Taking Sides: Gin Blossoms vs. Toad The Wet Sprocket

(x-post)

LOUCHE NINETIES WUSSROCK S/D

Soul Asylum don't belong in there. True, they started to suck in the same way those other bands did, but once upon a time, they were a Twin-Tone band who actually rocked (something those other bands -- Goo Goo Dolls included -- could never do).

They had dinner, arrived in the middle of Chevelle's set, figured that the Gin Blossoms would go on last.

Gin Blossoms had actually gone on first. Like at 5:00 PM.

That is what they've been reduced to: opening for Guster.

I love you, gygax.

Yeah, I am. I had the album whereupon they covered both "A Million Miles Away" by the Plimsouls (an amazing song they managed to make shitty) and some Prince tune.

They sucked then. They suck now. They will suck for all time.

As The Mad Puffin said, Toad were rated the more serious act at the time (paceAlex in NYC - this is, again, relative), produced their share of inescapable radio hits and had the more durable career. So someone somewhere must be willing to make the case.

Sprocketheads to thread?

But the Toad edge is rapidly lost as soon as you move away from the best song vs. best song rubric.

What it comes down to is this: the GBs have three or four songs that are almost as good as "Hey Jealousy," whereas TTWS has perhaps two or three songs that are almost as good as "Walk on the Ocean."

And the Toad songs I don't like, like "All I Want," are more annoying to me than the GB songs I don't like, which are merely background noise.

Wow. I had no idea, until this morning, that I felt this strongly about either of these bands.

Such a wrong phrase.

Not an accident.

woah, sorry this took me so long.

Anyway, yeah, it's no contest. Toad the Wet Sprocket were almost unquestionably the most poorly-named band in history (and the biggest potential slam dunk for critics ready to pan 'em), and that can't help influence my opinion on them. Still, they are clearly the inferior band--they had what, one great song? I mean yeah, I'd put "Walk on the Ocean" up against most of NME's album tracks, but aside from that this comparison is fucking ridiculous--in fact I'm a little surprised at you, Raj. The Blossoms never made a single nearly as flaccid as "All I Want" or "Fall Down". The better thread would be Gins vs. Goo Goos, Gins vs. Soul Asylum, hell, even Gins vs. Westerberg solo.

virtually the entire world of music > Gin Blossoms > Goo Goo Dolls > Toad the Wet Sprocket > Soul Asylum

This is just silliness.

Gin Blossoms wrote some great songs. That first ep prior to New Miserable Experience was Byrdsian and rather fetching.

And the Googs! I'm surprised there's so much hostility. Hold Me Up, Superstar Carwash and A Boy Named Goo all have kiler songs, in that 2nd rate Westerberg fashion. But by that point, there 2nd rate Westerberg was better than Westerberg himself.

After "Name" everything went to hell.

THIS DOESN'T MAKE MY POINT INVALID DAMMIT

I'll also stump for the earlier Goo Goo Dolls records. But Soul Asylum was once a pretty great rock band...ye olde tymers in Mpls tell me they were quite teh sight to behold live back in the day.

Toad's songwriting strengths were always far more evident in their album tracks than in their singles, although "Come Down" from the Coil album is still one of my favorite singles of '90s alt-rock radio.

---hahahahahahahaha!

terrible shit like goo goo dolls and toad the wet sprocket

I prefer either one of these bands to Gin Blossoms. THE WEAKEST SHIT IN THE NINETIES.

Throw Matchbox 20 in that equation as well. STILL more listenable than Gin Blossoms.

so RONG (and I even like that one mb20 song)

Better Than Ezra is probably less enjoyable than Gin Blossoms, but then again...I like the way the singer makes a totally unnatural noise ("wanh hanh") in "Good".

Alison Road is a nice tune

that's all I'm sayin'

There's a lot of venom to go along with the "defeat, melancholy, loneliness, and failure" in Big Star's songs. Humor, too. Neither exist in GB's music.

the toad the wet sprocket song reminds me of ELP's "lucky man"

you don't hear venom in "Found Out About You"?

no humor in gbv???????? ok....

jesus christ, the humor is at least half the point of the early 90s gbv stuff that is so well loved!

oh god. GB. nevermind, SB away

gb > gbv

otm

like i said, SB away

sorry, i'm still experiencing hallucinations after having read accounts of people listening to toad the wet sprocket songs OTHER THAN the one that sounds like "lucky man".

toad the wet sprocket were from my hometown so I may have a skewed perspective but they had like 4-5 radio songs

dishwalla also from my hometown, historians will look back at this as some cultural renaissance

yeah they had several big hits though looking over a list i could only remember two of them - 'walk on the ocean' (which i guess is the one that sounds like 'lucky man') and 'all i want'.

Heard "Fall Down" more than "Walk on the Ocean."

Gin Blossoms wrote good pop hooks... I only wonder why Geir never expressed love for them.

Just heard "Alison Road" in the grocery store and I thought of this thread. The querulousness of the vocal - a little bit fuzzy, a little anxious - is of its times in a way that I cannot adequately describe but I know it when I see it.

And holy chimichangas it is almost ten years old. I have children who are younger than this thread.

Why oh why did I neglect Counting Crows in the group including Gin Blossoms, Toad TWS, Goo Goo Dolls?

The category "90s louche rock" is far far larger than these. Hootie, Marcy Playground, Smashmouth, Rembrandts.

If it's 1992 and your age begins with a 2, and more than 20% of your band is currently wearing a trenchcoat, and your lead singer hasn't shaved in approximately three days, you are Louche Rock.

A while ago I happened to be at a show given by a 90s tribute band (Bayside Tigers). Every song sounded like it could have been the theme to "Friends." And, in a way, they all were.

the thing with the Gin Blossoms is that they were almost sorta cool at the beginning of their career and have unfairly been lumped in with the likes of Tonic and Marcy Playground

they were a bunch of alcoholic-lowlifes from Arizona singing the praises of Westerberg and writing jangly, perfectly good pop rock. the difference between them and Teenage Fanclub or something is that they were careerists who wanted to make money

any interview i've listened to with the lead singer he just gives off a really terrible vibe

including Counting Crows would have obfuscated things, somehow. They were something different.

and of course they ripped that poor dude off who wrote all their hits. that's another way to make your career go downhill fast

i'd love to see an article that reaffirms their legitimacy

Maybe some CC is different. Maybe "Mr. Jones" is something different.

But "Round Here," "Omaha," "Cannonball," "Raining in Baltimore," elicit a particularly 90s anxiety, one that I also hear in "Sex and Candy," "Found Out About You," "Let Her Cry," "Iris," and "Alison Road."

There's a wobble in the vocal that I hear as a fuzzy wired fear - someone who's just barely holding his shit together.

I mostly hated this music at the time, but in retrospect I feel it was appropriate, because that's exactly how I felt.

Dulcinea is a pretty good album, really won me over to Toad The Wet Sprocket after disliking their first couple hits.

smoking on stage = pretty louche

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNGWozPjihk

"Something's Always Wrong" at CVS this morning. Good song!