Certain Songs #41: Belly – "Feed The Tree"
December 9, 2014 by Jim Connelly
Album: Star.
Year: 1993.
In retrospect, 1993 was kind of the peak of it, wasn't it? Where whatever in the hell was going on with indie rock felt like the center of the fucking universe. If 1991 was the year punk broke, and 1994 was the year that broke punk (and by "punk," I really mean Kurt Cobain,"), then 1992 and 1993 were the sweet spot, where it seemed like anything was possible.
Which is all just bullshit, I know, but god damn it, that's what it felt like. At least, in the alt-indie-whatever rock world. For me, that first Belly album always evokes that weird time where I was still living in the Tower District, but everything was changing around me and I knew that I needed to change it up as well, but wasn't quite ready. Not yet.
Looking back, it seems to me that only in 1993 would you get something like "Feed The Tree," a huge-sounding, impeccably produced pop song that is still weird, indie (Tanya Donnelly was in both Throwing Muses and the Breeders, for fucks sake) and lyrically nonsensical, but still for a second seemed like it might just actually top the charts.
It didn't, of course. I mean, "Feed The Tree" topped the Bilboard "Modern Rock" charts, but came nowhere near the real Top 40. Still, Belly's Star – a near perfect record for that aforementioned sweet spot – went gold, whereas five years prior, it would have maybe sold 100,000 and five years later, lucky to sell half that much.
Official video for "Feed The Tree"
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Filed Under: Certain Songs, Hot Topics Tagged With: belly, feed the tree