Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Third Eye Blind

One of my favorite bands in high school (err, I could say college here to sound younger but it would be skewing the truth) was Third Eye Blind. Radiohead, Weezer, and Third Eye Blind was my lil musical trio. Radiohead would probably shit to hear that they kept such company (but oh well). Now I digress into this digression.

Gf asked me to "sing Motorcycle Driveby" for her tonight as a goodnight luckcharm lullaby -- tomorrow brings the first of many (5) law school finals. That simple utterance alone assures me that she will rock her exams. So, let's talk about 3eb for a second. They deserve more but it's all I can spare.

So, the eponymous debut by Third Eye Blind circa 1997 is one of God's great gifts to hyper-emotional adolescence. Screw all you music snobs who never listened to them because they charted early and often -- a staple on modern rock radio and pop radio in 1997 (from Graduate, to Semi-Charmed Life, to Hows It Gonna Be, to Jumper). They have two songs on this album that I would list in my top twenty favorite songs of all time (no easy feat if I may say so): track 2, Narcolepsy and, particularly, track 13, the aforementioned Motorcycle Driveby.

In fact, if we dig a little deeper into this album, we can point out the tracks that are pure bliss:

Track 01: Losing a Whole Year
Track 02: Narcolepsy
Track 03: Semi-Charmed Life
Track 04: Jumper
Track 05: Graduate (less so, but still good)
Track 06: How's it Going to Be
Track 12: The Background
Track 13: Motorcycle Drive By
Track 14: God Of Wine

So, that would be Tracks 1-6, 12-14 that rule. The tracks from 7-11 are, at best, average and some, like London, are horrendously crappy. Now I am not trying to implicate any convenience stores here but unfortunately for Third Eye Blind they decided to pursue a career of 7-11s rather than 1-6s. Bastards. They could've been somethin'. A cynic would say "mediocrity is inescapable, it was bound to happen" -- i know because i am a cynic -- Stephan Jenkins would say "i never thought of it that way" -- i know because i have a recording of him saying just that. I do.

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