I wanted to honor the album so much that I ignored that it had come out in 1996. In my high school newspaper, I wrote that Squirrel Nut Zippers’ Hot was the best album of 1997. But there were more, each with a shittier band name than the last. Squirrel Nut Zippers were, for a time, the biggest of those bands, and they were also the best. There was a full-bore swing revival happening, one that briefly left a deep impact on alternative radio and convinced people that it was a good idea to own a zoot suit. I’m not picking on Alternative Press in particular here. Precious few of us will ever admit to liking them.
Eighteen years later, “The Metro” remains an unassailable synthpop classic, and Squirrel Nut Zippers are a punchline. It’s organic and authentic and deeply felt. By contrast, the music of Squirrel Nut Zippers is steeped in history. “The Metro,” to the writer, is chintzy, fake, and synthetic. He mocks “The Metro” - and, by extension, the people who love it, including the band members’ wives or girlfriends - for personifying the worst excesses of ’80s pop. The Alternative Press writer thinks this is the worst shit ever.
I’m doing this from 18-year-old memory, but I’m pretty sure there’s a part in the profile when a couple of the band members’ wives dance, at a party, to “The Metro,” Berlin’s 1981 synthpop hit. One month in 1998, long before Alternative Press was a strictly emo-only concern, the magazine put Squirrel Nut Zippers, the North Carolina swing revivalists who’d scored an out-of-nowhere radio hit with “Hell,” on its cover. All week long we’re looking at the strangest musical moments and trends of the decade.
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