What Happened?

I was just�struck by this thought (don't worry, no bruises).� What happened to Moxy Fruvous that caused their popularity to slow down after their intial success?

Personally, I think it could be because none of the later albums (except maybe Live Noise and You Will Go to the Moon) capture the diversity of Moxy Fruvous as well as Bargainville.� That album has comedy, seriousness, a cappella, and pop aspects to it.� Live Noise and YWGTTM come close to capturing this, but I think the albums came out so much later that the ex-fans didn't recognize the name Moxy Fruvous.

They could have also just moved onto 'The Next Big Thing'.

The diversity could be another aspect as well.� The frulads tried to not fit into one specific genre.� I respect them for that, but it makes it hard to develop a large fan base when you don't appeal specifically to one kind of listener.

Most likely it was a combination of these things.� What do you think caused Moxy Fruvous to lose the speed with which they began their careers with?

Wood.

Definitely their Wood did it.

my favorite CD.

Yes, this is an old discussion. But I won't hold your being new to it against you. It was Wood that slowed their success. After the Indie Tape and Bargainville a lot of people saw Moxy Fr�vous as a cute novelty act. When they came out next with a slower, slightly darker album, a lot of people couldn't see past the "hey, what happened to that funny band that I liked?" reaction to appreciate the beauty of their more serious work.

This was all, of course, before my time. I fell in love with Moxy Fr�vous as they were debuting new songs for Thornhill, so while my first album experience was Bargainville, which hooked me in, it was the live show with an eclectic selection of their work which blew me away... besides, it was the harmonies that attracted me initially, not the novelty.

If I remember right (any somewho who was in Canada and/or a fan at that time could probably comfirm this) another problem they had from Wood was that the Down From Above video (which is my favorite, and I think it's the overall fan favorite) was, while not banned on Much Music, it was sent to obscure time zones.

well... come on. It's a really fucked up video.

Well, of course.
That'd be why it's my favorite :-D

obscure time zones? like, UTC+0530 Indian Standard Time?

*duck*

-- Pauley ;)

That it was banished to the nether time slots is not so much the answer but an effect of the problem, which, as Gella said, was that a lot of the fans had a certain image of Fruvous and wood contradicted that image.

Actually Warner Canada had a particular image of Fruvous too, and they had no clue what to do with wood. They didn't try to find an audience for it. They just fed it into the top-40 Muchmusic hopper, and when it didn't catch on like Bargainville did, they decided that Fruvous was maybe not so profitable after all.

But to be fair to Warner, the guys did this on purpose. They were VERY uncomfortable with the instant stardom, and with the way that the were being pigeonholed as a comedy/satire band. They had other plans for the Fruvous project and they wanted to break out before they got trapped. So they made a totally Anti-Bargainville album (with the exception of Organ Grinder). Mike told me that he thinks they subconsiously wanted the casual Bargainville fan to dislike wood. They wanted to appeal to people who really got the concept behind Fruvous, and to build a fan base that was more stable than the Bargainville one had been.

The Bargainville fans were a balloon inflated by heavy Muchmusic rotation. It was your typical boom-bust cycle waiting to happen. Fruvous just took control by popping the balloon early.

The result of this was that they lost popularity in Canada, where they'd been huge, but they were able to build a big fan following in the US, where nobody had ever heard of them before, and there were no expectations. Since the US crowds were more enthusiastic (and of course larger with 10x the population to work with), touring gradually shifted south. Canadians complained about not getting many shows, but the fact was that Fruvous was more popular in the states, so of course that is where they had to concentrate their touring.

Anyway, to sum all that up, it wasn't so much that something went "wrong" after the Bargainville tour, rather it was that the guys decided to take their careers in a different direction and go for artistic integrity and a grass roots approach over the corporate musical commodity game.

You said it completely well, AJ!� And thank heavens they DID take that route.� One of my biggest reasons for being so head over heels with Fruvous is their versatility.� What other band writes The Gulf War Song, Killer Tents, French ballads, The Present Tense Tureen and I Love My Boss?�My friend and I were discussing this, and that's really the sticking point.� There are tons of other bands that I love but none of them come close to Moxy Fruvous because none of them so free from genre-ruts (with the exception of Jane Siberry--gotta love those Canadians!)� Even other bands that are very close to my heart like TFIA, DVN, the worms and GBS can't really hold a candle to Fruvous because I can pin down their sound.� Fruvous, while they have a common thread of folkiness/harmony running through almost everything, always surprises me.� Not to mention their stellar improv abilities.

I think they made the smart decision in not allowing the instant stardom to confine them to a certain trademark sound and personality.� And it isn't just about Wood either.� Thornhill and YWGTTM are both radically different from each other and rather different from Bargainville too.

The versatility factor can get tricky when trying to turn people onto Fruvous though.� Because each album has its own personality, it isn't so easy to just recommend one to someone.� And there's always a big chance that someone will only be fond of one of Fruvous's styles, but not the others.� This is where mix CD's come in. :)

Plus, from an American perspective, it seems like their popularity only grew from the get-go.� But I see how that's not the case in Canada.�

Just my $.02 :)