There’s a concert on campus this evening by Third Eye Blind, best known for the doo-doo-doo chorus of “Semi-Charmed Life” from about ten years ago. I wasn’t aware that they were still together, but they’re apparently here, and playing a show on the court where we usually play our pick-up basketball games.
When I was at Yale, one of their songs came up on the Internet radio thing I was listening to at the time, and one of the grad students in the group pegged them pretty accurately as a Car Radio Band: their better songs have a sort of doofy charm such that when you’re driving alone, and they come on the radio, you’ll turn it up and sing along. You wouldn’t want to have to admit to owning the album, though.
I like that description a lot, and it works for a number of other bands, as well. Meat Loaf would probably be the other canonical example of a Car Radio Band (well, it’s one guy, but you know what I mean…). Owning Bat Out of Hell is an automatic deduction of 100 Hipster Cred Points, and any of the sequel records will lose you 1000 HCP. There’s no ironic exception, either– you can’t ironically enjoy Jim Steinman songs. But they do have a certain loopy grandeur, and it’s hard not to sing along when they come up on the radio…
What are some other Car Radio Bands?
(For the record, I own Bat Out of Hell on CD, and have the first Third Eye Blind record on cassette tape. I bought some of their other songs on iTunes, as well. Nobody has ever mistaken me for a hipster, though.)