What's The Name Of That One Band?

Well, this is kind of random (even by my standards) but tonight, I found myself obsessed with trying to remember the name of a particular musical group. I often make lists of artists that I'd like to check out at some point. I have spreadsheets full of bands and solo artists, organized by decade, gender and so forth. I've been on a 90's nostalgia kick recently, which has involved me revisiting music that I listened to back then as well as reading up on bands that I never listened to but have retroactively become interested in checking out. Better late than never.

As it happens, through the course of browsing Amazon, I remembered this one band that I had read about and been intrigued by a couple of years ago. I think that my memory may have been spurred by the cover art of certain albums by Lush and Belly, among others. A certain similar mix of colors and very general aesthetic. I could remember almost exactly what the mystery band's CD looked like - a selection of sugary candy, some of it red, surrounded by white frosting - but not what it was called.

Including photos of the aforementioned albums - Lush's Lovelife and Belly's Star - will ultimately paint my thought process in an even more random light (they don't look all that similar, I suppose) but this post needs pictures, so here they are:

I had two other mental leads. First, the word "cherry" was involved in either the band name or the album title. Unfortunately, I could not remember which for sure, and there are way too many musical matches that come up when you search for "cherry." Like, hundreds of pages. I tried any number of searches on Amazon, Wikipedia and the web in general, to no avail.

Second, I remembered that the singer was more famous for her subsequent musical career. It wasn't Fergie or Britta Phillips of Luna, both of whom I double-checked. I felt like I could just almost remember. It was so close, but so far away, one of those situations in which you're probably better off abandoning the search and coming back later. But I was determined to keep trying, then and there.

(To clarify, Fergie was previously in a group called Wild Orchid, which is a faintly similar to the name that I was trying to remember. For reference, here's their album:)

I knew that my mystery group was basically an "alternative pop-rock band" from the 90's. Thus-ly did I finally find what I was looking for. I did a Google search and wound up at the List of alternative rock artists Wikipedia entry. There are a lot of artists, but I started scanning through them, confident that if my band was listed, I would recognize the name. Sure enough, down in the E's, I had my match: Eve's Plum.

This is the part where I have to laugh at myself, so that if anyone else laughs at me, at least I'm laughing with them. Anyway, that's an odd band name. The album that I was looking for in particular is called Cherry Alive. And the singer is Colleen Fitzpatrick, better known as Vitamin C. That's really funny. I think that I must have gotten curious about Vitamin C at some point in the past, and read her biography on Allmusic. Then, I read some complimentary reviews of the album in question and thought, "Hey, that sounds kinda cool." I love power pop, with guitars and melodies in equal measure, and that's what Cherry Alive sounds like.

Without further ado, then, here's my momentary Holy Grail:

Looks sugary and good, right? Hey, I enjoy good, pure pop music in reasonable doses. And this supposedly has guitars, too!

Just to prove that I like rock music and have other posters on my bedroom walls besides Fergie, I cite my recent acquisition of this album:

(I haven't listened to it yet, though, so if it's horrible in some way, I'm still in the dark.)

So, kids, it turns out that even in the Internet Age it's possible to get lost. If you don't have any song lyrics or other clearly defined names or titles to go by, you actually still might be unable to identify music. But if you maintain dogged determination and think about it from every angle, there's a decent chance that your search might have a happy ending.

And that's how I found your mother Aunt Vitamin C. Don't worry. I'll get to your mother eventually.