“Sunshine Smile” by Adorable

It cracks me up when I stumble on discussions that consider the 1990’s to be the worst decade in music history. It’s a uniformed and lazy opinion that focuses in on the latter end of the decade, after the 1996 US Telecommunications Act was passed. This act caused thousands of local, independent radio stations to get gobbled up by major corporations. In turn, this paved the way for major labels to flood the now homogenized airwaves with their data driven “safe” signings, releasing mediocre songs, none of which were cutting edge, important, or ground breaking. But this process took a while and wasn’t complete until the 2000’s.

If you look closely at the first half of the 90’s you find some of the most “original” music ever recorded. Artists like Primus, Wu- Tang Clan, Morphine, The Prodigy, and My Bloody Valentine each broke new ground musically and had landmark releases while new genres like Big Beat / Drum and Bass, Acid Jazz, Grunge, Grindcore, and Death Metal were finding their audiences and forcing record stores to assign new labels to their shelves. College radio was still king and music magazines were still read. This was long before apps like Spotify advised people, and bands were outdoing each other to create the most original sounds and not just strum the same three cords like Nickelback, Creed, or 3 Doors Down.   

“Sunshine Smile” was released on April 20th of 1992. It was the debut single from Adorable, one of the next wave of “Britpop” bands trying to break in the states. No, it wasn’t genre bending or the next “new” sound, but it was my favorite song that spring and into the summer, while the music industry was still trying to figure out how to market grunge, and long before the corporations and legislators controlled what was played on the radio. 

Check out singer  Pete Fijalkowski's latest project: https://tiptop.ochre.store/release/560160-pete-fij-loves-coming-back