Lisa Loeb’s plaintive, but enduring break-up/no break-up song “Stay” caught lightning in a bottle in the spring of 1994, becoming one of the most indelible recordings of the year and sitting atop the Billboard singles chart for three weeks. Anytime somebody says her name, the image of Loeb stalking the interior of her New York City apartment of the time pops to mind, along with those gently percussive acoustic guitar notes. It is an iconic moment in mid-90s pop culture. So simple and honest that it becomes totally engrossing, standing up to repeated viewings and listens. Speaking as a nerdy boy who was in his 20s at the time, her charming cat eye glasses and tiny dress with tights look sure didn’t hurt. Kind of like if Agent 99 from Get Smart became a librarian instead. How the hell could the idiot in the song think of allowing a split?
>ahem<…anyway…
“Stay” was so huge that it is hard to remember that it wasn’t the only Loeb song to hit the charts. Well it wasn’t.
Lisa Loeb was born to a pair of medical professionals on March 11th of 1968 (so she’s technically just one year older than I am >ahem<), and was one of four siblings who became musicians instead of gastroenterologists like their Dad. She attended an all-girls school there in Texas, where she hosted her own radio program for three years. Gee whiz, are you kidding me? Yer killin’ me, Loeb.
She went on to earn a degree in comparative literature from Brown University, because why wouldn’t she? While she was there, she started up a band with classmate Elizabeth Mitchell called Liz and Lisa. Oh yeah, and there was a dude who played guitar for them named Duncan Sheik. Yeah that Duncan Sheik.
Sheik is not yet eligible for a “Nope, Not a 1-Hit Wonder” article, since he is, in fact, still a 1-hit wonder. Get to work, Duncan.
After graduation and spending a semester at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, Liz and Lisa gave way to a new musical group called Nine Stories and Loeb and company recorded a demo which included several songs that later became familiar to her mainstream fans. The cover art was purple, so it became known as “the purple tape.” Apparently the Pixies and a rap group called Evidence have done the same thing.
As is the case with many artists, Loeb’s “big break” came because she had managed to surround herself with other talented and successful people. She had become friends with actor Ethan Hawke, who lived across the street from her in New York City and gave him a copy of the demo for “Stay.” He, in turn, gave it to Ben Stiller, who was directing Hawke in the Generation X romantic comedy Reality Bites at the time and decided to use the song over the film’s closing credits. Hawke followed up by directing the single-shot video (which reportedly required just two takes) which would become the iconic image of Loeb.
“Stay” was included on the Reality Bites soundtrack, along with songs by artists like Crowded House, Squeeze, U2, World Party, Lenny Kravitz, Julianna Hatfield, and Hawke himself. It became a top-selling soundtrack, ubiquitous in the CD collections of many people my age. I can certainly see why, but the contrarian in me turned my nose up at it and bought stuff like the PJ Harvey 4-track Demos disc instead. I can be a snob sometimes. In fact, I think I’ll put on a PJ Harvey record right now. There. That feels good.
The song became a sensation, and ended up as the very first number one song on the Billboard singles chart from an artist who did not at that time have a record deal. It was the sort of cinderella story that generation X believed in with all its heart. Play the coffee house circuit and hock your demo tape long enough and you’ll hit number one next week. Yeah, right.
It was also the kind of story which we had been conditioned to believe ended with a pretty immediate return to obscurity. So when Loeb released a full record with a new-to-us backing band the next year, and it included “Stay,” we could be forgiven for thinking it was a cynical cash-in. The disc was rolled out heavy in the record stores at the time and “Tails” was pretty quickly helping to stuff the “Used” bins in our favorite alternative music shops.
At least that’s what my memory said before I researched this article. I remembered the single “Do You Sleep?” and I remember the video getting a little play on MTV and VH1, but for whatever reason, my memory told me that it was a good song that never really caught on with the public.
In reality, “Do You Sleep?” actually hit #18 on the Billboard singles chart in September of 1995.
Two years later, Loeb released a solo record that I also assumed had met with the same fate (a little VH1 play, but not an actual hit for the single). “I Do” was, in fact, a slightly bigger hit than “Do You Sleep?” reaching #17 on the singles chart in November of 1997. The video had some great visuals, including one re-creating the “Firecracker” album cover, but is a little too much of a mish-mash of different approaches, resulting in a slightly distracting experience. Watch it anyway.
I don’t know about you, but that’s a pretty delicious bit of pop rock ear candy to me. Reviews were middling for the album, which may have prevented me from picking up a copy at the time. But hey, now that we’ve got YouTube, I can dial up this song anytime I feel like it.
Her next album did not appear for another five years, and her record label at the time reacted by failing to offer it much promotion, which resulted in it peaking at #199 on the Billboard top 200 albums chart. A re-release by a different label did not significantly improve the situation. Maybe part of the problem was that she had decided her target demographic was eleven-year-old Japanese girls? Evidence for this theory exists in her video for “Underdog.”
She was dating Dweezil Zappa at the time (yes, Frank’s kid). Surely this was not his idea.
In 2003, Loeb voiced Mary Jane Watson in MTV’s “Spider-Man: The New Animated Series.” It ran for just one season, an eventuality that probably fell in place just as soon as its title was announced.
Over the following ten years, Loeb released two more studio albums, a greatest hits record, and a re-release of her “Purple Tape” demo. She has also put some of her focus on recording children’s music, reuniting with college buddy Elizabeth Mitchell for 2003’s “Catch the Moon,” and releasing her own “Camp Lisa” in 2008.
Also, this happened:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saihYbYjDlg
Look how comparatively thin Zach Galifianakis is. Maybe he shouldn’t have eaten Dweezil’s doughnut.
After breaking up with Dweezil, Lisa shot a short-lived reality TV show about her search for love and career success called “Number 1 Single.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UESdST4x-wM
Apparently it worked, despite the whole country getting to see her buying bathroom items for a first date, because she married Roey Hershkovitz, the Music Production Supervisor for Conan O’Brien in 2009. She has since had two children and is continuing to release music and appear on TV shows now and again.
Like this fun bit on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver back in April.
So she seems to be having fun. Good for her.
More Nope, Not a One Hit Wonder
We all know I am anything but a music snob. I loved the Reality Bites soundtrack. Still do. I think I may put it on right now. Yep, still feels good.
I did share your 90s crush on Loeb. I also got to see her in concert. So I think we can both I agree that I have more of a claim on her, right?
sometimes being a snob backfires. 🙂
lol
Sometimes it does.
I have snobbish tendencies. Or so my wife says. And probably lots of other people. I’m just not musically educated enough to be a snob in that field. However, I do try to resist snobbery when I feel it setting in. I’m usually not successful or aware enough to do so.
Not only a VERY well done piece, (nice writing Daffy), this helped fill in one of my many pop culture gaps of the time period. I was only tangentially aware of Lisa Loeb at the time. I like her melodic style, and her whole hot-librarian thing she has going on. I do recall that VH1 in the late 90s still played a lot of different music videos and was still kind of a replacement for the old MTV before that creativity got squashed too.
Thanks, RB! MTV and VH1 are two entities who have suffered in my eyes due to the high ratings of “reality” television. Perhaps with music and video being consumed digitally nowadays there was no better approach, but I miss the days when there was always a wide variety of music videos that could be seen on these stations in a single day.
Reality TV played a factor. But these days, the ratings for reality TV aren’t so high. And MTV is running scripted shows. Not sure about VH1 although most of their “reality” series were scripted anyway. Like just about every cable channel out there, these channels have drifted from their original mission statement to the point where they are unrecognizable. Remember when Bravo and A&E were about the performing arts? No one else does either. When AMC showed classic American movies and the History Channel wasn’t about aliens? There was actually something to learn on The Learning Channel too. In the… Read more »
you are right about the easy availability of music videos nowadays. it is a great thing in many ways, but it also has decreased the community feeling the music television channels used to have, much like Saturday morning cartoons once did. “Did you see…” usually applies to something somebody posted on social media now.
Definitely. It’s easy to feel like something has been lost. But younger folks have no idea. They just enjoy modern conveniences.
A while back I was discussing the direction certain channels had gone in with a friend (IE: No music videos on MTV or VH1, Duck Dynasty on A&E). I then made teh following observation: I strongly suspect that if MTV and VH1 were still showing videos when Youtube came along, they most likely would have teamed up and said to the record companies and music fans: No, don’t go putting clips online. You want to see them? Watch us! There was an article in Spin magazine circa 1997 or some point when I still read Spin on a regular basis… Read more »
Analyzing The End Of Music Television:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.tv.mtv/4qgVxFdUxik
How the VMAs died:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.tv.mtv/nxvCoPTd98w
MTV switching gears to more scripted television:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.tv.mtv/z8-exDsfSIs
MTV trying to appeal to 14- to 17-year-olds:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.tv.mtv/vHUAXN94FK
MTV sucks….bring back the MTV from 1984:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.tv.mtv/5Jf9UY2FBQI
Did ‘The Real World’ Really Kill MTV?
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.tv.mtv/5vNvxSmJkUQ
I (Don’t) Want My MTV:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.tv.mtv/GKcHgqhK-To
VH-1 I Knew Ye Well by Kayley Kravitz:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.tv.mtv/DUVZrEOacnA
Why can’t MTV quit its reality TV exploitation?
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.tv.mtv/tPtMbMUJ6t0
When did MTV start really sucking, during the ’90s?
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.tv.mtv/KUTXBmEita0
When did MTV Jump the Shark?
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.tv.mtv/uPMZgrNCCQg
When MTV Jumped the Shark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaOj-AW31t4
I hate my, I hate my, I hate reality!
http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fblip.tv%2Fflannelboy%2Fwhen-mtv-jumped-the-shark-6500356&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNG2b3Z4fph7FWpyTWXZ13iXYHV8Sg
I have “Do You Sleep?” burned onto disc (it’s right before “Ball of Confusion” and lots of Love Spit Love).
“Am I Wrong” is one of the great out-of-time singles of the 90s. Play it for anyone who isn’t familiar with it and they’ll probably insist it was recorded during the mid to late 80s. It has a dark romanticism that was notably absent from most pop music of the late Alternative era.
Sometime in the middle of the night my time, the actual Lisa Loeb re-tweeted this article! Thanks, Lisa!
So jealous.
SWEET! It doesn’t get any more real than that 🙂
Twenty years ago today is the exact date that “Stay (I Missed You)” hit No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard charts!
Lisa Loeb won a Grammy tonight for her children’s album “Feel What U Feel.”
Congratulations Lisa!