Songoftheday 3/10/20 - She calls me Goliath and I wear the David mask, I guess the stones are coming too fast for her now...
from the album American Standard (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #39 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 3
Today's song of the day comes from the post-grunge rock band Seven Mary Three, who came together in Virginia in the early 1990s with college schoolmates Jason Pollack and lead singer Jason Ross bringing on drummer Giti Khalsa and bass player Casey Daniel. Taking their name from the police radio handle for Jon Baker on the 70s cop show CHIPS, the group released their debut album Churn independently in 1994. On that record was the original version of what would be their greatest success, the song "Cumbersome". Written by Ross and Pollack, the song is about a romantic breakup where the guy wants a second change that will never happen, as downtrodden guitar chord plod along. It was a regional hit in Florida, where the band relocated and eventually signed to bigger indie Mammoth Records, who had a distribution deal with major-label Atlantic. They re-recorded all but one of the songs from Churn for their album American Standard, which was put out in 1995. "Cumbersome" was re-released in the fall of that year, where it became huge rock radio hit, before crossing over to mainstream stations...
"Cumbersome" became Seven Mary Three's first and only pop top-40 hit in March of 1996. The song was a big hit on rock radio, spending four weeks at #1 on Billboard magazine's Mainstream Rock chart and peaking at #7 on their Alternative Rock format tally. Internationally, the single was a top-40 hit in New Zealand at #31. The band's next single, the reflective "Water's Edge", managed to climb to #7 on the Mainstream Rock chart at slip in at #37 on Alternative Rock, but missed the pop Hot 100 completely. A third release, the more aggressive rock of "My My", went to #19 on the Mainstream Rock list. Their American Standard album went top-40 on the sales chart (#24) and sold over a million copies.
The band returned in 1997 with their next album Rock Crown on Atlantic Records proper, but despite two moderate rock radio hits with "Rock Crown" (#17 Mainstream) and the Beatles-clocking "Lucky" (#35 Mainstream, #19 Alternative), pop radio gave it a pass. A year later, another album Orange Ave emerged, with single "Over Your Shoulder" returning them to the top ten on the Mainstream Rock list (#16 Alternative), but again with no mainstream exposure and barely making the albums sales chart, Seven Mary Three returned to Mammoth with Pollack leaving the band, to be replaced by Thomas Juliano. Their next album, The Economy Of Sound, landed another Mainstream Rock top ten hit with "Wait" at #7 (#21 Alternative), while followup "Sleepwalking" at #39 their most recent chart appearance. Since then they've released two more indie albums, with Khalsa leaving inbetween before their most recent set Day & Nightdriving in 2008. In 2012, the group split up for good.
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Here's the band live on Letterman in 1996...
and in concert in Vegas....
And finally, at a show in 2011...
Up tomorrow: Soul lothario goes undercover, if you will.
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