Songoftheday 2/25/20 - and when momma's not around there's no telling what we'll do when we're free...
from the album Kids (Original Soundtrack) (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #29 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 7
Today's song of the day comes from the lo-fi rock band Folk Implosion, which was the "side-project" of singer and bass player Lou Barlow. Barlow had been a member of the indie rock group Dinosaur Jr. through the 1980s. He helped found the act Sebadoh since 1988, and by the mid-1990s had released two studio albums. In 1993, while staying in Sebadoh, Barlow got together with guitarist John Davis to form the act Folk Implosion, releasing their first album together, Take A Look Inside, in 1994. It got enough attention to have filmmaker Larry Clark recruit the pair to create most of the soundtrack music for his movie Kids. A dark film about street kids and sex, alcohol and drug use rampant therein, Kids featured a very young Chloë Sevigny and Rosario Dawson in a piece rated NC-17, meaning actual kids couldn't see Kids, and the once-Disney film ended up being put out by none other than Harvey Weinstein's Miramax. Still, the extralow-budget film made major bank, and earned an Independent Spirit award for actor Justin Pierce. The music in the film helped the buzz, and among the thirteen tracks from the duo (along with a Sebadoh song), their "Natural One" started to get played on college radio then alternative and mainstream rock stations, finally reaching pop radio enough to put the song into the top-40...
"Natural One" became Folk Implosion's sole pop hit, reaching the top-40 in February of 1996. The song was a much bigger success on rock radio, climbing to #4 on the Alternative Rock chart before heading to #20 on the Mainstream Rock list. Internationally, the single went to #45 in the UK. The duo would continue on, releasing two more albums, with the last One Part Lullaby being picked up by major label Interscope and having a minor British hit with "Free To Go" in 2000 (UK #90), a foretelling title as Davis left the act that year. Meanwhile, Barlow's work with Sebadoh even got bigger, with their sixth studio album Harmacy in 1996 becoming their first to make the sales chart at #126, and from it the single "Ocean" the band biggest radio success, hitting #23 on the Alternative Rock chart. In 1999, Sebadoh scored a British top-40 hit with "Flame" (UK #30). Three years later, Barlow decided to reinvent the side-act with Imaad Wasif and Russell Pollard with The New Folk Implosion, but after lack of interest folded after that. That record is notable because it featured a certain Greg Kurstin on keyboards, who went on to be a wildly successful producer for the likes of Adele, Beck, and Kelly Clarkson. For Barlow, he continues on in Sebadoh, with their most recent album Act Surprised coming out in 2019. As for the Kids movie, the film has grown a cult following, even with the tragic death by suicide of Justin Pierce in 2000.
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Here's the duo performing on MTV's 120 Minutes alt-rock program...
and finally, Barlow in a solo show in 2000...
Up tomorrow: A former Maniac is enthralled.
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