What would you say is the frequency, Kenneth?: A Musical Awakening Story (Part 2)
As "Monster" and "Under The Table and Dreaming" turn 30 this week, I reflect on how R.E.M. and Dave Matthews Band triggered what would become my personal Musical Awakening™️
(Note: To celebrate this week’s simultaneous 30th anniversary of the release of R.E.M.’s “Monster” and Dave Matthews Band’s “Under The Table And Dreaming,” I’ve put together a two-part retrospective review of these albums and how they literally changed the way I heard and consumed music. Part 1 focused on R.E.M. Part 2 takes a deeper dive into Dave Matthews Band.)
Can you name a moment in time when your life changed forever?
I’m sure you can. It could be something personal, like when you got married, when your child(ren) was(were) born, or when a loved one passed away. It could be something public and shared, like the fall of the Berlin Wall or the time Appalachian State hilariously beat then-No. 5 Michigan 34-32 on Sept. 1, 2007.
For all of us, days — even singular moments within those days — stand out in the timeline of our lives. They’re frozen in our minds, moments we’ll never forget. Those days/moments are the bright line between the person we were and the person we will forever be.
For me, Tuesday, Sept. 27, 1994, specifically was NOT a lifechanging moment, a day which inherently contained some sort of cosmic significance, almost as if it were the temporal junction point for the entire space-time continuum, like, say, November 12, 1955. (Great Scott!)
Tangentially, however, that day DID ultimately change my musical life. It was the unofficial day of my Musical Awakening™️, the phrase I use to describe the period of time where I went from being a passive music listener to an active participant in discovering and curating my own music. It was the day R.E.M. released “Monster” and Dave Matthews Band released “Under The Table And Dreaming.”
Dave Matthews Band and “Under The Table And Dreaming”
This is, first and foremost, a Substack newsletter dedicated to chatting about the Billboard charts, so I try to make some kind of connection to either the flagship Billboard Hot 100 chart or, more intentionally, the alternative-leaning Modern Rock Tracks chart. A lot of times, songs appear at the top of the charts when I think they shouldn’t, and songs that should be at the top just don’t make it there. Music charts are weird in that way.
So it goes with Dave Matthews Band, arguably one of the most culturally ubiquitous rock acts of the mid to late 1990s, with a strong popular following outside of alternative rock circles. Many of their most popular songs were released in a window between Sept. 27, 1994, and the end of that decade. If you had to guess, how many of those songs do you think charted on the Hot 100 during the 1990s?
The answer: one song.
“Crush,” a single off DMB’s third studio album, “Before These Crowded Streets,” was the first song from the band to chart on the Hot 100. Even more stunning: it PEAKED at #75, not even within shouting distance of Casey Kasem’s “American Top 40.”
To be fair, some of that has to do with the way Billboard magazine charted singles prior to 1999, a system that required anything appearing on the Hot 100 to be released as a commercial single, separate from its album. Record companies in the 1990s, hungry for the cash that came with selling full albums, often didn’t market radio singles as individual units for sale in record stores, so many of the popular songs of the era never charted on the Hot 100. (As an example: Ask yourself how it’s possible for a song like No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak,” arguably the band’s finest track off “Tragic Kingdom” and literally unavoidable on the radio in late 1996, to not appear on the Hot 100, when it almost certainly should have been a #1 hit. You’re singing it in your head right now, aren’t you? Yup, the charts are weird like that.)
Even though Dave Matthews Band didn’t crack the Hot 100 with any of the singles from their debut album “Under The Table And Dreaming,” they were making waves on the radio and on both the alternative and pop radio landscape. Those waves crashed into me (terrible pun) sometime in late 1994 when I heard “What Would You Say” for the very first time. And I was hooked.
Unlike R.E.M., whose album “Monster” was the ninth studio release from the band, DMB did not have a prodigious history of music to fall back on. These guys were brand new, and there was something different about them that hit me sonically in just the right way.
Everything in “What Would You Say” is perfection: Dave Matthews’ acoustic guitar/vocal combo slaps from start to finish, the perfect rhythm combo of the drums and bass, and the unusual but noticeably fresh inclusion of both a saxophonist AND a violin player. Everyone is at the top of their musical game with this song, including a guest performance by John Popper of Blues Traveler with a not-too-off-putting harmonica.
Even though it didn’t chart on the Hot 100, “What Would You Say” felt like it was everywhere in late 1994 into 1995. By the summer of ‘95, the track was a top-10 hit on the Billboard Pop Airplay chart, and managed a #11 peak on the Modern Rock Tracks chart. And for me, it was fun to hitch myself to the bandwagon of a band that everyone else was discovering for the first time at the same time! Plenty of people could wax nostalgic for earlier hits from R.E.M. or Nirvana or Red Hot Chili Peppers, but to be with a band from the beginning of their rise just felt awesome in its own way.
By the time radio stations got around to playing follow-up single “Ants Marching,” DMB was everywhere. Word of mouth and DMB’s reputation for putting on a tremendous live show helped push the band’s popularity forward, and “Ants” became the second single to have a top-20 presence on Billboard’s myriad airplay charts. The single peaked at #18 on the MRT chart and found a home in the alternative music landscape after grunge hit its peak.
Unlike R.E.M.’s “Monster,” Dave Matthews Band’s “UTTAD” only had three singles released to radio, likely because it took several months for “What Would You Say?” to reach its peak saturation point. By the winter of 1995, “Satellite” was finally released to radio listeners, a dreamy, slower version of the fast-paced rock/jazz/country fusion DMB had perfected with their first two hits. And it was just today that I realized the music video features Johnny Galecki of “Roseanne” and “Big Bang Theory” fame. That song peaked at #18 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart in January 1996.
I’d argue the album is good from start to finish, with many of the non-radio singles going on to become concert staples for the band. Songs like “Jimi Thing,” “Typical Situation” and “Warehouse” are all tremendous, and I imagine at least one of those might have become a radio single if not for the April 1996 release of the band’s follow-up album, “Crash.”
“Under The Table And Dreaming” peaked on the Billboard 200 album chart at #11 in 1995, a slow climb that would not be reflective of the band’s successes going forward. Even though the band wasn’t a presence on the Hot 100 in their early years, they would go on to become an unstoppable sales force through the end of the decade and beyond. And I went along with the ride for a good long time.
Reflecting on the effect of “UTTAD”
There are lots of things that I love about Dave Matthews Band. As I mentioned above, this was the first band I remember backing from the very beginning. Even today, it’s rare for me to get behind a music act right from the very start of their career, and follow them religiously step by step as they ascend — and inevitably descend — from their commercial peak.
When I think of all of my favorite bands, acts like Offspring, Green Day, Smashing Pumpkins, or even more contemporary favorites like Vampire Weekend, Saint Motel, The National, or The War On Drugs, I definitely wasn’t aware of them from the moment they started, but grew to enjoy their catalogs retrospectively. Dave Matthews Band is one of the few that I liked at the start, and that sets them apart from others that became a part of the fabric of my Musical Awakening™️.
Even more than that, Dave Matthews Band was — and still is — a communal experience. Their omnipresence on the radio in the 1990s and 2000s, coupled with their reputation for otherworldly live performances, made them an experience that needed to be shared with others. Indeed, having attended a handful of DMB shows over the years, it’s one of the few bands I’ve seen where I’ve had several friends who might not have otherwise intersected come together with me to see their shows.
On the Venn Diagram of musical tastes and genres, DMB always found a way to capture most everybody. They still do, in fact: From the release of their 1998 album “Before These Crowded Streets” all the way up to the 2018 release of “Come Tomorrow,” each of their studio albums earned the distinction of being #1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. If you’re making #1 albums for 20 consecutive years, you’re doing something right! (As a footnote, the follow-up album to “UTTAD,” “Crash,” peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200.)
That said, unlike R.E.M., I don’t find myself revisiting Dave Matthews Band that often in 2024. Their music appears to be weirdly absent from ‘90s alt-rock stations as well; indeed, I’ll occasionally hear “Crash Into Me” or “Tripping Billies” from the “Crash” album, or “Crush” from “Before These Crowded Streets,” but I don’t often hear much of anything from “Under The Table And Dreaming.”
And strangely, for as much as I’ve been invested in music journalism on Substack, Dave Matthews Band is not often the subject of discussion among the myriad writers here who write about the history of music from previous generations. I’m not sure if that’s because DMB was a band that burned white-hot in the zeitgeist and never found a place after that time, or if they were too overplayed, or if people just outgrew them and left them in the past. Given their relative superstardom at the time, it’s weird that they feel more like a footnote than an institution.
Whatever the reason for their absence from the music conversation in the 2020s, just listening to some of the tracks from “Under The Table And Dreaming” brought back the most vivid and illustrative memories from a time when music discovery felt fresh and new. They really didn’t sound like anything else on the radio at that time.
Because of DMB and R.E.M., the mid ‘90s will always be the epicenter of when I fell in love with music, when I began devouring everything that crossed over to the top of the Billboard charts. While it’s absurd that it has been 30 YEARS since that first awakening, I love having a platform like Substack to share those memories and, hopefully, strike a chord with others who have similar experiences.
Thanks for tagging along on this two-part tangent from my usual schtick!
What’s YOUR Musical Awakening™️?
I don’t often ask my readers to comment, but I’m curious to know what your Musical Awakening™️ moment or moments are. What time period triggered your love of music? What band set you on the path to independent musical discovery? When did it happen? Reach out in the comments!
I’m sure you’ve heard Stevie Nicks’ live cover of “Crash Into Me” right? I do love that version.
Great write up - love to see the passion that you have for music.
I still think Under the Table and Dreaming is a great album from start to finish. I've never really understood why so many critics bash the band. I think their songs are timeless. I was already in my 30s when this album came out so it wasn't really a musical awakening for me (that was probably Blondie's Parallel Lines in 1979) but it still affected me deeply.