Confessions of a Fanboy

I’ve now listened through A Fine Frenzy’s One Cell in the Sea a couple of times and it’s already evoking memories of events its music never saw.

Listening to this record reminds me of what I like to call my Angry Lesbian period. I’d just come through a hideously painful breakup, and returned home from Colorado with no sense of direction and with a lower opinion of myself than normal.

The breakup itself isn’t all that noteworthy. It’s one of those three sides to every story situations, although I’m certainly most interested in my side, and why wouldn’t I be? In fairness, I think everyone who saw it knew the thing was doomed from the word “go” and it’s not like I didn’t eventually land on my feet.

Anyway, the time period in which I was licking my wounds and feeling sorry for myself coincided with the rise of successful women fronting bands and female singer/songwriters having big hits in the mid-to-late ’90s. No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom and Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill were huge hits (I didn’t like either of them). Fiona Apple’s debut Tidal was launching, Shawn Colvin’s A Few Small Repairs produced a couple hits, Sarah McLachlan was on the verge of launching the massive Lilith Fair, Sheryl Crow was still a critical and commercial darling, and I’m sure I’m leaving a lot of people out.

I was listening to a lot of Shawn Colvin, Sheryl Crow, and Fiona Apple during that stretch. I was completely obsessed with Sarah McLachlan’s Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and Surfacing.

Yeah, underneath my surly, profane, disagreeable shell I was capable of being a total sap. Can you imagine why I stayed on the tree so long? In my defense, it’s not like the music wasn’t really, really good.

A Fine Frenzy would have sold millions if Alison Sudol had been old enough to make this record then. I can tell because this record has put me back in my way-back machine, especially “You Picked Me.” Having decidedly not been picked, I would have sat in dark rooms hypnotized by this song.

The story has a happy ending, though. A few years later, I met TheWifeToWhomI’mMarried and I no longer wished Biblical plagues on the girl who dumped my ass… and yes, I still kept all those records.

Filed under: Tags: Musical Musings and Random Ramblings