Dopamine has really grown on me as a whole. Crisp production that’s aged well. The slower songs grew on me the most. Always liked the album art too.
I loved dopamine immediately when it dropped. The opener everything is easy is one of the most catchy songs ever written. The bass line alone is just too good
They sunk to the background for me after Ursa and the long break between albums after and Dopamine instantly propelled them back to the top of my list of favorite bands. The stuff after has been uneven but I’ve not let them slink away out of focus again. I’m always holding out hope every next 3EB album will be great.
Water Landing - Dao of St. Paul - Monotov's Private Opera is an insane trio of songs that end the album (exclude the word last track) that's up there with the back ends of Blue and s/t. And then Bonfire?? Sharp Knife? SUMMER TOWN?!??? absolutely loaded
Ursa is better in hindsight but, at the time, they were moving away from their own previous level, their individual popularity was fading, their genre itself was fading, they were having behind the scenes legal and interpersonal issues, and it was their only release within a 12 year period. All that together, at least for me, contributed to the band slipping into a bit of a rear view. Dopamine proved they had a second life as an active quasi-indie band and that Jenkins and hired guns could make stuff that was good in its own right.
The two singles Can You Take Me and Don’t Believe a Word were so thirsty though. It is a really uneven album for me and the deeper cuts are the ones that spill over and can be appreciated in their post-fame career in hindsight, IMO.
Sounds like you care about a lot of external things, which is fine, but I don't care about most of what you wrote. I like good tunes and this album has so many great great songs
It’s all good. I think the meaning of a song for me is definitely informed by the context in which it was created/released. I recently binged the Alkaline Trio discography which I never listened to before and that was an example of being able to listen to music distilled from its context, since I didn’t have any, but I was still finding myself curious what was going on for the band when each album was recorded/released.
I was re-reading the oral history of Third Eye Blind's debut on Billboard (truly an excellent read if you haven't read it) and would love to know what recording Blue was look. Based on various accounts, including Max Collins' blog, it seems like Stephan and Kevin were already at each other while on tour in 1998 so would be curious to know how that whole album went down. The promotion of Blue was really odd as well, and I still think they made a few wrong choices singles-wise but, as a fan, was a cool progression from the self-titled.
The only album I didn’t care for was the last one. I was legitimately bummed when it came out because dopamine & screamer were so good! Even I jammed the covers EP more
Screamer is so weird, because it has some absolute heaters and some absolute trash. Definitely better than the last album, though, which mostly just felt undercooked to me.
Screamer felt like the safe album that mostly rested on their laurels and did it well, and the new one really stretched themselves and tried a bunch of things, but didn't really do it successfully
I think they wanted A Band Aparte to be their Folklore/stripped down artsier indie pandemic record but it was really underbaked. The Joy Division-ish song was very cool though.
I've barely scratched the surface with their discography. What's the general consensus on Out of the Vein? I've only heard Blinded and Crystal Baller but love them.
It’s fantastic. As mentioned above, it lives in the shadow of the first two but you could argue it’s their most focused and cohesive record. I think it’s the closest Jenkins has come to realizing his dream of being the front man of a respected, serious DIY-but-ready-for-prime-time rock band. There is nothing as pop twee as Never Let You Go or as adult contemporary as Deep Inside of You or over-the-top rock and roll posturing like Red Summer Sun (like all those btw). They show a ton of restraint when it comes to not genre hopping and going after low hanging radio fruit. It’s just one straight up great guitar alt-rock song after another.