Songoftheday 11/18/18 - Twenty-five years and my life is still trying to get up that great big hill of hope for a destination...
from the album Bigger, Better, Faster, More! (1992)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #14 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 17
Today's song of the day comes from the 4 Non Blondes, a band who came together in the late 1980s in San Francisco. Originally an all-woman band (and presumably all lesbian, led by "out" singer/songwriter Linda Perry), during the recording of their debut (and only) full-length album Bigger, Better, Faster, More!, original guitarist Shaunna Hall left to be replaced by Roger Rocha. When the set was released in the fall of 1992. The political rant of "Dear Mr. President" was released as the first single, but got little response. That changed with their second single and what would be their biggest success, "What's Up?". Written by Perry who produced the track after album producer David Tickle's version was trashed by the band, the languishing downtempo track that was equally joyful and searing somehow grabbed the attention of the grungers coming in the wake of Nirvana's success. With messy dreadlocks and the most distinctive hatwear since Slash, the band found themselves with a rock classic...
"What's Up?" became the 4 Non Blondes' first and only pop hit, reaching the top 20 on Billboard magazine's pop Hot 100 in August of 1993. The song climbed to #16 on the Mainstream Rock radio chart, and popped on to their Modern Rock list for a week at #29. Internationally, the single was even more massive, topping the charts in Germany, Ireland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Norway, Austria, Denmark, and Iceland. It also hit #2 in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Italy, and got to #3 in France. Surprisingly, in Canada, it only rose to #33, but spent three weeks there. Meanwhile, the Bigger, Better... album topped the LP sales charts in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria, and Switzerland, and rose to #14 in the States, selling over a million copies.
Despite the success of "What's Up?", the band was never able to maintain the momentum with the public. Follow-up single "Spaceman", written by Perry and departed guitarist Shaunna Hall, scaled to #39 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart, but only "bubbled under" the pop Hot 100 later that year, although it did reach the top-40 in a lot of countries overseas like #19 in Austria and #23 in New Zealand. Finally, a re-release of "Dear Mr. President" gave the band a third top-40 hit in New Zealand by a squeaker at #40.
After a period of recording some tracks for movies and tributes (a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Misty Mountain Hop" that I quite liked from the iconic Enconium tribute album scored them a minor hit in Australia at #78), the band attempted to record a second album, but by then Perry's sound vision was totally at odds with the band's, leading to their dissolution in the mid 1990s. After an attempt at a solo album with the people behind Sheryl Crow's Tuesday Night Music Club that was critically noticed, and a second that bombed totally, Perry retreated from the public view, and in the matter of a year or so somehow transformed herself from the self-proclaimed dykey rocker to the songwriter of the new generation with big hits from Pink ("Get The Party Started") and Christina Aguilera ("Beautiful") boosting her stature and her bank account dramatically. Since then, she's become the go to song doctor to acts of almost any genre, and in my eyes the most successful hired-hand songwriter on this generation after Diane Warren. She's married to actress and host on The Talk Sara Gilbert, with whom she has a son.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's the band performing "What's Up" for a live TV appearance...
and making their debut on the Late Show with David Letterman...
Later in 1993, Italian DJ Miko released a techno-style version of the song with British singer Louise Gard, which had quite a life of its own, making the top ten in Italy (#5), Spain (#6), the UK (#6), and Ireland (#8), while going to #58 on the American pop chart and #19 dance ...
Meanwhile, yet another dance act, a bunch of Germans recording as Minnesota, had a top-30 hit in Belgium (#21) and Switzerland (#22) with their frenetic cover...
Many of today's pop queens, direct descendants of Linda Perry's musical legacy, have paid tribute to her own success. Here's Pink, who 'rediscovered' Perry giving her the break she needed...
and Lady Gaga, at a show in Vienna...
In 2011, after her success as a child star on Victorious, and her breakthrough with her Yours, Truly album, Ariana Grande's first released single, "Put Your Hearts Up", was an interpolation of the chorus (mostly including this because I had no idea this creation which she disavows exists)...
Back to the 4 Non Blondes, performing at the Billboard Music Awards in 1993...
Here's Linda Perry and a piano at the LGBT advocates Family Equality Council's LA Impact Awards stripping "What's Up" down...
Finally, the 4 Non Blondes at their best at the Vic...
Up tomorrow: Bass-rap group land one of the "biggest" hits of all time with this revelation.
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