Taylor Hanson: "MMMBop" became a mainstay that we would play in our little sets around Oklahoma and Arkansas and Kansas and wherever people would listen to us. Greenberg traveled to Coffeyville, Kansas, to see the brothers perform at a festival, and Mercury Records soon signed the band.
But the rejections ended when Steve Greenberg, an A&R executive at Mercury Records, heard one of the band’s independent albums. The band had a manager and attorney who pitched them to major labels, but nothing was happening-13 labels turned Hanson down, partly because their poppy, Jackson 5-esque sound was dated compared to the darker grunge music that was topping the charts in the early- and mid-'90s. Some people really didn’t get what we were doing … We were facing down the barrel of continuing to pursue a path that was different than most everyone around us.īy performing at hundreds of local art fairs, block parties, and schools across the Midwest, Hanson built a fan base of a few thousand people. We were reflecting on what was very much happening in our world at the time, which was seeing how even as 12 and 14 year olds, friendships and relationships would come and go. It was over the course of several different afternoons in our band setup in the living room. Taylor Hanson: The process of writing the song really came out of a very challenging moment as kids-deciding to play music. And it happens to have a catchy little chorus, a little nonsensical, scatty thing. Hold on to the things that are precious to you because life is fleeting. Isaac Hanson (via Noisey, 2013): The song "MMMBop" is actually about holding on to things that really matter to you because there will be few things that last through your whole life. Isaac and I would be sitting in the living room-we took over the living room of our house as rehearsal space when we were kids, so we completely dominated the household-playing these very simple chord patterns. Taylor Hanson: The verses were formed after the chorus had existed. Zac Hanson (via Songfacts, 2004): If anything, "MMMBop" was inspired by The Beach Boys and vocal groups of that era-using your voice as almost a doo-wop kind of thing. We made an album called Boomerang and we were working on another song and looking for a background part, and that background part later became the chorus for "MMMBop." It was sort of too hook-y to be a background part, so it just kind of sat on the back burner. Taylor Hanson: "MMMBop" started as a background part. They discuss how "MMMBop" evolved from a melancholy ballad to an upbeat earworm, the challenges of recording vocals as a pubescent boy, and the band’s upcoming world tour, aptly called the Middle of Everywhere tour. Two decades after the album's release, Mental Floss spoke with middle brother Taylor Hanson, former Mercury Records executives, and Middle of Nowhere’s producers, engineer, and mixer to get a behind-the-scenes view of the band’s rise from obscurity to super stardom. Middle of Nowhere went on to sell more than 10 million copies worldwide, spawn two Billboard Hot 100 singles, and earn Hanson three Grammy nominations. As the mall was shut down to accommodate the zealous crowd, it became clear that life for the three brothers was about to change. But thousands of screaming pre-teen and teen fans-anywhere from 6000 to 10,000 of them-showed up. Hosted by radio station Z100, the event was expected to draw a few hundred people. Isaac, Taylor, and Zac Hanson were in the middle of doing serious promotional work (they'd appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman the night before), and were set to perform a few acoustic songs at a record store in the mall.
The day before-May 6, 1997-a band of three young brothers from Tulsa, Oklahoma, had released their debut label album, Middle of Nowhere.
Police lights flashed, enthusiastic screams punctured the air, and a wave of anticipation swelled like a tsunami. Something huge was happening at New Jersey's Paramus Park Mall.
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