I'm not saying the Dave Matthews Band has gone anywhere. In fact, online research reveals that they released their eighth studio album in 2012, and have toured for 23 of the past 24 summers. But if you're anything like me (and since I'm a narcissist I can only assume you are) you haven't listened to a single note of DMB since 1998 at the absolute latest.
Wikipedia claims their "years active" as "1991-present," but in my world, their "years active" were 1994-1998. Fin. Full Stop. The End. R.I.P. Dave Matthews Band. But you shouldn't do 'em like that, and aside from their many charitable works, here are four big reasons why:
Wikipedia claims their "years active" as "1991-present," but in my world, their "years active" were 1994-1998. Fin. Full Stop. The End. R.I.P. Dave Matthews Band. But you shouldn't do 'em like that, and aside from their many charitable works, here are four big reasons why:
1. A Walk Down Frat Bro Memory Lane: Everyone knows that DMB was (and for all I know still is) the #1 Frat Bro band of all time. Listening to any song by DMB (but especially "Ants Marching") is like the sonic equivalent of sniffing dry erase markers for the way it feels unhealthy and takes you back to a college quad. A college quad full of Frisbees; dickheads with lacrosse sticks trying to score with Ivory Soap-ad type sorah-rah girls; Natty Ice from a keg in red plastic Solo cups; kids making out on Guatemalan blankets; and trustafarian dorks in Steal Your Face Grateful Dead T-shirts playing hacky sack in a giant circle on the mowed-by-someone-else grass. Right on, Bro!
2. "Satellite" Will Totes Turn Your Kid Into a Full-On STEM Genius: Admit that there was a period of time (again likely 1994-98), when you couldn't even hear the word "satellite" without belting out "SATELLIIIIITE, IN MY EEEYYYYES LIKE A DIAAAMOND IN THE SKYYY HOW I WONDEEEEEER ... WINTER'S COOOLD SPRING ERASES, SOMETHING SOMETHING DADADADADAUH" And further admit that this was also a time when your young mind was malleable and subject to being set on a course for greatness, instead of the dirt-baggery and temporary parental-basement dwelling for which you were sadly destined. Now that Neil deGrasse Tyson has made science cool again, it's time to take this golden oldie out for a spin and sub-consciously hypnotize your kids into becoming astrophysicists.
3. "Crash Into Me" Brings the Junior Varsity Sexy Fun Times: Before there was Taylor Swift or Justin Beiber, there was an unlikely hybrid of the two, and his name was Dave Matthews. If you were a (hetero) girl, you wanted nothing more than for Dave Matthews to sneak into your bedroom window guitar-first and start crooning "Crash Into Me" while you hiked up your skirt a little more and showed your world to him. If you were a guy (also hetero), you would have happily given up a lifetime supply of free pizza for even one ounce of Dave Matthews' game. Instead, you settled for throwing a DMB bootleg into the tape deck of your mom's Volvo station wagon while you tried to get your summer girlfriend to let you finger-bang her in the back seat. Bottom line, this song is a win-win all around because it will remind you what it was like to have sex when sex was all that mattered; as opposed to now, when power-streaming Orange is the New Black and passing out before 9:30 p.m. easily take precedence.
4. Super Bowl 2016!: In researching this blog post, I discovered that DMB is playing a special Super Bowl weekend stand of shows in San Francisco this year! For $75, you can witness the whitest-frat-bro-band-ever-not-100%-made-up-of-white-frat-bros officially jump the shark in the city famous for the cannabinoid plant matter that many of their fans once enjoyed (granted at sub-standard, customer-level quality), but are now contemptuously too "grown-up" for. There's only one thing I love more than NFL football, and that's DMB in 2016.
Bring. It. ON!
Credit: Dave Matthews Band