Songoftheday 1/17/21 - Have you ever been close to tragedy or been close to folks who have?

 

 

"The Impression That I Get" - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

from the album Let's Face It (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart

Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #23 (one week)

Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 26

 

Today's song of the day comes from the ska-punk rock band the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, who came together in Boston in the early 1980s. Originally a local act brought together from different punk bands, the act coalesced into the ska style in the legacy of the British scene of turn of the decade from the influence of gruff lead singer Dickey Barrett. After playing the club scene for years, they finally released an indie-label debut album in 1989, Devil's Night Out. After a few EP's and another full-length studio record, the group was signed to Polygram Records, where they recorded their third effort Don't Know How To Party. The set broke the Billboard 200 sales chart in America at #187, while a song from it, "Someday I Suppose", was a moderate rock radio hit, reaching #19 on Billboard magazine's Alternative Rock format chart. However while their next set a year later, Question the Answers, went a little higher on the sales chart for the single week it was on at #138, radio pretty much gave it a pass. Which might explain the disciplined  result in their third album for Polygram/Mercury, Let's Face It. The lead single, "The Impression That I Get", was like a cleaned up rewrite of "Someday I Suppose", with tight horns and an anthemic chorus that put them more into Madness (the band) territory than ever before. It was definitely more pop than punk, despite Barrett's smoker's shriek on the chorus, but it definitely was a fun go, and the bar-jukebox friendly rocker quickly won over fans and in return radio, to become the band's biggest success...

Since "The Impression That I Get" wasn't released as a commercially available single, it wasn't able to place on Billboard's official Hot 100 pop chart. However the song got so much love from mainstream radio that it spent a half of a year (26 weeks) in the top-40 of the airplay component of the tally, making the top 30 in October of 1997. The song spent a week at #1 on Billboard's Alternative Rock chart, while rising to #17 on their Adult Top-40 format list. Internationally, the single made the top-40 in Australia (#11), the UK (#12), and Canada (#26). The Let's Face It album was also by far their biggest and only top-40 album at #27, going on to move over a million copies.

The next song from Let's Face It promoted to radio was "The Rascal King", which continued the tight production from Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade, but was much looser and not as "in your face". While the track reached #7 on Billboard's Alternative Rock list, it stopped at #68 on the Hot 100 Airplay chart, their final time there. It also hit the top-40 in Australia at #40, and went to #63 in Britain. A third radio single, "Royal Oil", went even further in the ska direction, with it's singalong chorus that almost seems plucked from the 1960s. It peaked at #22 on the Alternative Rock chart. 

After a live album that popped on to the charts for a week, the Bosstones took three years to return with their next set Pay Attention. Lead single "So Sad To Say" just missed the Alternative Rock top ten at #11, but pop radio had already moved on from the ska revival they helped propagate. The band left the label, which by that time had merged into a Transformers-style behemoth, to go indie. Their next record, A Jackknife To A Swan, was their most recent charting album in 2002, spending a week at #131. Since then the band has released three more indie sets, the most recent being While We're At It in 2018, which came after a seven-year hiatus. 

 

(8/10)

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Here's the Bosstones appearing on Conan to promote the single...

Next up, live in concert at a music festival in 2014...

And lastly, on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show. Barrett has been moonlighting as the announcer on Jimmy's show since 2005...

Up tomorrow: Singer/songwriter makes haste to the Creek for her second hit.