Soundtrack of Your (So-Called) Life

  Soundtrack of Your Life is an occasional feature in which we mark the songs of our relative youth as played over public muzak systems.

That Hulu binge we were on allowed for some TV viewing. We revisited "My So-Called Life" from 1994-95, and I was reminded of how charmed I was back in the day not only by the interactions of the three engaging teens but also by the parents, whose age I was closer to at the time. Claire Danes as, like, the beta emo chick; the endlessly appealing A.J. Langer as the art-punk Rayanne; Wilson Cruz as shy gay Rickie; and, of course, Jared Leto as Jordan Catalano! I picked up on Winnie Holzman's call-backs to "Square Pegs," another short-lived gem from more than a decade earlier. 

It's the soundtrack that helps sell the show. The first episode crescendoed with the now-cliche "Everybody Hurts" from R.E.M., and the 19-show playlist includes such early '90s darlings as Juliana Hatfield, the Cranberries, Afghan Whigs, Archers of Loaf, and even a nugget from Daniel Johnston (at least on the soundtrack).

The show premiered in late 1994, coasting on the gasoline fumes of the Heyday of the Planet of Sound, which had ended just months earlier with the death of Kurt Cobain (whose R.I.P. Rolling Stone cover is glimpsed during the Halloween episode). In my car I've been listening to an Apple Music algorithm that has spun off from that era's Wedding Present and Wonderstuff into some deep cuts (James' "Sit Down," for example). I'm reminded that nothing has quite sounded like Inspiral Carpets, either before or after their run three decades ago. 

I could go on about "My So-Called Life," but the song that inspired this post appeared in episode 11, spinning, improbably, at the high school dance. It was from those faux hipster-doofuses from the Chicago scene, Urge Overkill. That same year they would break big on the "Pulp Fiction" soundtrack with a Neil Diamond cover (that was originally on their "Stull" EP). When I heard the song last night I needed to Shazam it in order to identify the familiar beat.

Date: November 21, 2023, 7:20 p.m.

Place: Home

Song:  "Dropout"

Artist: Urge Overkill

Irony Matrix: 1.5 out of 10

Comment: With the album "Saturation," Urge Overkill went national with ironic power-rock songs like "Sister Havana," "Erica Kane" and "Bottle of Fur." "Dropout" is dripping with angst. "You're too old to cry," they deadpan, "you're too young to die." They name-check Dairy Queen. It fades out with a pleasant shuffle after nearly five minutes. The boys took a lot of crap as poseurs and obnoxious scenesters. They had indie cred on Touch and Go Records, working with star producer/engineers Butch Vig and Steve Albini. With "Saturation" they sold out to Geffen Records, and they would quickly flame out in '95, doomed to the cut-out bins. For a while they held their own with Chicago rivals Smashing Pumpkins, Liz Phair and Veruca Salt. It was a moment. 

Albini would infamously turn on Urge Overkill and the others, in a blistering letter to the weekly Chicago Reader titled "Three Pandering Sluts and Their Music-Press Stooge," a literal "fuck you" to rock critic Bill Wyman. Castigating the bands as major-label whores, he refers to UO as "Weiners in suits playing frat party rock, trying to tap a goofy trend that doesn’t even exist." The whole letter is worth a read. (The vivid language still resonates, from "you wave your boob flag proudly" to "you don't know shit from fat meat.") I still laugh at his comparison of Phair to Rickie Lee Jones ("a fucking chore to listen to"). Like I said, it was a moment, and we tended to get a little het up about such things. 

I found something to appreciate about Urge Overkill, Smashing Pumpkins ("Siamese Dream" still mostly holds up) and even Phair, who, bless her heart, couldn't sing (every generation gets the Stevie Nicks it deserves), but "Girls! Girls! Girls!" is a great single. Urge Overkill might have, as Albini predicted, blown their promo wads and sunk into obscurity, but their early stuff had some heft to it. We'll always have Guyville.

BONUS TRACK

Episode 12 of "My So-Called Life" promises a live performance by the era's ultimate power trio Buffalo Tom. Let's spin one of our all-time favorites (and my dog Remy's, too, at the time), "Velvet Roof":