Third Eye Blind

One Liner:  Doo Doo Doot!  Doo Doo Dooot Doooooo!

Wikipedia Genre:  Pop rock, alternative rock, post-grunge
Home: San Francisco

Poster Position: 5

Both Weekends.

Thoughts: Look, man.  I know that, now with like 20 years of hindsight, "Semi-Charmed Life" is a cheesy ass anthem that involves the heavy use of "doo doo dooot!" -style singing, but whatever.  In my off-campus house in college, we jammed that song without any irony and proudly hollered along to the doo doo doot! bits and the gooooooodbyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeee! pieces.  It's a fun ass song.  I don't care that, now, upon more critical listening, it makes me cringe a little.  It is also, by far, the band's biggest hit with 187.2 million streams.

And its about getting high on meth, right?  That seems super f-ed up to just happily jam along to a song about getting cranked?  It also feels like a song that was featured in lots of movies.  Like, if I were to guess, I'd say it was in So I Married an Axe Murderer, American Pie, and (although I'm almost sure this one can't be correct) Clueless.  Oh hey, it really was used in American Pie!  My brain is a weird machine!

And after that uplifting tune about meth addiction, what is their next big hit?  Oh yeah, the suicide song!  Woohoo!  The singer says that the track is "about a friend who's gay, jumping off a bridge and killing themselves."  Shit, man.  He also claims that it has transformed over time, because audiences seem to think it has "levity" and I have no clue how the audience members would mistake the lyrics for something funny or light?  85.4 million streams.

I mean, I guess you can read those lyrics are being happy because he's telling him not to jump?  I just think the idiot crowd likes singing along to old hits.  Always makes me think of the scene in one of the Lethal Weapons where Mel Gibson makes the potential jumper jump because he knows the pad is down there and the potential jumper is freaking out.

One more major tune from this first album - probably the actual best song of all of them, with kind of an Oasis vibe going on for a longing love song.  "How's It Gonna Be," with just over 65 million streams.

Yeah, that track is better than the other two for sure.  And this is a hell of a debut album, right?  Three major hits, and I'd say that "Graduate" was also a hit, even though one called "Motorcycle Drive By" has more streams at 19.4 million.  Pretty impressive.

If I'm being totally honest here, while I definitely owned this CD back in the day, I could have easily mistaken one of these tracks for a Matchbox 20 song.  Maybe Gin Blossoms too.  I was drinking very heavily when these albums came out.  Also, the YouTube algorithm is trying to get me to watch Lit, Spin Doctors, and Foster the People now, so there's that.

I also remember either owning their next album (1999's Blue), or at least having a handful of downloads of the tracks from it - I know I had "Never Let You Go" in my playlist on WINAMP ("really whips the llamas ASS!") that I used every day at my first job out of college.  It's got a good groove and a fun tune.  Just over 44 million streams.

Nice double neck guitar, bro!  Oooh, and the lead singer went with the long hair now!  Man, that video really sucks ass!  But the tune is still solid.  From that album, "Deep Inside of You" also rings a bell, but its stream count makes it seem like maybe it wasn't a widespread hit.

And then?  Slipped right off the face of the earth, as far as I am concerned.  Nothing in their post 1999 catalog rings any bells whatsoever to me.  And yet they continued to (slowly) crank out albums.  2003's Out of the Vein?  Nope, never heard of any of those tunes.  2009's Ursa Major has a familiar looking cover, like I might have seen it at some point, but no song on the album sounds familiar.  Same with 2015's Dopamine, 2016's We Are Drugs, and 2018's Thanks for Everything.  I will definitely say that they should be proud of sticking to their guns - nothing has changed about these songs in 22 years - still pounding drums, slashing guitars, and that very same singing style rocking out, as though we're still watching Friends and drinking Icehouse.

Before I give you one of those fully mediocre songs to enjoy, I was curious who this band actually is.  I don't know squat about them.  The band is actually out of San Francisco.  Wikipedia says that they signed the largest ever publishing deal for an unsigned artist when they signed with Elektra in 1996.  Wikipedia also says they kicked out the lead guitarist after Blue (and got sued over it), and have had many lineup changes since, with only lead singer and drummer as the constants.  Also, that first album went six times platinum in the US, which is insane.  Interestingly, no Grammy nominations for any of those huge songs or that debut album.

Boy, sure hope they want to play a lot of their tunes from the new album at the show in the Fall!  The opener of the 2018 album has the most streams, but I'm going to give you second place because I think it might actually be a better song - "Fuck Forever" - with 864k streams.

Just kind of a generic rocker and leaning on a cuss word to sound a little more edgy, instead of actually making something edgy.  But not horrible, just whatever.  "In the Fade" isn't horrible either.

Also of note, they have a 2017 live album (foolishly called Summer Gods Tour Live 2017, I mean, come on, man.  You're fucking Third Eye Blind, my dudes), and running through that album is actually really good.  Even if I don't know most of the songs at all, the rock and roll is undeniable.  The crowd participation is great - although his weird anti-Instagram rant in the middle of "Semi Charmed Life" seems out of place (even if I sort of agree with the sentiment).  I already know I'm not going to see this show - Kacey Musgraves 4LYFE! - but I bet its actually pretty damn good.