Album: Hold Me Up
Year: 1990
I don’t remember where I read it, but around the time this album came out, there was an article in some music magazine where Goo Goo Guitarist Johnny Rzeznik listed his favorite albums, and they were all albums by The Replacements, Hüsker Dü and The Clash.
I remember reading it and thinking, “OK, I need to check these guys out,” and immediately bought Hold Me Up,, which turned out to be one of my favorite punk (or punk-influenced, you snobs) records of the post-Hüskers pre-Nevermind era.
Hold Me Up had just the requisite amount of bratty double-times, raggedy instrumentals, covers both tongue-in-cheek & sincere, and acoustic reveries to keep it moving from start-to-finish.
And in “There You Are,” a genuine anthem, which just jumped out of the rest of the album in the same way that “Within Your Reach” did from Hootenanny or “Diane” did from Metal Circus: a signal that their ambition was bigger than what they were doing.
Armed with a big, repeaty guitar hook that was more R.E.M. or U2 than anything else, “There You Are” dodged and weaved through its verses with George Tutuska’s drums building and freezing and double-timing as it sped to it gigantic chorus.
And I self destruct
I close my eyes and there
There you are
There you are
You are
There you are
After the second verse, Rzeznik takes a long solo where the third verse should be and the song just hits that chorus again and again, until all of my resistance was gone, and I would walk my apartment around randomly singing “Therrrrrrrrrrre you are,” scaring the hell out of my cat.
Maybe it was just that in 1990, there weren’t a whole lot of bands working this seam, which — as you’ve probably figured out — is one of the sweetest of sweet spots for me And Hold Me Up came along at just the right time for me.
Official video for “There You Are”
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