Hanson

“HANSON!? WTF!?” you ask.

If you have seen my other posts so far about my favorite bands, you are probably thinking I’ve taken one too many hits of acid.

No, I just chose to dig deeper and not judge a band by its most popular song—from 20 freakin’ years ago.

And actually, I DID like Hanson 20 years ago, and Mmmbop is deeper than the music allows you to believe, but let me get to the point.

The point here is that Hanson is a better band than 99% of the population will ever know but they don’t know what they don’t know, so, I’m going to put this out there for .000000001% of the internet so they can know. Hey, that’s better than nothing. Not all heroes wear capes. Some of us wear Hanson shirts.

You might have seen my previous blog post about Queen. Here’s a fun fact! Queen was a huge influence on Hanson! Here’s another fun fact! The guys in Hanson have worn Queen tshirts on stage! For those of you who know how much I love Queen, now you are starting to understand.

A few months ago, I got sucked mercilessly down the Hanson rabbit hole. For the last 18 years or so, I just thought that they were a boy band who looked and sounded like little girls. Oh, where do I even begin!?

HANSON IS NOT A BOY BAND. Were they boys when their first album came out? Yes. Were other bands boys at some point in their past? Yes. Do they play their own instruments? Yes. Do they write their own songs? Yes. Next…

HANSON ARE MODEL HUMAN BEINGS. Most of the time when a child grows up in Hollywood or the music scene, they either die of a drug overdose, end up part of child sex trafficking, or royally mess their lives up because of instant fame and an entitled attitude. But not only did all the members of Hanson avoid drug use, they all married young and had 13 children between them. They are all still married today and still having babies. They started their own brewing company, they donate to charities, treat their fans like gold, and they help spread awareness about hunger.

HANSON WRITES SOME GOOD SHIT. Now I’m gonna throw some videos at you.

This video alone, hands down, served as the entrance to the rabbit hole. After I saw this, I think my jaw was on the ground for at least 10 minutes. Acapella with no microphones! Warning; side effects of watching this video include goosebumps, teary eyes, and a new Hanson obsession.

This next one is my favorite Hanson song now, in fact I even thought a few times it might be my favorite song of all time but I think I need a few more years to make that claim. So this song is sad as fuck, full disclaimer; if you have lost a child, you will be in tears by the time it’s over. But the reason why I love it is because it flows, exactly how I want a song to flow. There are harmonizing vocals (thank you, Queen!), there are beautiful melodies, and there are unique drum timings. This song has a power over me that only one other song has (a certain song by Pink Floyd with a really long kick ass guitar solo). When the drums and harmonizing vocals kick in during the second half, it’s absolutely perfect. The depressing lyrics don’t even bother me because the music is that powerful. The first time I heard this song, I thought Oh my god, I’ve been missing out on this band!

Here’s another one of my favorites. This was the first song I heard of anything past 1998. I was expecting Mmmbop Part 2 and got schooled real quick!

So the next time you hear someone bashing Hanson for being a has-been boy band, you can point them to this page. You will be a hero—and you don’t have to wear a Hanson shirt.