Released: August 20, 1991
Pocket Full of Kryptonite became so closely tied to “Two Princes” and “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” that the musicianship underneath them can get lost. That leaves the album’s most interesting question: how did a New York club band built around loose grooves turn that chemistry into compact pop songs?
When Epic released the album in August 1991, Spin Doctors were Chris Barron on vocals, Eric Schenkman on guitar, Mark White on bass, and Aaron Comess on drums. Peter Denenberg, Frankie LaRocka, and the band produced most of the record, with Frank Aversa contributing to “Two Princes” and the final medley. The mix keeps the four musicians distinct. Comess has a crisp, cutting snare sound, White’s bass gets room beneath the guitar, and Schenkman moves easily between clipped rhythm parts and bluesy leads. Barron sings above them in a conversational yelp that can turn a line into a joke, complaint, or sales pitch.
“Jimmy Olsen’s Blues” provides an early answer. Schenkman lays out a simple three-chord pattern while White slips around it with short fills and slapped accents. Barron recasts the Superman story as a jealous downtown monologue, complete with Jimmy Olsen visiting his analyst and plotting against Clark Kent. The line that gives the album its title becomes both the chorus and the joke. Even when Schenkman steps out for a solo, the song keeps circling back to Jimmy’s ridiculous romantic problem.
The two major singles use the same group chemistry in tighter arrangements. “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” places Barron’s clipped phrasing against broad guitar chords, with White and Comess giving the chorus its bounce. “Two Princes” begins with Comess’s tumbling drum fill before Schenkman cuts into the four-chord progression with a dry, scratchy guitar sound. White adds small movements underneath while Barron crowds extra syllables into the verses and turns “just go ahead now” into part hook, part nervous habit. Every musician stays active, yet the chorus remains easy to follow.
The band gives itself more room in the deeper cuts. “Refrigerator Car” opens with a lopsided 9/8 pattern, followed by a thick guitar riff and White’s slapped bass. The unusual meter comes across as a stagger built into the groove. “Forty or Fifty” brings in Schenkman’s piano and Comess’s congas while Barron connects dead horses, lab mice, and everyday excuses in one of the album’s stranger lyrics. “More Than She Knows” goes the other way, fitting the band’s interplay and a quick John Popper harmonica part into barely more than two minutes.
“Off My Line” shifts the lead vocal to Schenkman and brings Popper back on harmonica, exposing more of the blues-club background behind the record. “How Could You Want Him (When You Know You Could Have Me?)” slows the pace and lets Barron’s wounded ego sit plainly in the title. Then “Shinbone Alley/Hard to Exist” runs beyond twelve minutes, giving the guitar and rhythm section time to stay inside a groove, pull away from it, and find their way back. The jam-band side heard in shorter flashes elsewhere finally gets the full space.
So how did Spin Doctors turn that club chemistry into pop? They wrote choruses sturdy enough for the musicians to play around. The three-chord Superman joke, the opening drum fill in “Two Princes” and Barron’s repeated phrases give each song a fixed core. White, Comess, and Schenkman can fill the space with bass runs, displaced accents, and scraped guitar chords because the route back is always clear. Pocket Full of Kryptonite made room for active players without losing the simple hooks that put them on the radio.
Written by Rob Joncas for DeadNoteMedia.
Artist information and music courtesy of the band.
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