Third Eye Blind is one of the albums I’ve put off writing about for over a year since I started this project of listening and writing about an album a day for the one distinct reason that it’s an absolutely perfect album. Hard stop. There isn’t a song on here that I skip. I make the conscious decision to dedicate an hour of my life to intently listen to every single section and little ear worm without interruption. I fist pump alone in my room every time Stephan Jenkins drops a perfect lyric line, delivered with perfect enunciation, and delivered alongside a perfect musical counterpart. Take for example the last 1/3 of the album’s second track “Narcolepsy”– it’s the best guitar breakdown of the 90’s (before breakdowns were even a thing) and the song ends with Jenkins singing “slide” while the instruments slide down in pitch before the guitar in your right ear hits a rough fret buzzy slide to cap off the song. It’s fucking cinema. Every single moment of it.
These dudes were operating at such a different level in 1997 it’s almost embarrassing to listen to my own music in juxtaposition. There have been days where I deliberately avoid listening to this album for fear that I’ll get thrown for a loop and give up writing that night knowing I’ll never be able to touch the absolute pinnacle of alternative rock songwriting that these guys reached. And yet, when I’m in the mood to be just a bit of a masochist, I’ll throw it on and just soak in the radiant harmonies and impeccably-timed rhythm section that pulsates throughout every inch of this record and resign myself to the fact that every other musician on planet Earth would give up years of their life to even come close to putting something like this together. And to think that it was their debut album (the hands-down best debut in the history of rock in my opinion) makes it even more magnificent.
Of course I’m an absolute stan for Stephan Jenkins– his lyrical wordplay is unmatched, his sexual double entendres are rock hard, and his vocal talent is simply sublime. This is one of America’s greatest living songwriters, whose themes of suicide, drug addiction, and sexual abuse are so incredibly poignant and heavy and yet remain relatable. This was a guy who managed to get a song on the radio about crystal meth addiction that moms would all sing along to (“Semi-Charmed Life”) and no one even cared because the hooks and storytelling were just that good. But here’s the thing that gets me most about Third Eye Blind– they are so much more than Jenkins. There’s the dynamic delivery of lead guitarist Kevin Cadogan (from the shredfest on “Graduate” to the glorious groove on “Burning Man”), the exquisitely timed fills of drummer Brad Hargreaves (1:34 on “Losing A Whole Year” being a subtle reminder that he was on one), and the way that bassist Arion Salazar seems to always find a way to play off his rhythm section compatriots in a way that elevates each song (the bridge and outro on “Jumper” being one of the best low-key bass lines on this album). Every part in every section is meticulously crafted. There isn’t a wasted note.
Third Eye Blind forever shaped my love for music the moment I first heard it as a 9-year old at the Las Hadas apartments in Cupertino. I’ll forever be proud to call it the first album I ever owned (I was gifted it by my parents on the same day I got Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ Let’s Face It and Backstreet Boys’ self-titled debut album) and outside of Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run (another one I’ve been too anxious to touch) there isn’t a collection of songs by an artist that has moved me as deeply as this one.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I have for all these years.
Standout Songs: Drop everything and just listen to the whole damn thing
