Have you heard the new car ad that uses Collective Soul's "Shine"? This was one of my least favorite songs of the its era. My best friend Justin and I used to make fun of it all the time when we were 14. We mimicked the ridiculous guttural way the singer says "Yeah!" in the prechoruses. We thought he was trying to sound like Eddy Vedder. We postured in ridiculous rock poses and jammed on that guitar riff over and over again. We thought the riff was inane, but I guess it was pretty fun to play. Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Soul Asylum were the bands we liked. Collective Soul, we thought, was a rip-off, a fake. Another band we liked, but who later became a favorite whipping boy of critics was Stone Temple Pilots. We heard a rumor that Collective Soul wasn't even a "real band," that it was actually just the creation of one producer who put everything together himself. How lame. As bad as we thought "Shine" was, it was far from CS's nadir. They seemed to get cheesier with each album. When overblown bands like Creed became popular in the early 2000s, I thought it sounded like the return of Collective Soul.
No, I won't actually post the "Shine" video here.
Fine.
Here it is, even more magisterial. I can only imagine the hours of laughs Justin and I would have gotten from this absurd performance had it been around back then. (Just wait til it gets to the guitar solo...)
i heard the dream of the 90s is still alive in Portland
ReplyDeleteThe ironic part of the video is that, since the ASYO is comprised of kids between the ages of 13 and 18, and the song came out in 1993, it's entirely likely that none of the kids in the orchestra was even born yet when the song was released.
ReplyDeleteI can just imagine the scene in rehearsal, where the conductor comes in all excited: "guys, I have exciting news! We've been asked to perform with Collective Soul!" And the kids are all like, "who the hell is that?"
That's awesome — I hadn't thought about that. I remember when they tried to make us play the occasional rock song in youth orchestra (one time we did Paula Abdul's "Straight Up") to spice things up. It was sposed to make orchestra more "cool" but you just ended up feeling even more lame.
ReplyDeleteamazing.
ReplyDelete