Just Go Ahead Now: A Retrospective
If one wanted a prime example of the hyper-fickle nature of the modern recording industry, the checkered history of New York City's Spin Doctors would be hard to ignore. Launching the 1990s with a pair of the decade's most enduring modern-rock hits, "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" and "Two Princes" (and strong contenders such as "Jimmy Olsen's Blues"), the band's energetically rhythmic workouts (fronted by vocalist Chris Barron's ever-sunny demeanor) also helped spawn the whole "jam band" movement, replete with its own package tours--but don't hold that against them. Yet many critics assailed their supposedly retro roots, and the business may have had unrealistic expectations based on their early hits. By '96, their label had shown them the door; that "pocket full of kryptonite" proved to have had a surprisingly short half-life. Here then is a concise first chapter of their history, drawing five tracks each fromYou've Got to Believe in Something,Turn It Upside Down, andPocket Full of Kryptonite, plus a cut from the live collectionHomebelly Groove. Also included is a previously unreleased tribute to longtime booster and fan Howard Stern, the loopy, tongue-in-cheek "Miss America."--Jerry McCulley