Third Eye Blind Band • Page 79

IMO, Dopamine is charming in its length and variety of sounds and works as a full album. Kinda like Weezer’s EWBAITE, which doesn’t really sound like classic Weezer but it’s kinda weird and fun and works despite being a little scattershot with the focus. Everything after is for completists only with a handful of tracks per release that rise above that.

 

I adore Shipboard Cook and Dopamine (the song) is very very solid. Everything is Easy is good.

Get Me out of Here and Rites of Passage are good tunes.

The rest of it is kinda middle of the road listenable unoffensive 3EB

I haven't found much to go back to on the later albums and EP's and I miss the Jenkins lyrics/melodies of the early albums, the man was a goddamn melodic genius.

 

Back to Zero is an absolute tune as well

 

nailed it perfectly

 

Excited to dig more into the Eric Valentine video, but of course Jenkins is all about I, me, myself when talking about the band.

 

I would add I almost consider Dopamine in a different tier than what followed. I enjoy most of Dopamine, even if it's obviously not even really "Third Eye Blind" at that point. Once Tony left the band that kind of seemed like the death of 3EB in most respects, which is why everything after Ursa is just not it for me. But what came after Dopamine was much more miss than hit.

 

I don’t think the band was ever truly the same after Cadogan left.

I still enjoy Out of the Vein, but it isn’t as strong as the self titled and Blue album.

 

Out of the Vein has “darker/bleaker second installment of a trilogy” vibes but it’s slotted in the fun safe-for-kids Return of the Jedi slot. I wasn’t big on it at the time but I’ve learned to appreciate it as the last really funky solid 3EB record.

(I’m not a member of the Ursa Major stan community)

 

Yeah, I’ll take Out of the Vein over Blue any day of the week, personally.

 

Kevin’s guitar added vibes/emotional gravitas that really served the songs well.

 

If they’d just made an album out of all the strongest tracks from the last 20 years it would be a hell of an album

Company of Strangers
Sharp Knife
Dust Storm
Water Landing
Back to Zero
Bonfire
Tropic Scorpio
Shipboard Cook
Dao of St Paul
Ways
Silverlake Neophyte
Monotov’s Private Opera


So much of the filler is just trash music by comparison

 

Excising so much of Ursa Major is a rookie mistake.

 

That’s a decent disc though….

 

Self-titled is always #1 for me. I have days where I think OOTV is better than Blue, but the guitar work in Blue always pulls me back.

If I was to be able and go back and tinker with OOTV to improve it, I'd do the following:

* Remove "Danger." Too generic and bland. It was a tougher call, but I'd remove "Company" as well. Just hate the guitar and the overall sound of this. Wanders into the generic area a bit too much. "Self-Righteous" gets the boot too. It's fine, but not one I go back to much.

* Change the tracklist to as follows:

1."Faster"
2. Blinded
3."Forget Myself"
4."My Hit and Run"
5. "Wake for Young Souls"
6. "Another Life"
7. "Good Man"
8. "Misfits"
9. "Palm Reader"
10. "Crystal Baller"
11."Can't Get Away" (but the "tater tots" lyric is tossed lol)
12."My Time In Exile" (adding it here, always loved this one)

To me, that batch is all killer, no filler (I have always loved Misfits, the chorus is so good to my ears).

 

Tater tots is maybe a top 2 all-time 3EB lyric.

 

My Hit And Run is the most overlooked/underrated track of their entire career. So good.

Just one man’s opinion

 

one of their top 10 songs absolutely

 

Not sure SJ agrees. Have they ever played it live? I don’t recall them even playing it when touring that album

 

Hit and run is my fave

 

As a professional car karaoke superstar.... perhaps it's a hard song to sing live? It feels like the key of the chorus is pretty high and would be straining to do live.

But yeah, it's a fantastic song. Super visual imagery, unique structure, memorable guitar work... love it.

 

Putting "Good Man" and "Another Life" in the middle of the tracklist is a truly bizarre move, imo. Two extremely "final" songs that end that album on such a perfectly melancholy note.

 

I think my main motivation for bumping them up is that I've always felt Good Man was hugely underrated. One of my favorite lyrics from Jenkins, which is saying something as peak Jenkins is my favorite lyricist ever. This verse particularly, shew wee:

And how do you do it when I'm overwhelmed by a violet sky?
And we fly in a decayed orbit 66,000 miles an hour goes by
When we kissed and only now do I feel your mouth
Like an ache you never knew
And it was right in front of you
Oh how do you do it? Roots in the soil untangled
Releasing in sweet summer oil, still I recoil like mace
In all the little moments I pushed you away that I can't erase
Every moment overflows with power, 66,000 miles an hour

It's a great closer though. No arguments putting it at the end.