![]() ![]() Modulating the presentation to portray Loeb in three dimensions, Tails - which recycles four songs from the cassette - employs solo simplicity (“Sandalwood”), punchy rock (“Taffy,” “Garden of Delights,” “Alone”), surging power pop (the Bangles-like “Waiting for Wednesday”), baroque folk-pop with strings (“It’s Over,” “Hurricane”), even something like country (“Lisa Listen”). Conveniently, that also puts it as far as possible from “It’s Over,” a song which shares its melody. And, to a degree, it succeeds in moving her past The Big Hit, which is wisely saved for the album’s final slot. Produced slowly by Loeb and boyfriend Juan Patiño (who also recorded her debut) under the glowering cloud of commercial expectations, Tails is a painstaking translation of Loeb’s music into mainstream presentability. Several fine numbers (“It’s Over,” “Come Back Home”) stumble over language offenses: words like “stultify” and “muse,” and references to Hadrian’s Wall are not indicative of acute artistic judgment. But while the songs demonstrate Loeb’s impressive compositional imagination, they also reveal her blind spot to lyrical clumsiness. Straightforward acoustic-guitar renderings of material both ingratiatingly lovely (“Snow Day,” “Hurricane,” “Guessing Game,” “Do You Sleep”) and irritatingly precious (“This,” “Airplanes,” “Train Song”), the cassette - which does not include “Stay” in any form - suggests the sensitive seriousness of a young Paul Simon. Long before her lucky break, the result of a friendship with actor Ethan Hawke, the Texas émigré had committed ten songs to tape and sold an untitled cassette of them at gigs. ![]() Beginning your career at the top leaves little room for missteps.įar from an arriviste sensation, Loeb had been performing with her unstable band, Nine Stories (so named in collegiate tribute to J.D. With the success of “Stay (I Missed You),” New York singer/songwriter Lisa Loeb became a hot property with a pretty voice, horn-rimmed glasses and a millstone around her neck. Hawke also directed the video below… a nice single-shot steadicam deal.įinally, as a bonus, here’s a clip of Loeb making a cameo on The Colbert Report.In the summer of ’94, a smart, sensitive take on modern relationship travails popped off the Reality Bites soundtrack to become the first single by an unsigned artist to ever top the Billboard chart. He brought a tape of this song to Ben Stiller and convinced him to use it in a film they were shooting, Reality Bites. Hawke lived across from Loeb in New York City and became a fan of the unsigned artist. The most interesting thing about this song is how it led to her big break through the intervention of none other than Ethan Hawke. It’s destined to be on ‘Great Songs of the 90s’ compilations for as long as things like that exist. Her first and only hit, it’s a sugar-sweet break-up ballad that works like a charm. It’s kind of like Rhianna’s haircut, which seemed to get more press than her songs.Īside from her glasses, Loeb is known for one thing, and that’s this song… ‘Stay.’ Not to diminish her talents as a singer and songwriter, but it’s hard to deny the power of image in popular music. Loeb has had a very limited amount of success but I’d guess what little she’s had can be largely attributed to her eye wear. ![]() “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.” So said Dorothy Parker, who clearly didn’t anticipate Tina Fey or today’s artist, Lisa Loeb. ![]()
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