For the most part I feel unfortunate to admit that most pop-rock bands are typically generic garbage. Not trying to implement an insult in your head, if you happen to be a fan of this nation spanning genre, but I guarantee if you look into other things you’ll find that this slated category is nothing more than mainstream background music. There are bands however that come around once in a while, you know with that ridiculously catchy single and supposedly a very solid album. Bands such as Jimmy Eat World, Weezer, and Everclear. They all fall under the category of either Alternative or Pop-Rock, and they really do it very well. Besides producing a gold single and fortifying the mainstream’s view of them through just that, these bands make the entirety of their albums shining masterpieces of popular rock music (don’t compare them to the classics, please). Today, I mean this very day in mid 2006 if Third Eye Blind released their sophomore effort
Blue I presume it would have just as much effect on us as it did when it came out back in ’99. That’s because their music spends it’s time outside of pop purgatory and stays in the back of everybody’s minds for quite a while. Remember ‘Never Let You Go’? You’ve heard it, believe me. It was everywhere and can be heard at a passing moment sometimes these days even. In the mall, on the radio of course, or on your television. Now most of the time people assume things such as ‘Oh, the single was great but what else can they do?’ or ‘It’s pop-rock, what the hell are you expecting?’ Well when it comes to Third Eye Blind, those people are blatant fools. TEB are so good in terms of Alternative music, they’re effort that is put into all their records is obviously noticeable and can’t be missed when listening to this album especially, with songs like ‘An Ode To Maybe’ and ‘1000 Julys’. Of course what is an album without filler? Perhaps it contains some, but the good outweighs the mediocre and creates quite an album. Third Eye Blind’s
Blue is a very produced record. I hope that doesn’t scare you away, but likely it won’t. But of course it is, its mainstream. I mean everything is like that nowadays on MTV and ***. Burns your ears maybe, can become a tad infuriating and maybe even turn you into an Indie aficionado, but sometimes it isn’t taken as far as albums like
Nevermind and
Siamese Dream. That’s exactly where
Blue comes in, so sit tight and listen.
The reason this album I think deserves such a good score is mainly because I can listen to it anytime I want. And I know for a fact that I’ll never get sick of it.
Blue is one of those records that unfortunately sit collecting dust on your drawer for a year or two before you pick it back up again, after those two years ago you raved about them to your friends but to no avail. No one listened. Now that they’ve become part of your musical life once again you can finally realize how timeless this pop classic really is. More so an outline for future bands, Third Eye Blind are much more than a single band. On this record the band showcases nothing but
emotion. In a good way. Nothing really sad, or of a downer kind of beat. If there is (which is rare) it’s a love song. Like, love, in the sense that you can’t have it or a distant case of such. The singer is upset about his far away crush. Ballad-like stuff. Very epic at times, with songs like ‘An Ode To Maybe’ and ‘The Red’ (perhaps also including the main single, ‘Never Let You Go’). Very moving ‘stadium songs’, something you wouldn’t feel out of place hearing at the Super Bowl halftime show or at the VMA’s. Songs that everyone enjoys, and can relate to the album by taking a little piece of it with them. Some people who aren’t into the whole pop thing can find recluse on this record, something to listen to alternatively. People who don’t like the ballad’s get the high side of the album. Its very open.
Like a field, really. That’s how I would sum up
Blue in one word. Field. While these songs have a very ‘urban’ and city-life feel to them, the music conveys itself as a truth that you can tell all your friends about. Spans the tests of time, like a field looks the same after years and years of not visiting it. This album is the Holy Bible for modern Alt-Pop just for that reason. Ever listen to Jimmy Eat World? Well, that band is dangerously similar to Third Eye Blind. Especially their more recent release
Futures. So when you hear a song off of ‘Futures’, you like it at first, right? Kind of cliché and general pop rock but whatever. Its something you can easily enjoy. Now come back to that very song after a long, long time of binging on music or anything else of the like, just going on with your life. It feels very mediocre and generic. Like a song you used to rave about as a twelve year old but can’t fathom the reason why as you take another listen at sixteen. Third Eye Blind gave JEW a chance to make music like theirs, but just like much modern mainstream rock these days it just doesn’t happen. Its all been done before, which is where TEB comes it.
Third Eye Blind are pop veterans. Meaning mostly that they know how to make a hook, line & sinker track. Something you can’t just simply pass up when walking through a department store as it blows up onto the speaker above the piles of clothing. As your trying on that
hot skirt or feeling up those silk pajamas, and Third Eye Blind’s ‘Never Let You Go’ comes on, your foot starts to tap. The rest of the album is like a test to see if the enchantment of beautiful pop music is still fresh in your ears. The entirety of
Blue doesn’t live up to NLYG’s massive pop credibility, instead opting for an alternative. In comes the alt-rock tag. TEB’s second release is a follow-up that is a time exam for their fans. It isn’t something that kinda jumps out at you at first then slowly grows away as your musical tastes change. No, because as they
do in fact change, ‘Blue’ becomes oh so much more appealing if your alternative taste still has a flavor to it and doesn’t sit content with the typical modern rock sound. You’ll like it. It isn’t pop, really, besides those two major tracks ‘Never Let You Go’ and ‘An Ode To Maybe’ which are undoubtedly pop rock. It just doesn’t carry through for the rest of the record. I mean, of course they have that foot-tapping pop feel to them, but it’s like paprika or candy coating. It’s there, and looks like it makes a big deal but what’s really going to fill you up is the yoke, or the dough. Whichever. Pop eventually becomes something the band seems to be fighting against as their album progresses.
Speaking of which, I think the greatest examples of that are the finale trio, ‘Darkness’, ‘Darwin’, and the instrumental ‘Slow Motion’. Third Eye Blind’s defining moments as an alternative rock band. The other records don’t really show what they were trying to do as much as these three songs, which seems like an overstatment maybe, but it can be unraveled completely as the truth. I speak a lot of ‘outlines’, and ‘blueprints’ to music. Well, a lot of bands from the nineties are just that. Third Eye Blind are no exception. Modernizing pop-rock music to the point where it can pass as in the very least
listenable by almost everyone (believe me, that’s a hell of a lot of people) was their accomplishment alongside a handful of other bands (Everclear, Coldplay, Weezer). I suppose the band realized this, or properly predicted it and decided against following it all. It became a masterful project of alternative rock that is 1999’s
Blue.
Looking for pop? Try these:
10 Days Late
Never Let You Go
An Ode To Maybe
Or is Alternative more your thing?
Darkness
Darwin
Farther
Also, the ‘Slow Motion’ instrumental is always great, but probably won’t pass off as proper with most people. It has been called lackluster in the face of other instrumental pieces. But in general, alternative fans should check it out. It’s Third Eye Blind in another kind of beauty.
Credits:
Guitar/Vocals: Stephan Jenkins
Lead Guitars: Tony Fredianelli
Bass: Arion Salazar
Drums: Brad Hargreaves
