The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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