Nine Days
Flying the Corporate Jet
Madding Music
Nine Days will, in the annals of time, no doubt be unfairly dismissed as mere one-hit wonders. After the massive success of their debut single “Absolutely (Story of a Girl),” the band’s follow-up album, So Happily Unsatisfied, never saw the light of day, and Nine Days slipped quietly off the radar.
Or, so it seemed.
John Hampson and long-time collaborator Brian Desveaux took stock, regrouped and went back to their roots by independently recording and releasing Flying the Corporate Jet in 2003.
The result – like Hampson’s recently issued solo EP – is a triumphant record that refuses to wallow in the lows of Nine Day’s recent history, concentrating instead on creating a more mature variation of the band’s modern rock sound.
There’s no blindingly obvious hit single waiting to happen here, but tunes like “29 Year Old Girls” and “Wonderful” retain the duo’s remarkable sense of melody and the kind of explosive hooks that could easily make a commercial impact.
Hampson’s compositions generally display a greater level of quality than Desveaux’s, and the contemporary flavored rocker “Something Has Gone Wrong” is no exception to that rule. However, “Reality TV,” which takes a wry look at what passes for entertainment these days, shows Desveaux at his best and reveals the only reference to Nine Day’s history with former label Sony: “So it was fun / We had this great little song / It went to number one / And then tomorrow . . . gone / And all we could see when we came up for air / Was just a label full of monkeys trying to spike our hair.”
The rock/country/rap hybrid that is “17 and 33” may not be to everybody’s liking, least of all label execs at Sony smarting from the broadside in “Reality TV.”
One-hit wonders? Not at all. One-hit wonders are those who briefly play the corporate game and are never heard from again, but talent like Hampson’s and Desveaux’s is truly too good to be stifled.
Nine Days: http://www.ninedaysmusic.com/
