There are some bands whose lack of commercial success makes very little sense. Take a listen to any greatest hits package containing the singles of The Smithereens, and you’ll wonder how every one of them wasn’t rocketing up the charts.
Instead, it took the New Jersey band until their third album before they finally eked out a Top 40 single. And even then, it could have been much more momentous if not for a couple of missed opportunities.
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A Crowe’s Ear
What is it about the power pop genre that it tends to produce criminally unappreciated bands, at least in terms of mainstream radio? Bands like The Raspberries, Badfinger, and Cheap Trick never scored nearly as many hits as the quality of their work deserved. The same could certainly be said of The Smithereens.
Three members of the quartet went to high school together in New Jersey before forming the band. Pat DiNizio wrote taut songs filled with plenty of hooks and beguilingly dark lyrics. Their first two albums produced a number of songs that gained rock airplay. But the pop charts barely eluded them.
Other folks noticed, however, including Cameron Crowe. The rock scribe turned filmmaker wanted a song for a certain scene in a movie he was making. He asked DiNizio if The Smithereens might do it. They agreed, until complications ensued.
“Girl” Problems
DiNizio was given a script for Crowe’s film, entitled Say Anything. Fans of that film know there’s an iconic scene where John Cusack’s character holds up a boombox outside the house of Ione Skye’s character, playing the song “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel in an attempt to win her over.
Well, that was supposed to be the spot where The Smithereens would deliver their track. DiNizio wrote the song “A Girl Like You” for that purpose. The lyrics even use the phrase “say anything” on several occasions. But Crowe worried when he heard the song that the lyrics were too closely tied to the script.
DiNizio wasn’t about to change his song, however. He held onto it for The Smithereens’ third album, 11, released in 1989. And Crowe did OK with his Plan B, choosing Gabriel’s already-released song for the scene instead.
Where’s Madge?
When The Smithereens recorded “A Girl Like You”, they did so, aided by producer Ed Stasium, with crunching guitars signaling more of a heavy rock sound. They had hoped that they’d get a marketing boost from the woman who was supposed to sing harmony vocals with DiNizio.
Believe it or not, Madonna, the biggest pop star on the planet at that time, was supposed to join The Smithereens on the track. But when the day came to record, she didn’t show up. The band tapped Maria Vidal, then an up-and-coming pop star, to do the job instead.
“A Girl Like You” had been robbed of its two premier promotional tie-ins by the time it was released as a single in 1989. Luckily, the quality of the song and the band’s bruising performance won the day. It landed at No. 38 on the pop charts, the first time ever for The Smithereens in the land of the Top 40.
(Photo by Frans Schellekens/Redferns)