I'll admit it. I loved the video for "No Rain." Who could resist that beautiful green hillside with the bee girl dancing around? And like many, I felt slightly ripped off when I bought the self-titled Blind Melon album in 1992. The bee girl stood alone.Nothing else on the album sounded even remotely like "No Rain." With the advent of the interweb, this kind of bait and switch is a little harder to get away with, but in those days you had to take a single on faith. The only thing that kept me from turning on Blind Melon is that I happened to really like the sound that sounded nothing like "No Rain."
I have a hard time describing that other sound. The rhythm guitar sound completely changed the way I thought about my own playing at the time. It was a huge influence. Maybe it's Alice in Chains meets Phish without all the jam bandiness.
Blind Melon is a nice album, but maybe a little long. It feels like it needs an edit. I think they could have gotten away with 11 songs instead of 13. "Tones of Home" and "Sleepyhouse" are also great tunes but I guess "No Rain" will always be Blind Melon's legacy. Their lead singer, Shannon Hoon, died of a drug overdose in 1995 so they never really had a chance to top it. There are worse songs to be known for, though.
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