I’ll never forget sitting in my parent’s basement watching late night TV (if my memory serves me correctly it was Conan O Brien) and hearing the host say “ladies and gentleman, Nada Surf!” I immediately said to myself “whoa, like THE Nada Surf?”. Sure enough it was and they performed “Inside Of Love”, which quickly became one of my favorite songs and I couldn’t wait to go to the local record store and buy it the next day. The thing is, back in those days, we had no way of knowing what bands were up to in between records like we do now. There wasn’t social media and things like that, if the radio, MTV, and blogs stopped talking about a band, there was really no way of knowing what they were up to. After the massive success Nada Surf had in 1996 with the song “Popular”, I honestly wasn’t sure what had happened to them. There was a college radio station in my hometown that played their cover of “Mean To Me” a bit in the summer of 1999 but other than that I had no idea what they were up to. Thankfully the band hadn’t broken up but they were taking some time off after their major label days and working regular jobs again, something Matthew Caws and I talked about when he came on my radio show in 2021, so “Let Go” was a new start for a young band that had already been through so much.
One of my favorite things about “Let Go” is how it sounded nothing like Nada Surf’s earlier work. It was a fresh start with an all new sound that we all know and love today, but at the time I imagine was a risk for the band to take. Having such a massive success with “Popular”, it would have been easy for the band to attempt to mimic that, but I always found it respectable they chose to go their own way and all the years later it paid off for the band ten fold. To this day they sell out shows everywhere they go, put out solid records, and they don’t even have to play “Popular” live unless they really want to. The fans stuck with this band and to me “Let Go” is where it all began. A second chance for a band to show they still had so much to give and still prove that to this day. Happy 20th birthday “Let Go”, I’m thankful you exist and can’t wait for the next 20 years. Below is one of my favorite songs off the record, now do yourself a favor, put on your birthday party hat, and turn this one up NOW.
-Andy
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