FEATURE:
Too Good to Be Forgotten: Songs That Are Much More Than a Guilty Pleasure
Spin Doctors - Two Princes
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WHILST it is not one of the classics…
from the 1990s, I think the Spin Doctors’ hit, Two Princes, has come in for some unfair stick. You might not know the song by its title but I guarantee, as soon as you hear the song, you’ll be able to place it! I feel a lot of people think it is a guilty pleasure song. A lot more dismiss it or say that it is a bit of a joke. I am not going to say it is a song without fault, though it has plenty of charm and its repetitiveness – which some signal as a bad thing. That means it is catchy and memorable. The New York band delivered the infectious Two Princes in 1993 (and they have played the song together through the years). The track peaked at number-seven on the Billboard Hot 100. Outside of the United States, Two Princes topped the charts in Iceland and Sweden. It made it into the top-ten of the charts in Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. The song earned them a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group. Although there are some weak points to Two Princes – its lyrics are not especially deep or brilliant -, I have always loved the fact that it is quite laidback and one cannot help sing along! Much more than a guilty pleasure, Two Princes is a song that still sounds pretty fine almost thirty years after it was released.
It is no surprise that Two Princes won a lot of chart respect and was a very successful single. Critics, on the other hand, are a little more divided when it comes to the merits of a gem from the 1990s:
“Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic stated that the song is one of the "best tracks" of the album. Larry Flick from Billboard wrote, "The Doctors' growing legion of fans will devour this treat from Pocket Full of Kryptonite within seconds. Percolating rhythm section, courtesy of Aaron Comess and Mark White, propels Eric Schenkman's scratchy guitars and a pure-pop hook. Engaging vocals by Christopher Barron and lively instrumentation assure instant album-rock and alternative play, with visions of successfully crossing into the pop arena realistically dancing in everyone's heads." Randy Clark from Cash Box commented, "This crunchy rock/funk groove hints of the same raw, unpolished but infectious street quality of the early Rolling Stones except with an unspoiled and urgent alternative style." Kingston Informer said the song is "brilliant". It was ranked No. 41 on VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the '90s"; conversely, it was ranked No. 21 on Blender magazine's "50 Worst Songs Ever".
Because Two Princes was taken from the Spin Doctors’ debut album, Pocket Full of Kryptonite (released in August 1991), I will bring in a review for that album. I think the album as a whole is very strong and boasts plenty of terrific moments. There are some articles that paint Two Princes in a slightly jokey light. In 2018 – to mark twenty-five years of the track -, this is what GQ had to say:
“This video inspired an entire '90s-only karaoke night where my friends and I attempted to sing not only other songs to the tune of “Two Princes,” but “Two Princes” to the tune of other songs. Could the video have worked with any song? Maybe. But there’s something about “Two Princes” that’s at once endearing and utterly embarrassing, setting it up to be an enduring punchline that’s catchy as hell.
Pocket Full of Kryptonite was released in 1991, launching the Blues Traveler-adjacent band The Spin Doctors into MTV stardom. Their single “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” was, for a time, the “most requested song in the nation on album-oriented-rock stations,” according to Rolling Stone, and one of the top requested videos on MTV. They were the opposite of grunge, they were pop rock for the alt-hippies, the gateway drug to Phish.
“Two Princes” was its next single, which told the classic tale of a woman caught between the affections of two men ([whispers] those are the princes). One is rich and family-approved; the other is, presumably, the lead singer of the Spin Doctors, who may not have the pedigree but knows “what a prince and lover ought to be.” On first pass, it seems the underdog prince is the right choice—he’s the one who loves her, after all. Then again, though we know we never actually hear who the woman in question wants to marry.
The song, and accompanying video, have everything you want from the '90s: a lead singer with a weird hat, random scatting, a weirdly high-concept video for such low production value. It was a hit (so much so it got the Sesame Street treatment), but maybe that was in spite of itself. “With its riff repeated long past endurance, dopey lyrics and abominable vocal scatting,” wrote Blender on its list of the 50 Worst Songs Ever, “it could only have been the work of scrabbly [sic] beared, questionably hatted, red-eyed stoners staggering out of the rehearsal room convinced they have discovered the missing link between grunge, the Grateful Dead and Jamiroquai—blissfully unaware that no one in his right mind was looking for that in the first place”.
I have a lot of time for Two Princes. Maybe I have heard it too much and it is imbedded in my mind. Others who might be slightly new to the song will feel differently. One does not really hear anything like the Spin Doctors today; that slightly slacker-type Rock sound. There are plenty of people who love the band’s biggest track and feel that it has been cruelly maligned and ridiculed by some. I want to quote from a review of the Spin Doctors’ debut album:
“Of course, as an elementary schooler, I had no idea what a jam band was or why lead singer Chris Barron wore the knit hat and woven poncho that I found so silly. I wouldn’t have known they were part of a jamming revival reminiscent of ‘60s and ‘70s long-form rock. I could not even explain what I liked about their hit, “Two Princes,” a precise pop fairy tale with a call-and-response chorus that remains my favorite ‘90s song. The most discernible hook on the entire album, it was crafted to withstand decades in a way that even lesser hit “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” couldn’t match. (“Two Princes” proved such an irresistible combination of chord changes, vaguely rock rhythm and scat singing that Third Eye Blind nearly recreated it on their hit “Semi-Charmed Life.”).
Though born in New Jersey based out of New York, the Spin Doctors were aware of the burgeoning Seattle sound as they recorded Kryptonite. “Forty or Fifty” sounds a lot like Pearl Jam, its languorous chords and mournful vocals stretched long until the peppery chords of “Refrigerator Car” take over. I can forgive the cheesiness of that extended metaphor (“Your heart is a refrigerator car” it’s cold, it’s on the move, etc.) if only for being less cheesy than the title track: Jimmy Olsen is stuck firmly in the friend zone but still he tries to seduce Lois Lane with his radioactive junk.
The Spin Doctors’ sound was, in many ways, a sort of achy-breaky rockabilly that lingered long past the 12-minute jam session that concludes the album. Twenty years later, alt-country acts have polished these kinds of barn dances, rubbed away the imperfections and smoothed the irregularities. The Spin Doctors weren’t the only band of my childhood to inject the spirit of the harmonica into each line-dancing guitar riff, but band friend and blues harp virtuoso John Popper of Blues Traveler makes a few cameos to fill out a sound that often tries desperately to deny its Southern influences. Whether performing a lip-chapping solo (as on “More Than She Knows”) or ‘inspiring’ “Two Princes,” dare I suggest that Popper himself be credited with a portion of his friends’ crossover success?
In general, I never took to the meandering styles of today’s jam bands, gravitating towards more distilled pop and rock music as I aged. Still, I feel that fondness for the brief period in my childhood when laid-back rock stars took us on the journey, only arriving at a destination long enough to make some quick money with a hit single. And to this day, I don’t know which of the two princes I would choose—the rich one has a rocket ship!”.
I guess the above is more of a recollection than a review. It is interesting when songs divide people and there are a lot of different opinions on them. I can see why some would side-line Two Princes as a song that was of its time and is perhaps dated now. There is much to love about a song that has won a lot of affection from people around the world since its release. Whether it is seen as a track that falls into the guilty pleasure camp – I do not believe in the concept and notion of a guilty pleasure – or it takes you back to a special moment in time, one cannot deny that its catchiness…
DRAWS you in.