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Arts
Wednesday, February 8, 2017 — 5A
Third Eye Blind’s debut
record one to remember
Scorned by critics, fans make a point never to forget the
qualities that made the band worth a listen to begin with
Third Eye Blind is a band
both immortal and scorned.
Sure,
they
have
scored
more
lasting,
mainstream
hits
than
any
fledgling
band
today can even
dream
of,
but
their
short
window of success has forever
confined them to the title of
“ ’90s band.” You can almost
imagine the deal with the
devil that lead singer Stephan
Jenkins made when he was
unsigned in San Francisco:
“Yeah, I’ll make you sextuple
platinum, but you’ll end up as a
consistent Justin Timberlake
punchline.”
“The kid from ‘The Mickey
Mouse
Club?’
Seriously?
Ah, fuck it, dude. Make me
famous.”
And so Third Eye Blind
still ends up confused with
Semisonic, despite decidedly
not being one-hit wonders.
I’ll grant you that it’s not the
greatest tragedy of our time,
but still, Third Eye Blind’s
self-titled debut is a first-
class overlooked album, and
probably the best work to
come out of the ’90s’ mostly
forgettable “bubble grunge”
phase. In the public eye,
the hits shine so bright that
people are blinded to the other
songs, but 20 years later, Third
Eye Blind remains a satisfying
listen front to back.
The opening two tracks,
“Losing a Whole Year” and
“Narcolepsy,”
aren’t
the
band’s
most
recognizable
songs, but they provide a
strong
introduction
to
its
songwriting
abilities
and
style. “Losing a Whole Year”
announces itself in attention-
grabbing fashion, with wall-
smashing power chords and a
shouted refrain from Stephan
Jenkins. Jenkins isn’t quite
a rapper, but the verses here
certainly bare some hip-hop
influence — call it talk-singing
with swagger.
“Narcolepsy,”
meanwhile,
showcases a kind of radio-
friendly pop rock that has
fallen out of favor in the two
decades
since
its
release.
Quietly
strummed
guitars
and soft vocals eventually
lead into a hard-charging yet
inoffensive chorus. Third Eye
Blind’s success likely stemmed
in part from its ability to be
both palatable to older fans
of soft rock and yet retain
the slightest of edges for the
alternative crowd.
And after these first two
songs, we get the stretch
that made Third Eye Blind
stars. “Semi-Charmed Life,”
the
record’s
lead single and
biggest hit, leads
it off. It’s the
boppiest
song
ever
written
about
crystal
meth, with a catchy little sing-
along hook and quickly rapped
verses that are still extremely
easy to keep up with. “Semi-
Charmed” remains, for good
reason, the best-known and
most-enjoyed Third Eye Blind
song — it’s a crowd pleaser
that still crosses genres in an
innovative way and features
some ambitious lyrical content
hidden under its sweet sound.
“Jumper,” however, hasn’t
aged quite as well. It’s a
plodding acoustic song that
never goes anywhere exciting.
Its lyrical subject (a suicidal
gay
friend,
according
to
Jenkins) has potential, but the
words seem to purposely avoid
any kind of specificity in favor
of clichés. That said, nobody
has forgotten the chorus in
two decades, so it must be doing
something right.
In the middle of this stretch
one finds the somewhat lesser-
known “Graduate,” which was
only a minor hit back in its day.
However,
its
three
minutes
feature the most focused burst
of energy on the whole album,
and it’s the only heavy, fast
track without any sort of quieter
bridge. “Graduate” is the closest
Third Eye Blind ever came to
writing something Blink-182
would.
And
we
close
out
this
incredible
run
of
tracks
with “How’s It Going to Be.”
Certainly the least immediate
of the album’s hits, “How’s
It
Going
to
Be”
might
nevertheless
be
the
most
satisfying; it’s a perfect change
of pace that builds to an
unforgettable climax. When
Jenkins gets to his barely
comprehensible screaming at
the end, it truly feels cathartic
and earned. I’m not sure you
can be more dynamic in a
four-minute pop song.
I don’t necessarily blame
anyone who turns off the
record after “How’s It Going
to Be.” Late ’90s records are
notorious for their bloated
runtimes, and Third Eye Blind
is no exception, as the album’s
second half is mostly taken
up by filler tracks, inferior
retreads of first-half songs
and only a few memorable
moments. Keep the breeziness
of
“Burning
Man”
and
the
well-crafted
build
of
“Motorcycle Drive By,” and
you can cut most of the rest.
That said, anyone giving
this
album
another
listen
after some time away owes
it to themselves to revisit
“The
Background.”
Buried
near the end of the album’s
hour, it takes the romantic
melancholy inherent in most
of the record’s lyrics and
gives it to the melody, too. We
finally get some clear details
from Jenkins in this break-up
song (“I walk Haight Street
to the store / And they say
where’s that crazy girl / You
don’t get drunk on red wine
and fight no more”). There’s
no distance here, no catchy
“do do do”s to undersell a song
about drugs. Jenkins isn’t an
incredible singer, but on “The
Background” he draws the
listener into his heartbreak,
fully immersing you into his
world before tossing out a
rewarding, invigorating heavy
guitar solo.
I’ve been writing this piece
taking it for granted that
Third Eye Blind is no longer
famous, but technically, that’s
not exactly true. Sure, most
people would be hard-pressed
to name a song of theirs that
has come out this millennium,
but
the
band
recently
announced a 20th anniversary
tour, set for the summer, that
most currently buzzed-about
bands could only dream of.
While more presently relevant
bands like Japandroids or The
Hotelier play clubs or theaters
(if they’re lucky), Third Eye
Blind is still performing in
amphitheaters with capacities
in the high four figures, as
the great songs of their past
continue to be sung out by
thousands every night.
So, more accurately, Third
Eye Blind is a band scorned by
charts and critics, but not fans.
In the mainstream, they may be
jokingly remembered, but within
their own circle of admirers they
remain stars — thanks mostly to
this one twenty-year-old debut
album. As their original fan base
gets older and younger listeners
hear them for the first time, this
record seems to grow more and
more in esteem. Frankly, I find
their success inspiring: Write a
few great, beloved songs, keep
working, and you can live forever.
No soul-selling required.
ELEKTRA
LAUREN THEISEN
Daily Arts Wrtier
‘Safe in Sound’ deserves
any praise sent its way
Long-time workers of the
British music scene, Lower
Than Atlantis have always
seemed to be shunned by the
spotlight
that
they
deserve.
Despite
several
prestigious
festival
spots
in recent years,
bands
of
the
same class seem
to keep getting
placed ahead of
them.
However,
Lower
Than
Atlantis has consistently been
putting out some of the best
rock
music,
and
although
none of their albums have
been
commercial
successes,
their confidence and continual
touring have kept them at
the back of everyone’s mind.
Now, with newfound maturity,
Lower Than Atlantis seem
to have finally hit the sweet
spot of writing arena-worthy
bangers on their new album
Safe in Sound.
Four singles from the album
were released in January — a
move which usually harms
the band — however “Had
Enough,” “Boomerang,” “Work
For It” and “Dumb” are perfect
examples of what they can offer
on this album. Each sounds
different enough from the rest
and most of their previously
released music, enough so that
they work as a teaser, not a
spoiler. Lower Than Atlantis
have always had a rough-
around-the-edges sound, but
it’s
now
gone.
Instead,
the
band
sounds
professional
to
the extreme — as
you’d expect from
a
fifth
album.
Lead
vocalist
Mike
Duce
sounds his very
best, the album
showcasing
the
best
vocal
work he’s done to date, and
even though some of the lyrics
could be easily taken from any
number of alt-rock bands, his
delivery manages to save it
from falling into cliché.
Although all of the songs are
catchy, undoubtedly written
to make a room full of people
sing along, there seems to
be a missing spark that was
present in their previous work.
“Another Sad Song,” from their
2008 album World Record, is
by far one of the best songs
the band has written. It’s
personal and bitter and angry
all at the same time, and starts
slow before building up into
something shouted back at
every live performance. There’s
none of that personal emotion
on Safe in Sound, and although
the choruses are as catchy as
you might hope, the personality
of the band was lost.
Of course, if it was written to
be a tidy, crowd pleasing album,
Lower
Than
Atlantis
have
succeeded. There’s still enough
to set this apart from the pack
of other artists writing similar
stadium alt-rock, and if you’ve
never heard of LTA before, you
owe it to yourself to give this a
listen. It is focused, with sing-
along
choruses
everywhere
you look, and the guitar riffs
are just meaty enough to make
this rock. Anyone new to the
band will find a well-written
rock album; long term fans,
though, might just leave a little
disappointed.
MEGAN WILLIAMS
Daily Arts Writer
A soundtrack to life
As much as it is anything, “20th
Century Women” is a catalogue of
the artifacts that surround three
distinct women in 1979. Among
those artifacts — the jeans and the
cameras and the cigarettes — is
their music.
The film structures itself around
this music, becoming
itself a sort of playlist,
and in the process
assembling one of the
best
soundtracks
of
the year. It’s an audible
time capsule of Santa
Barbara in 1979.
The
whole
production is elevated
by Roger Neill’s dreamy
score, one of the most
tragically
overlooked
of the year. Neill, who
composed the score of
Mills’s last film “Beginners” as well
as Mike Birbiglia’s “Don’t Think
Twice” and the Amazon series
“Mozart in the Jungle,” crafts a
score that both compliments and
counteracts the punk, art pop and
jazz that make up the rest of the
soundtrack. The opening track —
titled “Santa Barbara, 1979” for the
text that appears onscreen — is
synthy and soft, very Brian Eno and
very un-punk.
On paper, or rather on a Spotify
playlist, it’s pretty clear which
songs “belong” to which character:
Abbie is the Raincoats, Julie is the
Talking Heads and Dorthea is Duke
Ellington and Fred Astaire. But
on screen the delineations are less
clear. Each woman’s music invades
the lives of the others — Dorthea
goes to punk shows with Abbie and
dances to The Talking Heads in a
sincere attempt to understand the
world her son is growing up in.
Mills understands how integral
music is to defining a world, that
music is one of the strongest world-
building tools filmmakers have,
something unavailable in the same
capacity to other storytellers. And
thus he creates one of the most
sharply real period-pieces of recent
memory. It’s one thing to look like
a
certain
moment
in time, but to look
and feel like it too is
something else entirely.
In the movie, Jamie,
the boy who consumes
the music of the women
around him — both
their literal albums and
the figurative music
their lives make — is
15. I turned 15 in the
fall of 2011, and since
seeing the film, I’ve
been thinking about the
soundtrack that would accompany
my 15th year of life.
I was a freshman in High School,
amped up on social anxiety and
hope that the cute senior in my
Spanish class would talk to me. In
hindsight, I would love to be able
to say I was listening to Watch the
Throne and Section .80, but I wasn’t
that cool yet.
I was emo without knowing I
was. Sad, moody, lying on my bed
listening to Bright Eyes wondering
why the hell I was stuck living in
the worst place on earth.
My soundtrack is not the kind of
soundtrack conducive to fantastic
dance sequences, although I can see
Annette Benning and Billy Crudup
trying to dance to Little Dragon’s
“Ritual Union” before switching
to M83’s “Midnight City” and
absolutely losing it.
It’s the sort of soundtrack that
lends itself to car rides, areal shots
of kids on bikes and skateboards,
walking along the creek behind my
childhood home, my mom teaching
me how to drive.
That was also the first year I
started listening to my parent’s
music, lured in by the sweet
melancholy of Belle & Sebastian
and LCD Soundsystem. I was also
heavily influenced by the music
my friends and my brother were
listening to. There were two girls
in my art class who paid attention
to music, they would tell me
about Beach House and took me
to Black Keys concerts. My art
teacher played David Bowie and
had us watch the music video for
Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used
to Know.”
The music that surrounded me
that year helps define it. It reminds
me what it felt like to be 15. When I
play that music for other people, our
2011 lives overlap sonically in some
places and diverge in others. But
music makes it easier to draw lines
between different lives — much
in the same way my mom noted to
me as we left the theater how much
my dad loved the song that plays
over the film’s credits, “Why Can’t I
Touch It?” by The Buzzcocks.
“20th Century Women” gets a lot
of criticism for being plotless and
untethered. And that’s valid, but
also not necessarily a fault of the
film. Because instead of adhering
to a traditional plot structure, the
film borrows its structure from a
playlist — an assembly of tracks
(in this case scenes) that exist
without a destination or endpoint.
So instead of coming down to finish
its arc, “20th Century Women”
ends soaring, quite literally, and
pleading, “You must remember
this.” And with its soundtrack, it
gives you the tools to do just that, to
remember.
MADELEINE
GAUDIN
Senior Arts Editor
FILM COLUMN
ALL THINGS RECONSIDERED
Third Eye Blind
Third Eye Blind
Elektra
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MUSIC REVIEW
Britain-based rock band succeeds in crowd-pleasing
album, but old fans may long for the sounds of LTA’s past
Safe in Sound
Lower Than
Atlantis
Easy Life, Red
Essential
A24
If you’ve never
heard of LTA
before, you owe it
to yourself to give
this a listen