Third Eye Blind

by Third Eye Blind

ok what's the deal with self-titled albums released in the late '90s that have a Beige Version and a Red Version of the covers. i am referencing the SOAD self-titled here but do let me know if there are other examples of this phenomenon.

i've never listened to another Third Eye Blind album but i've listened to this one a lot. (side note: they released an album in 2021 called Our Bande Apart? like… as a reference to Bande à part?? lmao.) my parents both bought new walkmans and my dad bought this cassette before my family took an overseas trip in 1999. it's funny that my dad bought this because it's not his vibe at all?? like i almost wonder if it came for free with the walkmans or something.

anyway sometime after that trip i ended up with this tape and it entered my school bus rotation, meaning it was one of the things that i listened to on the hour-long bus ride to and from school. i have a distinct memory of listening to Narcolepsy on the way home one day and everybody was being very noisy around me and writing in a notepad (a fake correspondence?) that i was listening to HARD ROCK and i could still hear everybody around me augh boo hoo terrible…

all Semi-Charmed Life jokes and memes and whatever aside… this album still "holds up" for me, whatever that means. i guess what that means is a lot of it went way over my head when i was 10 years old but since that time i've realized that it's a fun horny druggy album just like Semi-Charmed Life is a fun horny druggy song. sometimes i like to think about Losing A Whole Year and "the pierced queer teens in cyberspace". one of my first attempts at finger picking was attempting to play Motorcyle Drive By but i didn't get very far with it. it does seem to persist as my favorite song on the album though (source: listening now)!