New Radicals: C/D?

I was just out of college and dreaded the song (for none of the reasons listed above) - the sound & melody just irked me, I don't have a good explanation other than "personal taste." (I also had to hear it / see the video many times per day, at work, which didn't help.)

It is funny that there is a micro generation in their ... early 40s? That hates this song when everyone else likes it. What’s up with that

Fwiw, assuming you're talking about music fans and not like accountants who listen to the radio, I like the song now but virtually all modern rock alt-pop sounded like an abomination in the late 90s. Having grown up listening to hard rock/classic rock, getting into early 90s alternative rock, and following that to noisier and further out music, this stuff that took 'alt' in the opposite direction seemed bland and limp and not even hooky. I didn't hear it as earnest or inspirational at all. I did like 3EB's "Never Let You Go", which reminded me of 70s power pop and did sound earnest, and made an effort with the album, but hated "Semi-Charmed Life". Matchbox 20 were sort of the archetypal offenders. I don't think I was even aware of the New Radicals or of the title of this song at the time but I did hear it.

I was 23 when it came out and it annoyed me. I think it's fine now. At the time, it was snobbishness and its damn ubiquity. I lived in Australia for a while in 1999 and it was huge there too. I worked at a fairground for a couple of weeks and must have heard 10 times a day. I hated the limp faux-earnestness of it, the kind that you might hear at a, well, an inauguration, where the main goal is to sound vaguely uplifting without offending anyone.

ive def gone through multiple stretches of thinking this song had different titles over the last 20 years

Have to admit I was turned off the song when it came out due to mistaking them for the band Live having gone pop

i was in my early 20s and i kind of mentally filed it away with stuff like "Steal My Sunshine" as sort of Graduation Party Rock, or the song a 'cool' character would be listening to in an SNL movie or something. i didnt hate it but it was definitely not where i was at.

I remember liking it at the time partly because I thought it was World Party lol

LIGHT!
NING!
CRASH!
placenta FALLS to the floor!!

buck-et hat
i'm wearing on my bald head

d40 are you sure you're not creating a micro generation out of like 4 tweets he saw yesterday

ive def gone through multiple stretches of thinking this song had different titles over the last 20 years

― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open),

"Don't Let Go (You've Got the Music in You)"

It was also released in the UK in time for finally getting MTV/VH-1 along with the late 90s North American one-hit-wonder boom that sat uncomfortably with being 18 and getting into Knock Knock and I See A Darkness

I would have been put off by the iconography too, the twat in the hat with his big shoes - like the dude had cycled through every other style in his desperation to get noticed and had seized on Manchester 10 years after everyone else.

There were a bunch of pseudo power pop hits around the same time, iirc. This, Fastball, "Closing Time," and also "Steal My Sunshine."

all of those are great. first two songs on the Fastball album ("The Way" and "Fire Escape") still sound awesome

Steal my Sunshine is a bit different though, its all based on a disco sample

I love Steal My Sunshine, I still listen to it fairly often.

I was 13/14 at this time and this was exactly the type of popular music that I turned to in order to escape the oncoming onslaught of Teen Pop and Nu Metal. Well that and a lot of pop/skater punk stuff.

semisonic's UK hit was Secret Smile, which I still cannot stand.

this song and Chris Cornell's "Sunshower" were two songs taht slowed the daily deluge of misery into my young teenage head with a dose of optimism

I loved "Steal My Sunshine," H-A-T-E-D "Closing Time"

"Closing Time" can get fucked

Yes, this song was on heavy rotation when we finally got cable and could watch music TV, along with Groovejet and Tender

I loved "Steal My Sunshine," H-A-T-E-D "Closing Time"

― one of the only artist who is genuine (morrisp), Thursday, January 21, 2021 12:33 PM (fifty-seven seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

i hated most alternative pop, or at least, late 90s alternative pop with generic vocals. The Flys "Got You Where I Want You" being a prime example.

yet I liked Econoline Crush "All That You Are", *Shrug*

i am basically reliving 1999 now and it's a mixed bag of emotions.

Also, I was under the impression for a good while that the New Radicals were Canadian because I confused the Staten Island Mall in the video with the Yorkdale Mall in Toronto.

Ha, I didn't know Econoline Crush were known outside Canada. (Thought that was called "Shooting Star"?) That was probably my actual most-hated band.

might have been called shooting star.

two of their singles got played a bit here

Totally forgot about Closing Time, fuck that song

Yeah, Len is different. But speak of the devil, "Torn," the Imbruglia version, was right around this time, too. Post the peak of Letters to Cleo and Better Than Ezra, though, two bands I'm not sure I've ever heard whose names I always get confused.

I read that book about "Closing Time" long before I ever heard the song. Feel like there is at least one other thread about songs like that.

The only noteworthy thing about "Closing Time" is that the dude managed to pull off what the New Radicals guy did (and Rob Thomas?) and become a go-to songwriter for other acts. There was a really good story about "Closing Time" in TapeOp recently, though. I guess the future hit version was done, and the band liked the results, but the label wanted to give them extra money to work on it some more. The manager or producer pulls Dan Wilson aside and makes a really smart point: if there are two versions of the song, and one is the one you like and one is the one the label spent a bunch of extra money on, which one do you think they're going to pick? So they stuck with the original one.

I read that book about "Closing Time"

?!?

d40 are you sure you're not creating a micro generation out of like 4 tweets he saw yesterday

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, January 21, 2021 11:17 AM (fifty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

are you suggesting there are flaws in the methodology of whiney's hipster studies

I would have been put off by the iconography too, the twat in the hat with his big shoes - like the dude had cycled through every other style in his desperation to get noticed and had seized on Manchester 10 years after everyone else.

― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Thursday, January 21, 2021 11:19 AM (fifty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is a very non american perspective on an american artist lol

i still dont get what was wrong w the hat ...

id say his image overall ... the ringer tee and his age .. made me think of the slightly older / young gen x dude guiding me (i was 16 at the time) to a kind of leftist optimism ... feel like it resonated in a pretty unique way for its time

I like "closing time" tbh

in high school we sang "Farting Time"

cos we were 'edgy'

I’ll slap the face of anyone who speaks ill of the unadultered joy of “steal my sunshine”.

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/13/books/sex-no-drugs-no-panic-attacks-yes.html

Dan Wilson has been behind some music I like, but the lyric of "Closing Time" is so clunky that its kinda surprising that he became this big journeyman songwriter (or maybe not, since that song was huge).

every twat at a british music festival had been wearing that exact hat for the previous decade, it was a handy shorthand for who not to talk to.

xp

Ah, ok. I was thinking there was some book-length critical analysis of "Closing Time" out there...

the melody was ear-wormy and the type of thing you could hum. it was one of those songs like Staind's "It's Been a While" where people only knew the main refrain so they'd just be at school/working humming:

"Closing time
mumbabumbanurphur
dahdahdahdahdahdah something's end

I know who i want to take me home!"

"It's been a while
Since muddabuddabrruhburrrburrrr
It's been a while
Mubbbadduddaaburrbrrburrr"

Have to agree that the image of a guy in Adidas trainers and a buckethat singing a sunny power-pop song about smashing the establishment felt like a strange juxtaposition

There is a book about that band’s rise & fall, by the drummer; it (naturally) discusses “Closing Time” at length: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/168438/so-you-wanna-be-a-rock-and-roll-star-by-jacob-slichter/

are you suggesting there are flaws in the methodology of whiney's hipster studies

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, January 21, 2021 1:18 PM (forty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Here's the graph

Here's the "You Get What You Give" micro-generation line graph

• Most passionate number of likes from 34-38 y/o group
• Biggest dissension in the 40-44 y/o group
• Highest concentration of clueless ppl are 43-48 y/o pic.twitter.com/M4gq0jG09L

— Christopher R. Weingarten (@1000TimesYes) January 21, 2021

always thought he sounded like one of the Sifl & Olly dudes

There is a book about that band’s rise & fall, by the drummer; it (naturally) discusses “Closing Time” at length: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/168438/so-you-wanna-be-a-rock-and-roll-star-by-jacob-slichter/

― one of the only artist who is genuine (morrisp), Thursday, January 21, 2021 1:05 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've read this - it's pretty amusing

"in need of a miracle" is my fav deep cut

― boz conspiracy by toby hus (voodoo chili), Wednesday, January 20, 2021 2:23 PM (yesterday)

This is correct.

too many notes

― Looking for Cape Penis house (Neanderthal), Thursday, January 21, 2021 4:52 AM (five hours ago)

I appreciate this.

I showed my dad this performance and he laughed and laughed. We're going to listen to this album again on my next night off.

i... didn't foresee this song being like a dad / son thing?