Everyone wondered if the Gin Blossoms could continue without the songwriting talents of Hopkins once it came time to record again. Going one step farther than Syd Barrett, just as the Gin Blossoms began to rise to the top, Hopkins committed suicide. Unfortunately, his depression and his alcoholism took their toll on the band just at the moment that they were recording their big breakthrough, and Hopkins was kicked out of the group. A founding member of the band, Hopkins penned “Hey Jealousy” and “Found Out About You”, the two tracks that struck the deepest chord with the public and helped propel the Gin Blossoms to stardom.
Although Wilson and guitarist Jessie Valenzuela both share writing credits for various tracks on New Miserable Experience, the ghosts that haunted the band were the tracks written by Doug Hopkins. In addition, the Gin Blossoms are touched, sadly, by a classic rock and roll story. Today, the sound is almost too familiar to really objectively gauge the album in comparison to 1992 standards, but it remains a simple pleasure, a straight-up rock album that’s hooky, slickly crafted, and is suffused with the kind of accessibility that belies its “modern rock” origins. The two chart hits, “Hey Jealousy” and “Found Out About You”, are the most ubiquitous songs associated with the Gin Blossoms, the whole album is a solid affair, carried along by songs like “Lost Horizons”, “Mrs. Dusty, alcohol-soaked, nervous, emotional, tattered and a little broken down, New Miserable Experience laid out a heavy dose of pathos while wrapping it up in tightly contained guitar licks, intricate melodies, and the wistfully engaging voice of Robin Wilson.
Following in R.E.M.’s footsteps, the Gin Blossoms carved out their niche in the company of Cracker and the Judybats, and they left a commercial trail that would only benefit alt.country acts like Wilco and the Jayhawks in years to come.īut all credibility aside, the Gin Blossoms managed, in their short career, to produce one incredible album in New Miserable Experience. If the Gin Blossoms formula of blues-rock, country twang, and Southwestern moodiness might have been responsible for some of the adult alternative spawn of the 1990s, it wasn’t without its peers. So, today, if you try to hang onto any kind of indie cred at all, you’ll probably distance yourself from the Gin Blossoms faster than you can say “Alannis Morrissette”.īefore all the hype and glamour and success, the Gin Blossoms were just another rock band, strumming their strings and pushing their wares in the dusty Arizona night, and Tempe is hardly the kind of place that Hollywood mines for talent. They were one of those bands that helped propel modern rock into the mainstream, wound up with gobs of commercial success, and were at one time a ubiquitous sound on corporate radio. Okay, right off the bat, let’s acknowledge that it’s just not cool to like the Gin Blossoms.