Us early 80s babies, we were kinda screwed over on the rock star urban myth front. The ones attached to Marilyn Manson (eating shit on stage, throwing a bag of kittens to be ripped up into the audience) were just rebadged Alice Cooper tales. Our “Alanis Morrissette had two gallons of semen pumped from her stomach” tale was ganked from Marc Almond. Even “Mike D is Screech’s brother” had its genesis around the release of “Check Your Head”, while we were talking about it circa “Hello Nasty”. However, at least we did get “Beck is the uncle of Hanson but if you talk about it he walks out of interviews”, so that’s well and good.
Is it common knowledge that The Dust Brothers produced “MMMbop”? How on earth did they happen? They spent the entire late 90s dicking around with the aforementioned nutjob Scientologist and KoRn and that fucking awful Fight Club soundtrack, and in the middle of all this they found the time and inspiration to not only produce a bubblegum tweenpop screechathon, but actually take what was originally a plaintiff ballad and turn it into said high-pitched, low-level atrocity? I mean, I like money as well, but not that much.
Actually, that’s unfair. Everyone is hard on “MMMbop”, it’s probably impossible to find any song that was as clowned on by TV comedians in the late 90s. I was once at a wedding where the bride and groom deliberately played “MMMbop” to clear the floor so they could make a speech (admittedly, they did play “Dance the Night Away” by the Mavericks to refill it, so it may not be worth considering this that heavily).
Listening back to it now with non-jaded ears…
a) The guitar is probably the only really annoying thing about it, jangle pop as fucked about with one of those old MIDI programs you had for your 386 PC where you could change all the instrument so “This Charming Man” was being played by a reed organ, two bassoons, machine gun fire samples and a chorus of owls.
b) Can’t make out a fucking word any of them are saying. Something about hair?
c) The tiny one, who was, like, 11 when this dropped, really doesn’t provide that pleasant a counterpoint to the other two. He doesn’t so much as compliment their voices as act like very slight radio interference on them.
d) Hey, remember Next of Kin?
e) And The Moffats
f) Great times
So yeah, in summary, it wasn’t that awful, and really, in a year that also saw #1s for the ever-popular amongst rap fans “I’ll Be Missing You”, the seventy-four minute coke whinge of “D’you Know What I Mean” and fucking “Perfect Day”, it even begins to look bearable. In 2009, Hanson perform this song in a lower key due to changes in their voice. So that’s good to know.
4 responses so far ↓
F // July 14, 2009 at 10:42 am |
Wes Butters interviewed the post-2000 overdrive pedal/descended testes version of Hanson in ‘05, started talking about MnMs being on their rider and then tried to pun this into “MnMnMmmBop”, to embarrassed silence
I’m just saying
Dom Passantino // July 14, 2009 at 10:56 am |
People like to talk trash on Wes Butters, but he did suck Paul Gambaccini’s dick for a number of months, which is something none of us will ever do.
biche // July 14, 2009 at 8:01 pm |
Hanson facts:
1) I used to have a massive crush on Taylor Hanson (which I now chalk down to a pubescent lesbian phase )
2) Aforementioned brother now has four children, dispite the relatively tender age of 26 or so, so I’m actually quite glad I didn’t live out my twelve year old dream of going to Tulsa to woo him with my near identical haircut.
3) I once spent an entire family holiday hunched in the back of the car listening to Mmmbop on loop on my cassette walkman and driving my family mental with my reverently whispered singing along.
4) Due to 1) and 3) I am completely unable to judge this song, twelve years on, as it still makes my stomach twinge slightly.
Oversharing is caring yo…
Jeana // July 14, 2009 at 9:44 pm |
Guess what number critics voted “MMMBop” to on the most prestigious critics poll in the US, the Village Voice Pazz and Jop? If you guessed “number one”, you’re right!