“Til I Hear It From You” (Gin Blossoms)

Your ’90s power pop song of the day is “Til I Hear It From You” by Gin Blossoms. The song appeared on the soundtrack for the 1995 film Empire Records and, released as a single, went to #9 on the Billboard Hot 100, #4 on the Mainstream Rock chart, and #3 on the Adult Contemporary chart. It ended up as the #39 song for the year 1995 and the #16 song for 1996 when it was re-released as a double-A side with “Follow You Down.”

Billboard described ‘Til I Hear It From You” as “the closest thing to a perfect pop song to hit radio in recent memory” with its “breezy and wonderfully infectious melody, the boy-needs-girl lyrics, and the earnest execution.” I can’t argue with that; the song is all jangly guitars, power chords, and catchy melodies. I love it.

“Til I Hear It From You” was co-written by the inimitable tunesmith Marshall Crenshaw and Gin Blossoms’ guitarist Jesse Valenzuela, with lyrics by lead singer Robin Wilson. Crenshaw said he wrote the melody for the verse and the outchorus/fade, but I hear bits and pieces of his highly-melodic style throughout, especially in the chorus. Whichever parts he wrote, they’re great, as one would expect from the ever-tuneful Mr. Crenshaw. It’s just a great song, dripping with hooks, and it really elevated the Empire Records soundtrack, which ain’t bad on its own.

Empire Records was a teenage coming-of-age movie about a bunch of employees of an independent record store. Kids these days probably don’t know what records are, let alone remember the experience of hanging out at a really big and really cool store that sold those round vinyl discs. I miss record stores and all the interesting new music I heard there. Empire Records, while not a great flick, does a pretty good job of capturing that vibe in the mid-90s. (John Cusack’s High Fidelity was even better in that regard.)

The movie starred a lot of fresh faces who eventually made a mark in the movie business, including Anthony LaPaglia, Rory Cochrane, Ethan Embry, Robin Tunney, Renee Zellweger, and Liv Tyler. The soundtrack featured a bunch of great music from hip artists of the day like the Cranberries, Edwyn Collins, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Better Than Ezra, and Cracker, all very 1990s.

Of course, the movie and the music are almost 30 years old now and the kids in Empire Records are all middle aged if not a little older. Time passes, like it or not, and even the hippest scenes either turn classic or just fade from memory. As the song says, I know it gets hard and the memory’s faded, but I’ll just figure everything is cool ’til I hear it from you.