Jam Band: Hanson's The Best of Hanson: Live and Electric

Hanson has been the butt of many jokes, mine included. In fact, they were thoroughly put down in the premiere episode of CBS’ Love Monkey in Tom Farrell’s (Tom Cavanagh) speech championing the pursuit of true music over being a money-grubbing record label. Farrell is then immediately fired by the label boss who supposedly discovered Hanson. The scene worked because most serious music enthusiasts side with Farrell in thinking that Hanson isn’t worthy of our attention and are just the product of music industry executives trying to cash in on the market of the next big thing.

Now let me tell you what my diet has consisted of lately: humble pie, crow, and foot in mouth, while I swallow my pride and eat my words. The Best of Hanson: Live and Electric completely surprised me. Yes, there’s a lot of pop filler, screaming girls in the crowd, and some teen idol posturing, but there’s also some jamming, grooving, and rocking. I know that no one else in their wildest dreams would call Hanson a Jam Band, but I put them in that category to signal that there’s a lot of groove shaking in what Hanson does, especially on these live tracks. So hopefully calling them a Jam Band got your attention, and you’ll listen again.

“Where’s the Love” sounds like the pop hit it is because of the melodious vocals, but with the groove guitar on hand, it shakes right into the funk breakdown bridge. There’s some Southern Rock coupled with rap-sing on “Look At You,” a blues vamp that could induce a Jam Band to hip swaying.

OK, so the soloing isn’t plentiful or lengthy, and often it depends on additional band member Aaron Kaplan (electric guitar) and Pete Griffin (bass), but there’s more jam in these songs of Hanson (published incidentally by Jam N Bread Music) than you might imagine. Skip over the pop ballads that would’ve sent you to the lobby for a beverage if you had been in the audience, but then start again at track 9 for their cover of U2’s “In a Little While,” a nice tribute with Taylor Hanson’s voice going from its typical Bryan Adams timbre to grab some of Bono’s voice-cracking passion. Skip over “MMMBop” with the screaming girls singing along, but then jump back in for track 13, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Razorblade,” which lives up to its name through the piano chaos bridge which builds up the songs through Who/Boston-like style and sounds like a song that is ready to fight the record label boss (such as the one that fired Farrell and supposedly discovered Hanson).

Thank you to the Hanson and 3CG Records for the review copy. Check out what Tom Farrell is listening to at True Vinyl Records. (This is really an outlet of "Morning Becomes Eclectic" Nic Harcourt, Love Monkey's music supervisor, to showcase some more great music).