Urge Overkill Were They That Popular?

There were bands in the 1990s that felt like they were everywhere. The 1990s is defined by Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Pearl Jam, Garth Brooks.

Urge Overkill had a song in the movie, “Pulp Fiction.” Their UO stickers were in music clubs and streetlight posts. Radio played them a lot. Why not? They were friends of Liz Phair and hung out with her when she got signed to a record label. The band had members names “Jaguar” “Blackie” and “Hadji.” How cool is this band?

In 1996 they hit the big time with a song called “Sister Havana.” They followed that with “Positive Bleeding.” The album those songs came from, “Saturated” had those hits and fun songs like “Erika Kane,” about the soap opera character,“Bottle of Fur.” They sampled Mary Tyler Moore and Hawaii 5-0 in songs.

Then, they were gone. By 1997, the stickers were gone. The songs weren’t on the radio.

They continued to record and are still out there. They broke up for a while but reunited.

Funny thing was those hit songs weren’t as big as I thought. The album hit 146 on the album charts.  “Sister Havana” hit Top 10 on rock charts but was nowhere on mainstream top 40. Alternative radio stations loved them and played those songs a lot. From the UO stickers and radio, it looked like they were the biggest band in America. The sales don’t say that.

But you know what, these songs hold up. They are fun, rock, and cool. You can buy this album today and hear a lot to like that still sounds great.

Go buy “Saturation” and see.