An estimated 98% of us experience earworms. Despite the annoying times that we can’t get a chorus or a hook of an overplayed pop song out of our heads, getting a really good earworm stuck can be one of the best things ever.
We here at Nerdist are dead-set on bringing you those types of songs, if only for the weekend. We’ll be scouring the internet for the best earworms we can shove into your meaty brains!
Hey, how’d the social media comments look like before you clicked on this? Were there a ton of people very VERY angry about their true feelings about Blind Melon having not read a single word of this yet? Yes? Awesome, then all is right in the world. We can now move onto the point of this article: Blind Melon is a band that is widely considered to be a one hit wonder and they should not be.
We good? OK cool, there was some misdirected anger when I made similar statements about Superdrag. Alright, it’s all Blind Melon this week so lets get to it.
No Rain
Overplayed? Sure. Unwillingly committed to memory? Yup. Auditory time travel? Absolutely! I feel enough time has passed since this song that it actually can’t be hated anymore. If someone says they “hate” this song, there’s something else going on in that person’s life. The song was released in 1993 and no one, save for the few who MAYBE were listening to this as they walked in on their significant other sleeping with someone else, can actually hold hate for that long. It topped rock charts and held its own on Billboard’s Hot 100 the same year that Mariah Carey’s “Dreamlover”, Tag Team’s “Whoomp (There it is)” and Aerosmith’s “Cryin” all came out. That, by anyone’s standards, is impressive but Blind Melon deserves so much more credit for their other music.
Galaxie
I admit, most of my love of the sight-impaired cucumis is derived from their 1995 album Soup. Although still in rotation on more modern devices, my love affair with the album actually began when I would steal my older brother’s CD and listen while I played Sonic The Hedgehog 2 on Sega (which is a delightfully old-timey sentence). Soup actually did fairly well on the charts but it didn’t have the staying power that “No Rain” brought. Much like the opinion – which I happen to share – that Weezer’s Pinkerton is the superior album, Soup for whatever reason has always been better in my mind and actually had much more earwormy songs. For example…
Skinned
Combining banjo, kazoo and some of the most disturbing lyrics ever, “Skinned” chronicles the daily lamentations of a serial killer (supposedly the monstrous Ed Gein) and the annoyances one would run into when your life is full of the stress of hiding your victims. Sure, it’s incredibly messed up and the lyrics don’t help at all with mentions of skin lampshades and shin bone shoehorns but I’ll be darned if it isn’t fun to sing along to.
It’s not to say that Blind Melon was all bee girls and weirdly messed up pop songs. The band, and especially the late lead singer Shannon Hoon, knew how to beautifully tug at heartstrings from time to time.
Change
Off their eponymous album, the song “Change” was one of the first ever written by Hoon. The lyrics to the song are bittersweet and show a vulnerability that seems to shed like on the struggle Hoon – who died due of a drug overdose in 1995 – must have been going through. Although many might not live such a life, the lyrics remain relatable for anyone going through any manner of stress in their own lives. If the lyrics we’rent poetic enough, Hoon’s gravestone is adorned with the line from the song “But I know we all can’t stay here forever, so I want to write my words on the face of today. And then they’ll paint it”
Crap, did I end on a downer again? I didn’t intend to. Luckily I have an out this week…
BEE GIRL DANCE PARTY!
BEE GIRL DANCE PARTY!
BEE GIRL DANCE PARTY!
BEE GIRL DANCE PARTY!
Phew! That was close! If only I can use that tactic every week. Actually, can I do that Kyle?
What are your favorite Blind Melon songs? Let me know in the comments or tweet them to me @theblakerodgers!
