July 08, 2018

The Juliana Hatfield Three - Become What You Are (1993)

by Record Facts

Juliana Hatfield (born July 27, 1967) is an American musician and singer-songwriter from the Boston area, formerly of the indie rock bands Blake Babies, The Juliana Hatfield Three, Some Girls, and The Lemonheads.

Hatfield acquired a love of rock music during the 1970s, having been introduced by a babysitter to the music of the Los Angeles punk rock band X, which proved a life-changing experience. She was also attracted to the music of more mainstream artists like Olivia Newton-John and The Police.

Hatfield began her solo career following the Blake Babies‘ breakup in 1991, releasing her first solo album (Hey Babe) in 1992. The album was one of the highest selling independent albums of 1992. Hatfield recruited a rhythm section consisting of former Moving Targets and Bullet LaVolta drummer Todd Phillips, and Thudpucker bassist Dean Fisher, and thus becoming The Juliana Hatfield Three.

Hatfield achieved alterna-rock stardom with the release of 1993’s Become What You Are (recorded under the group name The Juliana Hatfield Three). Several songs from the album received regular airplay on major North American rock stations, with Hatfield’s song “My Sister” becoming the biggest hit of her career, with a #1 placing on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, and the video becoming an MTV staple..

“My Sister” was based on a real person: Hatfield’s older brother’s girlfriend, Meg Rafferty, who lived with the family while Hatfield was in high school. She enjoyed Rafferty’s eclectic record collection. Rafferty also took Hatfield to see the Del Fuegos and the Violent Femmes, which inspired her to form a band.

“Spin the Bottle” was used in the soundtrack of the Hollywood film Reality Bites (1994). Hatfield also made the cover of Spin magazine..
Hatfield was profiled in a number of girls’ magazines at this time and addressed serious issues faced by young women in her songs and interviews. About this period she says: “I was never comfortable with the attention. 
I thought it had come too soon. I hadn’t earned it yet.” She gained notoriety in 1992 for saying that she was still a virgin in her mid-twenties in Interview magazine. In a 1994 interview for the magazine Vox, she said she was surprised by the effect ‘outing’ herself had: “I think there are a lot of people out there who don’t care about sex, but who you never hear from, so I thought I should say it. The magazine I did the interview for is full of beef-cake hunky guys and scantily-clad models, so I thought it would be really funny to say that I didn’t care about sex in a magazine that’s full of sex and beauty – but no one really got the joke.”


Tracklist
1.  “Supermodel” – 2:52
2.  “My Sister” – 3:22
3.  “This Is the Sound” – 3:01
4.  “For the Birds” – 4:14
5.  “Mabel” – 4:09
6.  “A Dame with a Rod” – 2:55
7.  “Addicted” – 3:16
8.  “Feelin’ Massachusetts” – 4:11
9.  “Spin the Bottle” – 2:23
10.  “President Garfield” – 4:38
11.  “Little Pieces” – 3:05
12.  “I Got No Idols” (Hatfield, Dean Fisher, Todd Philips) – 2:16

The Juliana Hatfield Three
 Additional musicians
 Technical personnel
Notes
Released: August 3, 1993
Recorded at: Studio Hollywood Sound in Los Angeles
Genre: Alternative rock
Length: 40:22

Label – Mammoth Records

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