Posts Tagged ‘Bounce the Ocean’

Hooks ‘N’ You: A Look Back at 2008

hooksnyou.jpgIt’s vacation time already? Awesome! Time to kick back, relax, and…oh, wait, I forgot: this is only a part-time writing gig, and I still have to keep doing my full-time writing gig. Oh, well, at least this means I get a bit of a break from going completely insane on Monday afternoons as I try to finish up my column on time (and inevitably fail miserably at it).

Our commander in chief, Mr. Giles, has told me on several occasions that I shouldn’t feel bad about skipping a week here and there with “Hooks ‘N’ You,” since he knows how much I have to do for Bullz-Eye. Thing is, I enjoy writing this column for the same reason all of us here at Popdose offer our contributions to the site: not because we have to, but because we want to. It’s one big ol’ labor of love, folks. Plus, really, where else on the ‘net could I have the flexibility to write a column that spotlights albums ranging from George Burns to Kylie Minogue?

What it’s also given me, however, is the opportunity to have conversations with several of the artists whose records have provided me with a lot of great spins over the years. I realize that the beauty of having a regular column on a website is that people can just click on the appropriate tag and pull up every single one of your previous works, but when I looked back myself, I realized that A) I’ve talked to a lot of great artists since kicking off this column in January ‘08, and B) even *I* got bored clicking through a year’s worth of columns. So for your easy access, here’s a quick list of the folks who were kind enough to talk with me either by phone or E-mail for “Hooks ‘N’ You” in 2008:

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Hooks ‘N’ You: Bounce the Ocean, “Bounce the Ocean”

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I been in the right place, but it must have been the wrong time.Dr. John

Boy, if that doesn’t sum up the self-titled debut/swan song of Bounce the Ocean, I don’t know what does. Picture it: Washington, 1991. Hawk Bjorn and John Utter are surrounded by the burgeoning world of grunge, but choosing to follow their muse rather than the trends of the day, they produce an album of glossy, harmony-laden pop music that would’ve sounded more at home on the radio in 1981. They still managed to score a decent-sized radio hit, though, thanks to the album’s opening track, “Throw It All Away,” and another song “Wasting My Time” earned them at least a little bit of airplay, though it admittedly did so without ever actually charting.

You’d like to think that it was a testament to the quality of their work (because, wow, those harmonies are fucking incredible), but really, when was the last time quality had anything to do with a song becoming a hit?

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In truth, the band had been working their way up through the ranks for a while, first getting some exposure by getting their music placed in the Patrick Dempsey flick Some Girls (1988), then by getting signed to Private Music, a label that had previously been known solely for its new-age artists (Yanni, Suzanne Ciani) but in ‘91 was getting ink in the music trades for securing Ringo Starr for their roster. It was probably the Private Music connection that did the most for their profile, but a high profile can only do so much when the music you’re making isn’t anything remotely like what “the kids” are listening to. In fact, looking back, it’s somewhat ironic that the band’s big-nosed labelmate was actually playing more to current musical trends than the members of Bounce the Ocean were, since Starr’s album featured a cover of the Posies’ “Golden Blunders” and had Andy Sturmer and Roger Manning from Jellyfish providing harmonies.

But, really, who’s complaining?

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