…and we are not alone.
In February 1998, I was living with my parents, working two jobs, and attending community college in southeast Kansas. The nearest “real” cities with anything to do were two hours away (pick a cardinal direction and you’ll hit one). Music was my escape. Downward is Heavenward was one of my favorite “escapist” albums.
Flashback three years earlier. I had my first run in with Hum at an amusement park in Kansas City called Worlds of Fun. Lawrence, Kansas’ radio station Lazer 105.9 put on an all day long concert with both local bands and up-and-coming national acts. RCA had just released Hum’s major label debut (You’d Prefer an Astronaut) and “Stars” was set to go supernova (note to self – way to work that in there). It was the intellectual and romantic-in-the-classic-sense-of-the-word lyrics married to loud dropped-D chugging that was unlike anything my teenage ears had heard. It wasn’t your run-of-the-mill 90s rock. It wasn’t self-apathetic grunge, it wasn’t overtly boyfriend/girlfriend music (although it was, hidden in metaphor and scientific terminology).