We're Through Being Cool
If there really is an important, substantive difference between a song like Hanson's "River" and the most soul-stirring work of Elliott Smith, I haven't found it.
By Tim Cavanaugh

Any album by the Hanson boys is so critic-proof that a review will be by nature a self-parody. No band in existence better expresses the disjunction between the curmudgeons who write dissertations on popular music and the febrile teeny-boppers who actually listen to it. This third release -- following the Tulsa, Okla., adolescents' Mercury Records debut, Middle Of Nowhere, and a re-release of the indie album Three Car Garage -- effectively takes the game into the air, featuring live performances abundantly backed by the wall of sound the band's screaming fans provide on cue.

Beyond the aging critic's natural instinct to lash out at youth, and the undeniable fact that little Zac deserves a severe beating just on general principles, the trio's stage performance can be pretty squirm-inducing. Audience-fluffing call-outs like "Lemme see your hands" and "I can already tell you guys know how to rock!" recall the worst sort of pseudo-joyful, "Good to be here in Secaucus" concert preening. The catchiness of the melodies easily leaks into the kind of relentless tunefulness not seen since the darkest ages of '80s Supergroups. On syrupy songs like "I Will Come to You" and "More than Anything," the boys' effortless musicality begins to seem less like their Bill Haley/Carl Perkins models than like the group harmonies of the Brady Bunch in their "Silver Platters" mode -- and this is rendered even more troubling in a live setting, when the boisterous fans provide stark evidence of just how many willing takers there are for this sort of thing. For the naysayer, it's tempting to point out that Hanson's mix of DIY talent and well-seasoned exuberance may already be facing its own old age, edged out by the even more scream-inducing Backstreet Boys.

Of course, compared to entirely pre-packaged phenomena like the B Boys (and derivatives of the derivatives like 'N Sync), Hanson look like an act as inspired as the Jackson 5. Zac, Taylor and Ike actually play their instruments, write their songs, etc. And they do so exceedingly well. For sheer chops, practiced harmonies and tight playing, the brothers are shockingly legit. Which makes it a little hard to take seriously the knee-jerk hatred anybody over the age of 18 feels for Hanson. Whether we're at the beginning, middle or end of the Hanson phenomenon, the one thing it has definitely revealed is the gulf -- in both age and interest -- between pop critics and audiences. Critics, of course, pick their own favorites in the belief that they have higher powers of discernment than the squirming audiences, but if there really is an important, substantive difference between a song like Hanson's "River" and the most soul-stirring work of Elliott Smith, I haven't found it.

There you go: Hanson are as talented as any alt.rock favorite of the critical classes, and after all the carping about the band's pop-ish habits, its artistic achievement may be just as great. And unlike the lugubrious mood-clones, Hanson put on a show that their fans can really scream about. Hanson rule.