Songoftheday 3/1/22 -There's every good reason for letting you go, She's sneaky and smoked out and it's starting to show...

 

 

"Never Let You Go" - Third Eye Blind

from the album Blue (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #14 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 19

 

Today's song comes from the Bay Area rock band Third Eye Blind, who landed three top ten pop hits from their eponymous debut album from 1997 with "Semi-Charmed Life", "How's It Going To Be", and "Jumper".  In the fall of 1999 the group returned with their sophomore effort Blue. The lead single from the set, "Anything", clocked in at just under two minutes, and sounded more like a Blink-182 or Green Day record than their usual Matchbox 20 peers. The song didn't sport a music video, and was mostly promoted to rock radio, where it just missed the top ten on Billboard magazine's Alternative Rock radio chart at #11, and placed at #35 on the Mainstream Rock format list. The second release, however, put them back in their wheelhouse. "Never Let You Go", written by lead singer and Paul Rudd lookalike Stephan Jenkins, was more of a power-pop exercise, grounded in Keith Cadogan's fuzz guitar hooks. It's more upbeat than their previous trio of hits, and the circular chorus could have benefits from stronger background vocals in the mix and Jenkins has a weird spoken word riff at the end (I wouldn't consider it rap). Inspired by his then-girlfriend Charlize Theron, it was bubbly enough for Y2K mainstream radio to grab hold of, for their last somewhat big hit...

 

 "Never Let You Go" became Third Eye Blind's fourth and so far final top-40 pop hit in April of 2000. The song spent a week at #3 on Billboard's older-skewing Adult Top-40 format chart, while making it to #4 on the Alternative Rock radio list. Internationally, the single topped the Canadian singles chart for three weeks, and reached the top-40 in New Zealand (#15) and Iceland (#26). The Blue album, released in November of 1999, slipped into the top-40 on the Billboard 200 sales tally at #40, staying on the list for just over a year and going on to sell over a million copies. 

The next radio single from the record, "10 Days Late", was written by Jenkins with band bassist Arion Salazar. The reflective rocker only caught on with rock radio, where it climbed to #21 on Billboard's Alternative Rock chart. That was followed by "Deep Inside Of You", featured Theron in the music video, and was the song that sounded most like their debut album. The song returned them to the Hot 100 for a final time at #69, while getting to #18 at the older Adult-Top-40 radio and #39 on the Alternative Rock format. 

While all this was going on, however, turmoil was brewing, with Cadogan quitting the band at the beginning of 2000 and Jenkins and Theron breaking up later that year. Tony Fredianelli replaced him for the subsequent tour behind the album, as well as the recording of their next record Out Of The Vein, which didn't see the light of day until 2003. The record rose to #12 on the Billboard 200, and spun off a minor hit "Blinded (When I See You)" that went to #17 on the Adult Top-40 chart and #35 on the Alternative Rock radio list, but when the song only "bubbled under" the pop Hot 100 at #117, they ended up being one of the casualties of Elektra Records' reorganization, with the company releasing a final compilation A Collection which stopped about halfway up the Billboard 200 at #103 in 2006. 

Going indie on their own imprint Mega Collider, the band set out to record their next record, Ursa Major, during which Salazar also left the group. While it was Third Eye Blind's highest-charting album spending a week at #3 on the Billboard 200, radio pretty much ignored it. And again, Jenkins' personal issues with his bandmates caused Fredianelli to be ejected, leaving only Jenkins and drummer Brad Hargreaves from the debut album lineup. 

Trudging on with new members Krys Reid on guitar, Alex LeCavalier on bass, and new keyboardist Alex Koop, Third Eye Blind returned with a new album Dopemine in 2015. The lead single "Everything Is Easy" managed to place on Billboard's Adult Top-40 radio list at #39, while the album made it to #13 on the Billboard 200. A year later, after the group's ironic turn at the Republican Convention where Jenkins called out the party's hypocrisy, the released the politically-tinged EP We Are Drugs, which popped on to the albums chart at #175. Since then, the band released another EP of all remakes and two more full-length studio albums, the latest being Our Bande Apart in 2021.

(4/10)

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Here's Third Eye Blind performing the song on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno....

 

 Next up, at the Radio Music Awards in 2000...

and lastly, in concert at the Fillmore...

Up tomorrow: Big boy band bids adieu.