Matchbox Twenty – Yourself Or Someone Like You – Analogue Productions SACD

Described by AllMusic as the standard-bearer for post-alternative rock ‘n’ roll because of its ’90s production dynamics, while still holding true to its classic rock core, Yourself or Someone Like You — the debut album from Matchbox Twenty — features sturdy songs and fairly strong hooks, all delivered forcefully with lead singer-songwriter Rob Thomas’s distinctive bravado.

Musically not flashy, nor as ingratiating as Third Eye Blind’s pop instincts, the album is solid, American rock, reminiscent of a blend of Tom Petty and Pearl Jam. So it shouldn’t have been surprising when the album found a wide audience.

Yourself Or Someone Like You went on to sell more than 15 million copies worldwide. The band was a mainstream staple of the mid- to late-’90s with its light rock songs about loneliness, depression, anger, and alcoholism, and successful albums followed such as Mad Season and More Than You Think You Are. Band members reunited in 2012 for North.

Thomas says he wrote the songs for Yourself Or Someone Like You in a five- or six-month period before the band recorded it. He felt driven to create new songs, he says, because of a contentious relationship with a previous band he had left, and the motivation to be ready and prepared when it came time for Matchbox Twenty to record its debut album.

The album’s second single “Push” released in 1997 topped the U.S. Modern Rock Tracks chart and became one of the band’s signature songs. Thomas wrote the lyrics to “Push” with Matt Serletic. The lyrics dealt with the stress of falling in and out of love.

In Birmingham, Alabama, the band was playing a thousand-seat club and there was a line of patrons outside the door clamoring to get in. Matchbox Twenty was the opening act that night for The Lemonheads.

“We thought, ‘Wow, The Lemonheads are having a good night.’ Then we found out it was because that town was the only one playing ‘Push’ on the radio and it was the biggest hit in Birmingham, and they were all there for us. It was a huge change. We were so used to playing to 20 people, or sometimes to six people and most of the time they were people from the other band (that was playing) that night; we would just play for each other. So, it was a really big change that all of a sudden, people we didn’t know were lining up to see us,” Thomas told the AV Club.

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