Album of the Day — January 12
Matchbox 20 — Yourself or Someone Like You — 1996
Matchbox 20 — Yourself or Someone Like You — 1996
12.January.2021
Matchbox 20
Yourself or Someone Like You
1996
Matchbox 20 get a bum wrap. The musical cognoscenti sometimes fail to recognize how well written, performed, and produced pop music can still be art.
Yourself or Someone Like You, Matchbox 20’s debut, is a perfect example of exactly that kind of sublime pop album.
The first week of its release, the album sold a little over 600 copies. I don’t think anyone would’ve thought it would go on to be one of the few albums to sell 12 million copies in the US and become an international hit.
Rob Thomas was barely out of his teens when he began writing the majority of the songs on the album. As such, they contain some of the themes relevant to teens like depression, anger, humiliation, loneliness, etc., which may help explain the appeal and universality of Yourself or Someone Like You.
The first two singles, “Long Day” and “Push,” performed decently enough, but it would be the third single, “3 AM,” that shot the band into the stratosphere. While it sounds like a kind of anti-love song about placing blame at the end of a relationship, “3 AM” was actually inspired by lead singer Rob Thomas’ mother fighting to survive cancer.
Critics mostly liked the album. Only one would use his pen (or keyboard) to review it in four words. Robert “Dean of American Rock Critics” Christgau simply wrote: “Clods have feelings too.” But, even Christgau would probably consider himself one of the musical cognoscenti.
Yourself or Someone Like You has sold over 15 million copies worldwide. If Matchbox 20 are “clods” then so are the people who bought and ENJOYED the record.
The wonder of good music is its ability to transcend its time. Listen to this album today, and I guarantee those first seven tracks will put you in a place of musical bliss.
I suspect people are always going to slag Matchbox 20 for their music. But then, people always slagged Journey for theirs …and both bands have built successful careers and legions of fans by creating well written, performed, and produced pop music, aka art.
That, friends, is hardly the mark of a “clod.”