Epic Soundtracks, Evan Dando
Not in four decades of pop music has a rock star elicited such extreme reactions among young people as Evan Dando. He has inspired both a fanzine devoted solely to not liking him and a song by the young boys of Noise Addict that expresses their desire to be like him. From 1986 to 1991, Dando’s band the Lemonheads enjoyed underground credibility on college radio stations. But in 1992, when It’s a Shame About Ray found its way onto MTV, the critics started focusing on other things. The singer’s modest charm and honeyed looks started attracting attention from image-oriented entertainment magazines such as Interview, and he was dubbed “alternahunk.”
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In the 90s, however, a new female audience cropped up. Typically intelligent high school or college students, these women felt alienated from grim heavy metal and male punk. They too felt insulted by Duran Duran and Bon Jovi. These are women who like music, don’t settle for Top 40, and don’t scream at shows. Some of the bands they like happen to feature good-looking guys; looks can be a hook, as any guy who likes Juliana Hatfield will attest. But mostly they like bands playing creative music, challenging gender stereotypes, singing about relationships with depth and originality, and sporting a sense of humor. Bands like the Lemonheads and Chicago’s Lupins.
The Lemonheads’ music has never been complacent, formulaic bubblegum pop. Instead it’s evolved from irreverent punk/pop in a Replacements vein to Replacements-meet-George Jones. Dando has taken on increasingly meaningful song topics; he wrote a few particularly daring songs on 1993’s Come On Feel the Lemonheads. The most commercially successful antimacho song by a man is arguably that album’s “Big Gay Heart,” Dando’s protest against homophobia. On “Paid to Smile,” he sings first about his own doubts about alternahunk status, then about the cocktail waitress who hates her job but gets good tips and “gets paid to smile.” In drawing a parallel between the two situations, Dando displays great empathy for the women in his audience. “Paid to Smile” reminds me of Paul Westerberg’s song “Aching to Be,” in which he sang about his own need to be understood and self-expressive and the need many women have for the same thing. Both songwriters blur the line between audience and fan. That’s not the behavior of a pinup boy, but rather of a musician with a message.
The Lupins’ ultimate tears-of-a-clown song is their “When I…,” an up-tempo pop tune that actually features sarcastic ha-has. The narrator’s girlfriend suddenly dumps him, so he says, “There isn’t anyone in this room that would tell you I did something wrong / So I know you love me / Ha ha / Ha ha / It’s my life, it’s my pain.”
