NPR

There must be a dozen ways to process the idea of a double-length, career-spanning album in which the long-running pop band Hanson performs while backed by an orchestra. You could study the new symphonic arrangements, courtesy of Oscar winner David Campbell (a.k.a. Beck’s dad), and pick apart how they compare to the originals. You could examin the trend of veteran bands performing with orchestras – even Hanson’s pal “Weird Al” Yankovic is doing it – as a way of refreshing their catalogs. You could question the appear of the idea to anyone outside a preexisting pool of diehards.

But in the case of String Theory, it’s perhaps best to view the concept as a means of highlighting Hanson’s remarkable songcraft. Hanson has been a band for more than 25 years, and has had a serious commercial legacy to live u to ever since Middle of Nowhere and the inescapable “MMMBop” sold millions back in 1997. When that record came out, brothers Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson were 16, 14 and 11, respectively – and, as a result, were widely viewed outside their fan base as a prefab boy band. But even then, they were accomplished players and songwriters, capable of airtight arrangements and impeccable sibling harmonies. Now that they’re in their 30s (and still writing new records, selling out theaters and even brewing their own line of beer), they’re better positioned to demonstrate what’s long been obvious: These guys write hooks sturdy enough to hold up any kind of arrangement you can name.

On String Theory, that can simply mean making a pop song sound statelier – or just slower – by letting the strings swoop in and out. But at their best, Campbell’s new arrangements lend force as well as beauty. In a reworking of the band’s terrific 2017 single “I Was Born,” a rich surge of strings and percussion gives way to the full weight of the orchestra in the chorus, transforming a rousing song into something approaching a cataclysm.

Over the course of its 23 songs (several of which are new and/or previously unreleased), String Theory unfolds kind of like a Hanson live show: It ebbs and flows through reworked hits, fan favorites and other optimistic odes to tenacity and self-reliance; tosses off “MMMBop” near the beginning, as if to check a box and cast it aside; and escalates the grandiosity in what feel like long-anticipated encores. Even in a studio, backed by an orchestra, these guys know how to work a room.

Washington Post

The Hanson boys have done everything in their power to get you to listen beyond “MMMBop.” They’ve put out solid new music, live CDs, Christmas albums – OK, lots of Christmas albums – greatest hits collections, and even covers of songs by U2 and Radiohead. Now they’ve gone uptown – they’ve gone orchestral.

The 23-track double album, “String Theory,” finds Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson reworking past songs and unreleased ones for swaths of strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion. One new song, “Siren Call,” uses a full 46-piece orchestra.

Snark if you must, but anything that gets Hanson’s music a fresh listen is welcomed. Why this talented trio has never matched the success of “MMMBop” is one of those mysteries that go unsolved in the modern music business.

Many of the songs, thankfully, aren’t overwhelmed by the Prague-based orchestra or often see its influence melt away, like on “Where’s the Love” or “This Time Around.” Sometimes it’s all a tad forced, like on “Something Going Round.” And sometimes, truth be told, the original is just better, like “Yearbook.”

“String Theory” is not another greatest hits collection. Some Hanson songs that have appeared on such previous compilations – like “Get the Girl Back” and “Penny & Me” – have not been picked to be orchestra-tracked. New or unreleased songs include “Reaching for the Sky,” “Battle Cry,” “Breaktown,” and the really nice “No Rest for the Weary.”

But you really want to know what happened to “MMMBop,” don’t you? The new version is slower, more complex and yet still fun and catchy, even though it’s been given a lushness rarely offered on other pop songs. We hope you listen. Maybe consider staying awhile?

WBUR

EISENBERG: So this game is called Gibberish Lyrics. Jonathan and I will perform a dramatic reading of nonsensical song lyrics. Ring in and identify the artist who made the song famous. And if you can’t get it from our reading, we’ll play you a clip of the original song. Lauren, stay in the lead, and you are in the final round. Avi, you need to get more points, or you have to go to a craft beer bar and order an IPA but pronounce it Ippa (ph).

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Here we go. (Reading) Ba duba bop ba du bop, ba duba dop ba du bop, ba duba dop ba du (ph), yeah.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Lauren.

MACDONOUGH: “Blue.” Oh.

EISENBERG: I’m sorry. That is incorrect. Avi, do you want – we can play the clip for you – or if you can just answer.

ZACHERMAN: I forgot the name of the artist.

EISENBERG: All right. Let’s play the clip.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “MMMBOP”)

HANSON: (Singing) Mmmbop, ba duba dop ba du bop, ba duba dop ba du bop…

ZACHERMAN: Hanson.

EISENBERG: That is correct. That is…

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: …Hanson’s “MMMbop.” So sometimes, these things represent real concepts or words to the artist. And supposedly, Zac Hanson said that Mmmbop and all those words represented the futility of life.

(LAUGHTER)

JONATHAN COULTON: Those kids were deep, man.

EISENBERG: I think he was, like, 14 or something (laughter).

COULTON: Yeah. He’s, like, what’s the point?

EISENBERG: Yeah, exactly.

COULTON: Why even write lyrics to this dumb song?

EISENBERG: I’m doing well, and I don’t care.

Orlando Sentinel

Twenty-one years had passed since “MMMBop” was a No. 1 hit — but a few dozen of their devoted fans stalked out front-row seats hours in advance for a Hanson concert at Walt Disney World.

“I’ve loved them since I was like 9,” said Tiffany Rae, of Nassau County, who planned a week-long vacation to see Hanson. “I’m 30 now.”

Her seat was next to a high school science teacher who skipped her planning period to be there.

The concerts, a series called Eat to the Beat during the Food and Wine Festival, are helping revive attendance at Epcot, some Disney followers say.

Hollywood Studios debuted its Toy Story Land in June, and there’s a buzz about Star Wars land next year. Animal Kingdom attendance has surged with crowds visiting the World of Avatar expansion. Magic Kingdom is still Magic Kingdom, the most popular park in the world.

But what about Epcot?

A makeover for 36-year-old Epcot is coming in 2019 and beyond with plans for a new fireworks show, gondola rides into the park and an indoor roller coaster based on “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies.

Until then, the festivals and concerts give locals a reason to visit, said Jeremy Stein, who co-hosts the Main Street Magic and The Dis Dudes podcasts.

“It’s kind of keeping Epcot alive,” Stein said.

Disney fact

Eat to the Beat, the concert series at Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival, began in 2002. Starship, famous for “We Built this City on Rock & Roll,” is the longest running act, playing 15 of those years, according to Disney

The music has become so popular that Disney expanded the concerts at Epcot’s Flower and Garden Festival from four days a week to seven in 2019, said David Baldree, a Disney show producer.

For the first time at this year’s Food and Wine Festival, contemporary Christian acts were booked, and 98 Degrees — a popular boy band from the late 1990s in the next tier after *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys — also performed at the concert series.

“We want to hit as many musical genres as we can,” Baldree said.

What makes the concerts work, Stein said, is that Disney draws many well-known musicians with hits that date back. But the lyrics stick in people’s brains, never forgotten.

“It’s part of that nostalgia, and that’s what Disney is so good at,” Stein said.

Back before Mandy Gimenez was an adult, before all the responsibilities of looking at sonograms for her job at an OB-GYN or raising her own family, she was just a teenager going through a phase. She popped in a CD from the band Sugar Ray in her car, and freedom was hers.

Now age 35, Gimenez planned her trip to Epcot during her Disney vacation around Sugar Ray in late September.

Even though he is now 50, Sugar Ray lead singer Mark McGrath moved with the frenzied energy of a much younger man on stage. He took selfies with the crowd and poked fun at the band’s heyday when he was known for his frosty-tipped hair.

“Welcome to the ‘90s!” McGrath exclaimed. “I wish some of us never left!”

Gimenez sang along with every lyric, her hand raised in the air.

“I felt like I was a teenager again and having the best time,” said Gimenez, who lives in Connecticut.

Her 5-year-old daughter, Alexa, looked bored at what was her first concert but the catchy choruses stuck in her head afterward.

patheos

MMMBop.

If you know it, as some of my colleagues do, then you are younger than I am, but older than our college students.

I am not, perhaps, the normal audience for Hanson.

That’s my loss as I discovered in Houston on October 23, 2018.

Let me report that this is a 1990’s band that has held up well and worth a look if you missed the 1990’s due to work or not yet being born.

Do not worry Hanson fans: they get you, while entertaining and illuminating us.

If the audience reaction in Houston was normal, then their tour celebrating twenty-six years as a band gave the fans what they wanted. There was more to the music than mere fan service, there was a certain luminosity. Even MMMBop is a song that asked questions about love, whether it endures, and how a person can know if this love, this relationship will endure to old age.

That’s about all you can ask (intellectually) of a song that is danceable. MMMBop is Plato compared to Tall Paul. 

It is hard to be part of the sound of a decade and find the eternal things, but my brief conversation with the Hanson brothers was a sign pointing to a greater reality. They were bursting with ideas, eager to discuss books, and my only regret is not having more time to roam over the Jungian psychology, the banality of evil (Judgement at Nuremberg), and the comparative cultures of Oklahoma and West Virginia.

When a brief conversation leaves me with a book list, I have met kindred minds. The concert was just as layered. Briefly, one of the brothers began to reflect on the difference of working with instruments like the violin that can only play one note at a time and keyboards that have broader abilities. I wanted to learn more about the differences and what they had discovered.

This was a band thinking, laughing, playing, pondering: serious without being sonorous. They could MMMBop and close with a number with hints of the Apocalypse. These were boys become men who retained a luminosity, a light intrinsic to souls created in the Image of God. That sounds grand, but this certain luminosity was confident enough to be earthy, as humans are earthy, while pointing to more as our hearts contain more.

This is a group with members that effortlessly switch instruments and stretch themselves. As support, the Houston Symphony added musical depth and Stuart Chafetz conducting while having a grand time. This concert was fun and thoughtful, for many in the audience nostalgic , but never tired.

What did I learn?

There is a crabbed soul that can only know the pop music of his own youth (Styx and U-2 bookmark my young years), but despise the rest. Ignore those fools and learn to love the best of each generation: Bing, Ella, Sinatra, Cash, Paul Simon . . . The joy is endless.

Music has the ability, like a Platonic dialog, to be only understood if we leave our time and go to a particular place: the 1990’s for some of Hanson, ancient Athens for Plato. We cannot ever quite be there if we were not there, but if the music is good enough, then we can gain access to something outside our own experience. The best pop musician can produce a time machine: Glenn Miller and his orchestra is a train ride to the first half of the American twentieth century.

There is more to music, however. Every decent popular song has been confirmed by many souls to touch on some eternal longing. Even Tall Paul makes us dance, sing, and look for love. This is an eternal thing for humankind: was, is, and will be (however transformed) in the World to Come.

Plato and the Gospels teach us that music carries luminosity, the soul that learns harmony, gains light. There is an uncreated light that sits above everything (or so Plato and even wiser people have said) and that light is a harmony that is so tight that it becomes One.

I am pleased to report that my world and jollification are broader now, including the artists of Hanson. Buy a ticket or their music and learn pleasantly.