Hanson



"The first music you really fall in love with is more than just music. It’s something that clicks in you beyond the song, it’s a message or image that causes you to jump in and not let go."

- Taylor Hanson

Hanson is a Po P band from The Nineties, made up of Jordan Taylor Hanson, lead vocalist and keyboardist; Clarke Isaac Hanson, the guitarist, and Zachary Walker Hanson, the drummer. They produced their first albums, Boomerang and MMMBop (on which the title track and Hanson's most famous song would first appear), in 1995 and 1996. After playing their song "MMMBop" for a guy at Mercury Records, they eventually released their first well-known album, Middle of Nowhere, in 1997. The upbeat, catchy signature track, "MMMBop", won the hearts of many girls...and male fans who thought they were girls. However, despite many compilation albums, Hanson and "MMMBop" became a distant memory among the general public in a few years.

The trio returned in the 2000s with a new style that was a little Darker and Edgier than the poppy image that made Middle of Nowhere successful. After a set of record company mergers that dissolved their previous label, the trio found themselves signed with Island Def Jam. Conflict and delays in recording their third major album Underneath ended with them departing from the record company and forming their own record label, 3CG. There was a documentary made about the entire thing entitled Strong Enough to Break.

Hanson created Take The Walk in the late 2000s, a charity to help fight poverty and AIDS in Africa. Basically, you walked a mile in no shoes. They also created the album The Walk in 2007. In 2010, they made the album Shout it Out, which is a little more upbeat than their last few albums.

Discography:

 * Boomerang (1995)
 * Mmmbop (1996)
 * Middle of Nowhere (1997)
 * Snowed In (1997)
 * 3 Car Garage (1998)
 * Live From Albertane (1998)
 * This Time Around (2000)
 * Underneath Acoustic (EP) (2003)
 * Underneath (2004)
 * Live and Electric (2005)
 * The Walk (2007)
 * Stand Up Stand Up (EP) (2009)
 * Shout It Out (2010)

Tropes:

 * Album Title Drop: The phrase "middle of nowhere" is comes from last song from that album, "Man From Milwaukee" and "shout it out" comes from that album's first track, "Waiting for This".
 * April Fools' Day: 2011 had ShockHound claiming that Hanson would record a Slipknot tribute album, accompanied with video of Hanson performing the song "Wait and Bleed".
 * Audience Participation Song: "This Time Around" turns into this live, with half the audience singing the chorus and the other half singing the "AND WE WON'T GO DOWN"s. Also the echoed "Shout it out!"s in "Waiting For This".
 * Band of Relatives: All three are brothers.
 * The Cameo: The boys are close friends with Weird Al (he even directed some of their videos) and he makes an appearance in the video for "Thinking 'Bout Something" as an overenthusiastic tambourine player.
 * Charity Motivation Song: "Great Divide"
 * Christmas Songs: Snowed In
 * Grief Song: "With You In Your Dreams" was written after their grandmother died
 * Hidden Track: "Lulla Belle", the last song on Underneath plays after a few minutes of silence. "Man From Milwaukee", the last song on Middle of Nowhere, plays after several tracks of silence.
 * Homage: The video for "Thinking 'Bout Somethin'" is a near shot for shot recreation of the "Shake A Tail Feather" scene from The Blues Brothers.
 * Hot Dads
 * Idiosyncratic Album Theming: Track 8 on every album since Middle of Nowhere has been Zac led.
 * Long Runner Lineup: Hanson is still together, 20 years later.
 * Lyrical Dissonance: "MMMbop" is about how we don't know who will actually be there for us later, "Where's the Love?" is about a relationship falling apart and "If Only" is about a guy who's too paralyzed by fear to tell the girl how he feels
 * One Woman Song: "Lucy," "Madeline," "Lulla Belle," "Georgia"
 * Scatting: "MMMbop"
 * Song of Song Titles: Three of them. "Been There Before" contains lines referring to the Otis Redding song "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" and Johnny Cash's version of "Swing Low Sweet Chariot". "Penny and Me" contains the lines: singing along to "Feelin' Alright"/ we're making it by in the pink moonlight. "Thinking 'Bout Somethin'" contains the lines: you're not too proud to beg/ I can give you some Respect.
 * Signature Song: "MMMbop"
 * Truck Driver's Gear Change: Happens twice in "Give A Little". Once after the first chorus, and again after the bridge.
 * Unplugged Version: Underneath Acoustic (which was actually released before Underneath) and Middle of Nowhere Acoustic (recorded for the tenth anniversary of Middle of Nowhere's release)
 * Vocal Tag Team: Taylor sings lead on the majority of their songs, but both Isaac and Zac also step up to the mic, usually at least once an album.
 * What Could Have Been: The band wrote eighty songs in the process of making Underneath. Only fourteen found their way to the album. Some have since appeared on later albums and fanclub EPs, but many are still unaccounted for. Also the song "Breaktown" was considered for This Time Around, Underneath, AND The Walk, but has yet to appear on any album.