I've been nostalgic for high school lately, which led me back to Dave Matthews Band and their first two major-label albums, Under the Table and Dreaming and Crash. It's hard to explain to people now, but at the time, in the atonal, minor-chord angry-pop world of post-grunge, Dave Matthews really did sound revolutionary. His return to complex major key melodies and polyphonic harmonies was such a welcome respite to the simplistic emotive punk of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Live (et. al.) It's easy to dismiss that contribution now, but it had a major impact on pop music that still resonates 15 years later.
In revisiting this welcome return to musicality, I discovered that Dave Matthews Band has a new album coming out on June 2 called Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King, and you can listen to an exclusive track right now on Pandora. The album is a memorial to fallen band member Leroi Moore, and it feels like a return to DMB's earliest material, which was a true collaboration among musical equals.
While there, check out a couple of videos of the band in the studio, where they talk about the difficulty of losing Leroi and how his death brought them all back together in the studio. (Loved the shot of Dave talking about how much "the hippies will love this!")
Only at Pandora. Check it out.
