Ugh, another loss.
As I mentioned on Facebook upon hearing the news, you can go ahead and revoke my music-snob card, but I will always stand by the Cranberries’ first EP, “Uncertain,” and the debut album. 1993’s Everybody Else is Doing It, Why Can’t We? I pretty much divested immediately after that record (for whatever reason, I was left quite cold by “Zombie” and everything after), but I’ll never part “Uncertain” and Everybody Else..
I first heard the Cranberries in 1991, via one of my old favorite manners of discovering new music. Remember that scene in “High Fidelity” wherein John Cusack’s character Rob slyly informs a co-worker that he’s about to sell multiple copies of an album by simply playing it in the store (in that instance, the band being the Beta Band)? That was pretty much the exact same scenario. My friend Sam and I were perusing the racks at Bleecker Street’s Rebel Rebel -- a shop I still very dearly miss -- when French Dave (he wasn’t actually French, but he usually copped such a service-with-a-sneer attitude that we felt he might as well be French) cued up a four-song E.P., filling the relatively intimate shop with the lilting sounds of a track called “Them.” Landing somewhere between the Cocteau Twins, the Smiths and the Sundays, the track was sparse, emotive, melancholy and ethereal. It was simply gorgeous.
Like the pavlovian dogs we were, we immediately asked French Dave who we were listening to (which doubtlessly rang a cha-ching! sound in his head). When he showed us the sleeve, Sam immediately said “I’ll take it,” remarking at how the cherubic tot on the cover looked so much like his niece, he figured it must be a sign. We paid and split.
Later that evening, Sam and I were holding court on the roof of his then-building at 64 Vestry Street in TriBeCa, drinking many beers and keeping amused by watching the cruising action on the West Side Highway (suffice to say, in 1991, the West Side Highway side of TriBeCa was a markedly different scene than it is today). On his boombox, we played the “Uncertain” EP repeatedly. So much so, that by the next day, I went back to French Dave’s and bought my own copy. I still have it. Once upon a time, the CD single (on indie Xeric records, no less) fetched a pretty penny, although I have no idea if that’s still the case.
By the time the Cranberries’ first full album, Everybody Else is Doing It, Why Can’t We? came out, I was quasi-recovering from a heroically botched office romance with a plucky young lady from the production department (an ill-fated endeavor which I briefly alluded to here), and lucklessly still carrying a torch for the colleague in question, much to pretty much everyone’s chagrin. As such, the slavishly lovelorn strains of the Cranberries’ debut -– rife with suitably miserablist paens to romantic dysfunction like “Not Sorry,” “Wanted,” “I Will Always,” “I Still Do,” and “Put Me Down” (jeezus, just read the titles!), fit my self-imposed exile from reality to a tee.
While still inarguably derivative of those afore-cited bands (I’m sure the Sundays were positively vexed that the Cranberries basically stole their ball and ran with it), there was no arguing with the immediacy of the songs or the distinctive lilt to O’Riordan’s vocals, ranging from intimate whisper to banshee yodel, often within the confines of a single track. And theirs was an intoxicating blend of windswept wistfulness, tailored for wandering irresponsibly around misty Irish moors. Of course, I didn’t have access, at the time, to any moors, so I just listened to the album on my Walkman while treking back and forth to the office, where myriad awkward elevator rides or needless, heart-stabbing encounters in hallways with the object of my star-crossed affections routinely awaited me.
Mercifully, although way later than I should’ve, I got over that particularly silly chapter of my life. After a while, music that had previously seemed inexorably linked to that experience – notably Amplified Heart by Everything But the Girl, Broken by Nine Inch Nails, “Stay” by Shakespeare’s Sister and, indeed, Everybody Else is Doing It, Why Can’t We? by the Cranberries -– just became music I enjoyed like any other, and no longer as saddled with association. I even ended up seeing them at the venue that became the Hammerstein Ballroom, but I couldn't exactly tell you too much about the show. I barely remember it, honestly, beyond Dolores wearing an American flag like a cape, at one point.
After that, the Cranberries themselves had kinda moved on -– making more “rock”-informed music like the afore-cited “Zombie” and the equally laborious “Salvation.” But everything felt a bit heavy-handed, as if they were trying to prove they were capable of writing songs that served ends beyond doleful self-flagellation. And, personally speaking, “rocking” was not something I required out of the Cranberries. So I basically jumped ship.
From what I gather, I think swift, engulfing succeess can mess you up something fierce, and I understand that Dolores O’Riordan had her share of that. That said, she kept on keeping on. Evidently, just prior to her untimely death, she was about to begin recording with none other than Youth from my beloed Killing Joke at the production helm. Clearly, she was not expecting to go when she did.
Here’s hoping that wherever she is now, she has finally found peace.
Post Script: I'm afraid I do not know the true provenance of the photo up top, but that's indeed Dolores in a Government Issue t-shirt. I poached it from a friend's Facebook feed. Was she an avowed fan of vintage D.C. hardcore, or did she just think it was a cool shirt? Who knows.
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