Sophomore Slumping or Just Moving On?

Album: Dreams So Real, Gloryline, 1990

Acquired: I bought this in a mall in Nashville at the begining of the fabled state bank examiners tour of 1993.

Best Track: "Day After Day"

Lasting Memory: When I found this in that 3 for $10 rack, I thought, "I didn't even know Dreams So Real had even put out a another album besides Rough Night in Jericho." And even though I bought Gloryline, obviously, I've inadvertently contributed to this good band's and decent album's burgeoning obscurity by not listening to Gloryline much over the years.

(Essay Question: Can obscurity burgeon? That is, if acclaim can burgeon, which it most certainly can, can antifame burgeon? For extra credit, explain why Ed likes the word "burgeon" so much. Does he he have a flowering fount of floridity from which to draw?)

Admittedly, Gloryline is not as good as Dreams So Real's major label debut. But it is a solid entry in the genre of Americana rock, and it did not deserve its zero-fanfare release and immediate relegation to the cutout bin. I'd go so far as to argue that Gloryline is the best album John Mellencamp and his brothers Johnny and Cougar never recorded. You might even be able to confirm this assessment for yourself by clicking on this link. (Proof yet again that every band does have Shonen Knife that loves them.)

I have to figure that Dreams So Real suffered the double whammy of the sophomore slump and the gnatlike attention span of record industry executives. A truism of all arts is that the artist spends his or her whole life creating that first commercial success. How can an artist not? Then the next record, book, painting, whatever comes due, and what does the artist have left? The stuff that wasn't good enough to make the cut for the original offering, and a ton of physical, mental, and moral exhaustion from having to pimp the original piece. The follow-up to a breakthrough can't help but be a little disappointing.

The other phenomenon that most assuredly did in Dreams So Real was the shift in focus from college rock in Athens, Ga., to grunge rock in Seattle. Nirvana's Nevermind came out in 1991, and after that, who needed the countrified sounds of bands like Dreams So Real?

A sure sign that Dreams So Real just wasn't ready to play in the louder, dumber alternative rock world ruled by Nirvana and Pearl Jam is that the best track on Gloryline is, by a lot, a sterling cover of Badfinger's "Day After Day." I love that song, and Dreams So Real plays the hell out of it while changing it just enough to make it their own, but it is no "Smells Like Nirvana."

Up Next: Drivin' n' Cryin', Scarred but Smarter, 1986