy", but it's damn close to being a perfect pop song.

― john'n'chicago, Wednesday, 10 November 2004 23:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, "Allison Road" is good stuff. Not one of my personal favorites but a pretty enough jangle-pop number.

― The Good Dr. Bill (Andrew Unterberger), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 23:05 (twenty-one years ago)

of all the alt-rock hitmakers who flopped on the followup and fell off the face of the earth, this was the second most surprising to me, after live)(who i guess didn't really fall off the face of the earth), and sorta vaguely smashing pumpkins.

― cinniblount (James Blount), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 23:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Hey Jealousy fucking rules. IT IS A KILLER JAM, NO DOUBT.

― Ian John50n (orion), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 23:13 (twenty-one years ago)

I do love how the narrator/singer "Hey Jealousy" sounds completely defeated from the first line of the song, though. The "All I wanna do's be with you / Feel like I matter, too" line comes out like the self-directed rambling of a man who's at his wits end.

Also, the way he drags out "yeaars" (in "If I hadn't blown the whole thing years ago") a bit longer than the rest of the words is truly depressing. Maybe cuz he's so desperate for something that happened a long time ago. This is not some fresh wound. It's been festering.

― john'n'chicago, Wednesday, 10 November 2004 23:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Right, exactly. He's drunk, he's not thinking clearly but he's being more honest than he has been in a very long time. This is his last chance and he knows it.

Thinking about it, this song actually has a lot in common with "There is a Light That Never Goes Out"--the driving theme, the sense of urgency and importance of the moment ("oh god, my chance has come at last"), the feeling of having nowhere else to turn, the doomed and hopeless romanticism. The main difference, I suppose, is that Morrissey couldn't be totally honest ("but then a strange fear gripped me and I just couldn't ask") but Wilson / Hopkins are, though the next day they'll probably wish they hadn't been.

― The Good Dr. Bill (Andrew Unterberger), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 23:22 (twenty-one years ago)

The sound of "Hey Jealousy" is pretty lightweight. As I said on that thread, the schism for me is Wilson/Hopkins as opposed to Westerberg/Westerberg.

― miccio (miccio), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 23:26 (twenty-one years ago)

admittedly its also tainted by context, polish and croon.

― miccio (miccio), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 23:27 (twenty-one years ago)

and do remember that I voted for "Hey Jealousy." So I ain't a hater.

― miccio (miccio), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 23:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't hear the lightweighted-ness at all, Anthony. No more than any other alternative rock song of the period, anyway--maybe it's a bit light compared to grungers like AIC or Soundgarden, but it's not much lighter than, say, Soul Asylum or Cracker. That's just the way most alternative rock sounded around '93, I think.

The guitar solo is one of the best parts of the song, also.

(yeah, I saw that you voted for it--really the fact that 10 people voted for it at all is sort of an accomplishment, even if it wasn't quite enough to get it on the list. It's a start.)

― The Good Dr. Bill (Andrew Unterberger), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 23:35 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost:
along those lines... this song does adam durwitz kinda goes for the same thing on "Mr. Jones". the drunk, desperate man placing his hopes in the hands of a someone else's acceptance. granted it's a different scene, different moment, different attitude. durwitz takes it from wanting the blonde across the bar to wanting to become a "big big star". "when everybody loves me, i'm never gonna be lonely" is as tragic in its own way as grovelling drunk at the feet of your ex. just more narcisisticly so.

― john'n'chicago, Wednesday, 10 November 2004 23:37 (twenty-one years ago)

remove "this song does" in my last post

― john'n'chi cago, Wednesday, 10 November 2004 23:39 (twenty-one years ago)

When I heard that "Mr. Jones" was about Duritz's cock, it sort of ruined any chances of me taking the song seriously. I'll try to the next time I hear it, though.

I guess I sort of understand what you're saying, with the "believe in me / 'coz I don't believe in anything" break especially. That song always seemed a bit too good-timey to really be a cry of desperation, though. I think closer to "Hey Jealousy," in fact, is "A Long December"--it's much slower, but it sounds just as desperate and defeated. The video goes along way towards that as well.

― The Good Dr. Bill (Andrew Unterberger), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 23:40 (twenty-one years ago)

agreed re: "a long december". it's a great song and way better than "mr. jones".

part of what ended up getting cut in my editing was that "hey jealousy" does what "mr. jones" tries to do much better.

― john'n'chicago, Wednesday, 10 November 2004 23:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, I'll agree with that.

Another song along the same lines is Soul Asylum's "Somebody to Shove," though it's a bit more hopeful sounding and (unfortunately) has a bit of a throwaway bridge and title. The chorus, though, fucking knocks me dead.

― The Good Dr. Bill (Andrew Unterberger), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 23:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, hey, it was fifteen votes, not ten. Fucking righteous.

I smell revolution.

― The Good Dr. Bill (Andrew Unterberger), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 23:51 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...
I recently discovered their 1989 album Dusted. Wow, it's really good! It sounds like a long-lost Replacements album or something.

― richard wood johnson (rwj), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 14:17 (nineteen years ago)

four months pass...
bump! anyone heard Dusted? Get that shit!

― richard wood johnson (rwj), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 02:43 (nineteen years ago)

Anthony and the Good Doctor are quite right. Context is all -- "Til I Hear It From You" blasting in the Target kitchenware aisle at 3 pm inspires an appropriate but unexpected wistfulness.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 03:51 (nineteen years ago)

one year passes...

haha, just heard "Found Out About You" for the first time in about 15 years. Back then that song (and all the Gin Blossoms songs) were so ubiquitous and "alternative" they were a total joke, even to us 12 year olds. But you know what? It's some pretty OK pop. Of course I still smile my ass off whenever someone jokingly plays "Hey Jealousy" in a bar.

― burt_stanton, Monday, 23 June 2008 06:28 (seventeen years ago)

Haha I was hoping this thread'd remind me of the one really good song these guys had and hey, I told me just about straight away. Thanks, me.

― Niles Caulder, Monday, 23 June 2008 06:58 (seventeen years ago)

one year passes...

HEY JEALOUSY

― ian, Tuesday, 3 November 2009 21:28 (sixteen years ago)

total jam imo

― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 3 November 2009 21:30 (sixteen years ago)

Just heard they're playing down the street from my work at the Hard Rock Cafe during the Denver International Film Festival. True story.

― tylerw, Tuesday, 3 November 2009 21:31 (sixteen years ago)

This band always seemed so dreary and same-y to me.

― Daniel, Esq., Tuesday, 3 November 2009 21:33 (sixteen years ago)

love these guys

― iatee, Tuesday, 3 November 2009 21:36 (sixteen years ago)

HEY JEALOUSY

― ian, Tuesday, November 3, 2009 9:28 PM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

― "I get through more mojitos.." (bear, bear, bear), Tuesday, 3 November 2009 22:41 (sixteen years ago)

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