Patch

The Times Tribune

Rock band Hanson last performed at the New York State Fairís Chevy Court on Thursday, Aug. 30, 2018. (Katrina Tulloch) Katrina Tulloch

SCRANTON – The Grammy-nominated bands Hanson and Tonic will perform free on Lackawanna County Courthouse Square during FIFA Fan Zone events there next month.

Officials announced those and other musical acts, as well as other fan zone activities, during a press conference Tuesday.

Scranton is hosting one of just three official Pennsylvania World Cup Fan Zones, with activities taking place on Courthouse Square July 4, 5, 18 and 19.

World Cup matches will be broadcast live on a massive outdoor screen on the North Washington Avenue side of the square. Smaller screens, including at least one airing the Spanish broadcast of the matches, will be placed on each corner of the square.

The event will also feature a beer garden, soccer simulator, inflatables, food trucks and more.

Hanson will perform July 18. Tonic will perform July 19.

Other musical acts added to the lineup include Cruel Summer, a live tribute offering the music of Taylor Swift, performing on July 4th at 1:00 PM. On Sunday, July 5th, Eco Del Sur will welcome soccer fans with music from across Latin America. In between the two knockout matches on the main screen, The Wankers will offer a Britpop tribute featuring 90s and modern hits from bands like Coldplay, Blur, and Radiohead.

According to a news release:

Over their 34-year history, brothers Isaac, Taylor, and Zac Hanson have made a significant mark in music. Starting in 1992, they spent their first five years building a fanbase as an independent band in Tulsa, OK. After signing a record deal, they saw a meteoric rise with the 1997 international smash single “MMMBop” from their debut album Middle Of Nowhere, followed by consecutive top 40 singles. A long line of hits, five more studio albums, multiple Grammy nominations, and over 16 million album sales followed. Over the subsequent decades, the band charted their own course, running an independent label while maintaining a coveted connection with their global fan base.

The story of Tonic revolves around the longstanding, close brotherhood shared among members Emerson Hart (vocals, guitar), Jeff Russo (lead guitar), and Dan Lavery (bass). Since 1996, the Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum trio has consistently delivered anthemic rock fashioned from eloquent songcraft, lyrical honesty, and unshakable melodies. Along the way, they translated true experiences and real memories into a storied catalog that resounds just as loudly today. To date, the band has landed six Top 10 singles, sold over 4 million records, and garnered a pair of Grammy nominations. Emerson and Jeff originally linked up in Los Angeles in 1994, with Dan joining the group in 1996. Their full-length debut, Lemon Parade, went platinum and yielded the #1 most- played rock song of 1997, “If You Could Only See.”

Mens Journal

NETHERLANDS – JANUARY 01: Photo of HANSON (Photo by Paul Bergen/Redferns)

The 1997 song topped the charts in over 17 countries, but few registered the existential crisis in its lyrics.

Key Points

• Hanson’s “MMMBop” blends upbeat pop with deeper themes of fleeting relationships and youth.
• Zac Hanson explained, “MMMBop represents a frame of time or the futility of life.”
• The song’s optimistic message encourages cherishing meaningful connections despite inevitable change.

Summer, youth, yellow, scat singing — these intertwined ingredients for Hanson’s MMMBop, now hailed as one of the greatest songs of all time by Rolling Stone and Spin, seem like happiness personified.

The three blonde, shaggy-haired adolescent brothers, Isaac, Taylor, and Zac Hanson, respectively aged just 17, 14, and 11 at the time of their chart-topping 1997 hit, offered a sun-drenched song detailing friendship and fun — or at least, it seemed to on a surface level.

Written entirely by the Hansons, the pop track was originally a slower, guitar-focused record on their 1996 demo album, also named MMMBop. The sound (which you can check out here) was arguably closer to Nirvana than the Jackson Five-influenced sound that listeners came to know and love, thanks to producers the Dust Brothers, who decided to turn up the feel-good factor.

What gets lost in the new edition, for many listeners, however, was a sort of lyrical existential cry for help, such as: “You have so many relationships in this life/Only one or two will last
You go through all the pain and strife/Then you turn your back/and they’re gone so fast,” something that was later confirmed by Zac in retrospective interviews as an adult.

“What that song talks about is, you’ve got to hold on to the things that really matter. MMMBop represents a frame of time or the futility of life,” Zac told SongFacts in 2004 (documented by Bustle). “Things are going to be gone, whether it’s your age and your youth, or maybe the money you have, or whatever it is, and all that’s going to be left are the people you’ve nurtured and have really built to be your backbone and your support system.”

“In an mmmbop they’re gone,” the Hanson brothers sang of their fading friendships and adolescence.

In the same interview, Zac cited The Beach Boys as an influence on the track. “The first music that we got into was ’50s and ’60s music,” he explained (via American Songwriter). With this connection in mind, the song bears a striking similarity to Brian Wilson’s work on the Pet Sounds album in particular — upbeat and rooted in traditional music, but with great focus on loneliness, existentialism, and even death.

However, like Wilson’s work, it’s not all doom and gloom from the Hanson classic. The brothers ask, “When you get old and start losing your hair/Can you tell me who will still care?” and later answer their own question with a sense of measured optimism: “Plant a seed, plant a flower, plant a rose/You can plant any one of those/Keep planting to find out which one grows.“

Parade

It’s been 29 years since Hanson’s “MMMBop” blared through our radio speakers for the first time, but it feels like it was just yesterday.

In 1997, three brothers from Tulsa, Oklahoma, Isaac Hanson, Taylor Hanson, and Zac Hanson, also known as the pop-rock band Hanson, broke through in a massive way with their major label debut album, Middle of Nowhere.

The May 6 release quickly shot to No. 1 in several countries like the UK, Australia and Germany, though it peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, blocked from reaching the top spot by pop superstars, the Spice Girls.

Still, it turned the trio into global pop-rock sensations almost overnight.

At the center of the album’s success was the lead single, “MMMBop,” a catchy earworm with an infectious chorus that became one of the defining pop hits of the late 1990s, and remains a nostalgic bop all these years later.

Issac, now 45, previously told The Guardian that they listened to a lot of rock and roll growing up, along with a “lot of doo-wop,” which influenced the chorus.

“We recorded it in a one-car garage, put it on an independent album and sold several thousand copies at local gigs,” he said.

While the original version was “slower and more brooding,” it was rejected by all record companies before Mercury turned it into a smash hit.

The rest is history.

In a landscape dominated by teen boy bands, “MMMBop” stormed the charts, with the breakout smash hit peaking at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and staying there for three weeks, while reaching the Top 10 in many countries across Europe.

The song’s success was powered largely by radio plays, though it was heavily in rotation on MTV as well.

The album sold over 10 million copies worldwide and earned three Grammy nominations. And while “MMMBop” remains a large part of the success, the additional five singles were also well received, including “Where’s the Love,” “Weird,” “Thinking of You” and “I Will Come to You.”

The Governor at the time, Frank Keating, even declared May 6 as “Hanson Day” in Tulsa to commemorate the major release of the three brothers whose melodies reached audiences all across the world.

To this day, Hanson’s fanbase remains strong and dedicated, with Middle of Nowhere remembered as one of the biggest debut albums of the era, with “MMMBop” their signature and most recognizable hit.

A quick listen to the single’s youthful pop-rock melody will instantly transport you to 1997, as the band was on the cusp of their teen global domination.

American Songwriter

Lyrics are more about how they make you feel than what they really say. Of course, poetic lyricists are celebrated for their command of language, but complexity doesn’t always equal a great song. The three hits below are testaments to that fact. The choruses of these songs are really just nonsense, in the best way possible. They mean very little but had a massive impact on listeners when they were released.

“MMMBop” — Hanson

“Bubblegum pop” is a great offender of nonsense lyrics. Many songs that match this descriptor are more about exciting audiences than making them think deeply. That fact is showcased in the chorus of Hanson‘s “MMMBop”: Mmmbop, ba duba dop ba / Du bop, ba duba dop ba.”

Though the chorus is a little light, the verses add a bit of grit to this pop classic. The trio sings about the fleeting, precious nature of life throughout most of this song. They lighten that emotional load with a scatting chorus that feels like little more than nonsense.