Steve Harwell, the lead singer of the 1990s band Smash Mouth, passed away earlier this week.
I will confess that I was a lukewarm fan, not because I disliked Harwell or his music, but because of my age. By the time Smash Mouth broke out, I was already in my late twenties. I had largely moved on from that phase of life in which one feels compelled to keep up with the latest in youth music.
Nevertheless, the news of Harwell’s passing has led me to explore some of Smash Mouth’s material retroactively. I recall hearing “Walkin’ On The Sun” in the late 1990s, but I never paid much attention to it. I just watched the video on YouTube, and I keep rewatching it. It’s downright addictive.
Smash Mouth’s music typifies the youth music of the 1990s. Whereas 1970s music was (often unnecessarily) heavy, and 1980s music was bombastic and preening, 1990s pop music was usually just fun.
That’s a fairly accurate description of “Walkin’ on the Sun”. There’s no discernible sociopolitical message here, not even any adolescent angst. Just tongue-in-cheek exuberance.
That was what the 1990s were all about. In those years before 9/11, the war in Iraq, and pointless culture wars at home, American culture was mostly optimistic and mostly enjoyable. I miss the 1990s, back when “woke” simply meant “alert and awake”.
Steve Harwell was arguably a perfect lead singer for that era. If you watch him in the aforementioned video, he isn’t going out of his way to be moody, sexy, or confrontational. He doesn’t take himself too seriously, like a Robert Plant or a Mick Jagger. Harwell is just having fun. And he makes you want to have fun, too.
Although Smash Mouth is remembered most fondly by Millennials (who were in their youthful salad days in the late 1990s), Steve Harwell, born in 1967, was a GenXer.
Nothing particularly odd about that. It is the preceding generation that typically creates the bulk of youth cultural artifacts for the current generation. In the 1980s, Gen Xers watched the teen movies of Baby Boomer John Hughes, and listened to rock musicians who were almost exclusively Baby Boomers.
Harwell’s life was much too short. And while there is doubtless a lesson in his passing about the pitfalls of alcohol, we’ve seen and heard similar stories before. Back to my era: Gen Xers recall the 1980 deaths of AC/DC singer Bon Scott and Led Zepellin drummer John Bonham. Both of these musicians’ lives were cut short that year because of alcohaol.
I’m sorry Steve Harwell is gone, but I’m glad I discovered his music, albeit belatedly.
Steve Harwell, 56, RIP.
-ET