It's great, screw you!
275. Hanson "Mmm Bop"
In the mid-1990's a plague descended upon the land. This plague was known as the Boy Band. Gaggles of well-styled young men dancing in sync, thier every move and gesture minutely calculated to inflame the loins of barely pubescent girls. To a man, they were an anathema to what we know as rock and roll, and we're still fighting our way out from beneath the effluvia they spawned.
The group that produced today's song was often lumped in with the boy bands, since they were brothers, blond, blue-eyed and barely teenaged. And that's a shame since they didn't belong there. For starters, they didn't just lip-sync and dance. This bunch of Oklahoman middle-schoolers wrote their own songs, played their own instruments, and sang their own vocals. And that involvement shows. The guitar is much more prevalent, and like kids everywhere, these young men knew enough to skip all the garnish and set dressing and just get to the pop/rock meat of the matter. The keyboard and guitar provide an excellent bed for the vocal-driven melody, which just about defines the word 'irresistible' and Taylor Hanson delivers the earnest lyric with the just the right amount of eager-to-please spirit. Kid brother Zac desreves a special award as the best pre-pubescent drummer ever, since his popcorn popper snare adds just the right snap to the proceedings. The first time I heard this song was in the background on TV as I read a book on the couch and I snapped to attention thinking this was some 1970's blue-eyed Jackson Five nugget that I had somehow missed. These guys absorbed their source material fully and rebuilt it into something undeniable. As they grew older, they branched out into more rock-oriented material as guys are wont to do when they grow up, and while it was always listenable, they never approached this top 40 perfection again.
In the mid-1990's a plague descended upon the land. This plague was known as the Boy Band. Gaggles of well-styled young men dancing in sync, thier every move and gesture minutely calculated to inflame the loins of barely pubescent girls. To a man, they were an anathema to what we know as rock and roll, and we're still fighting our way out from beneath the effluvia they spawned.
The group that produced today's song was often lumped in with the boy bands, since they were brothers, blond, blue-eyed and barely teenaged. And that's a shame since they didn't belong there. For starters, they didn't just lip-sync and dance. This bunch of Oklahoman middle-schoolers wrote their own songs, played their own instruments, and sang their own vocals. And that involvement shows. The guitar is much more prevalent, and like kids everywhere, these young men knew enough to skip all the garnish and set dressing and just get to the pop/rock meat of the matter. The keyboard and guitar provide an excellent bed for the vocal-driven melody, which just about defines the word 'irresistible' and Taylor Hanson delivers the earnest lyric with the just the right amount of eager-to-please spirit. Kid brother Zac desreves a special award as the best pre-pubescent drummer ever, since his popcorn popper snare adds just the right snap to the proceedings. The first time I heard this song was in the background on TV as I read a book on the couch and I snapped to attention thinking this was some 1970's blue-eyed Jackson Five nugget that I had somehow missed. These guys absorbed their source material fully and rebuilt it into something undeniable. As they grew older, they branched out into more rock-oriented material as guys are wont to do when they grow up, and while it was always listenable, they never approached this top 40 perfection again.
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