"Yourself Or Someone Like You", Twenty-Five Years On

I turned on VH-1, and there was the video for "3 AM". I turned on the radio, there was "Real World".

Twenty-five years ago, it seemed like there was no avoiding Matchbox 20 (as they were then known). Wherever you looked or listened, you could hear one of their singles playing if you waited only a few moments. Something about their songs had captured the public's attention, and the endless exposure would not leave me immune. I don't know if it was something in the songs, or something in Rob Thomas' unusual voice, that spoke to me, but I still hold the vivid memory of hearing "Real World" on the radio as we drove across town on a hot, late summer day. The album was still in the offing, but I made a comment about wanting and needing it.

Buying an album was still a big thing in those days, involving a trip to the record store, and it came with a ritual of sitting in front of the speakers and hoping against hope you hadn't wasted your money on half a dozen songs filling out the disc the artist and label must have laughed about when imagining people listening to them. I had a rule of twos back then; if I heard two great singles, a record was often worth making the investment. If it was only one song, I didn't like my chances.

That was how I came to own copies of Dave Matthews Band's first album, Gin Blossom's "New Miserable Experience" (and the "Follow You Down" EP), and Hootie & The Blowfish's "Cracked Rear View". Don't ask me why I never went for "Jagged Little Pill", since it would have qualified. I don't have an answer to that.

I did get my copy of "Yourself Or Someone Like You", and when I sat down to listen to the album, there was more than a sense of relief. I am absolutely a product of my time, but there was a confluence of sound and psychology at that time I've never been able to shake. I was only thirteen when the album was released, and yet I found myself sinking into it. That made no sense, since I had not experienced any of the stories Rob sang about, but the post-grunge malaise that crept in around the edges was a precursor to understanding my stoic nature. I was hearing myself, even if I didn't yet know it.

I was at a neighbor's house for a party not long after, and one of the singles came on the radio. My friends were not as enamored as I was, and I can distinctly remember them commenting about how Rob's overacting in the music videos raised questions about his sexuality. It was not a comment of a judgmental kind, but it was one that struck me as odd, since I had not seen the same clues they did. That would not be the last time I could say that.

Listening to the album now, I can still hear what made me love it at the time. There is a sense of authenticity to it that didn't come through a lot of other records of the time. Whether you like Rob Thomas' voice or not, he sang with so much passion, it's hard to not want to give the songs a chance. It's a record that embodies the mid 90s, a time when there was nothing to rage against, but yet people still needed an outlet for their darker feelings. Those are inevitable, and they happen whether the world is on fire or holding hands. It feels even worse to be down when the world is looking up, and one of the feelings I got from this record was that sober realization.

"3 AM" is still one of those perfect pop songs. It captures the lethargy that clouds your mind that late into the night, when your judgment can't be trusted. "Push" bristles with defiant anger, even if it is often misinterpreted. Where things really get interested is with "Damn", where you can hear how everyone has resigned themselves to how things are going to be. There was an inertia of ennui that pervaded those days, which was never better illustrated than in the show "Daria", and my realization of that feeling started out with this record. It's almost as if we need a black cloud in the sky to be able to look up and appreciate the beauty of the blue without burning our eyes. When there isn't an external point to focus on, we create our own.

I tend to think that's what I did with "Yourself Or Someone Like You". I was too young to know who I was, but my subconscious could hear in these songs enough to point me in the right direction. Philosophy is not always so rational; often it is an emotional response. In that way, Matchbox 20 always made sense, whether I knew it or not.

Twenty-five years later, few things still feel like listening to "Yourself Or Someone Like You". It feels like myself.