📚 Homework Alert: That’s What Love Songs Often Do by Fig Dish!

Before the Episode Drops: Discover Why Jeff Gentes’ Pick Could Be Your Next Favorite ’90s Find—Three Steps to Get the Most Out of Our Deep Dive

Time to crack open those sonic textbooks, music scholars! Board of Directors member Jeff Gentes just assigned us the perfect piece of required listening, and trust me—this one’s going to be worth every minute of your study time.

Your Assignment: Fig Dish - That’s What Love Songs Often Do (1995)

What did you just discover hiding in your record collection? Meet Fig Dish, one of Chicago’s most delightfully stubborn alternative rock bands. These four high school friends from the Windy City perfected the art of turning angst into anthems, crafting songs that sound like Cheap Trick discovered grunge and decided to keep the hooks. Their 1995 major-label debut is a masterclass in Midwestern alternative rock—the kind of album that makes you wonder how these guys weren’t dominating MTV’s 120 Minutes.

Think of Fig Dish as the scrappy underdogs of the Chicago rock explosion. While their contemporaries like Smashing Pumpkins and Veruca Salt were grabbing headlines, Fig Dish was busy perfecting their own brand of “lively pop-grunge with more than a touch of Nirvana’s swirling feedback and woozy despair”. Their sound draws from the holy trinity of alternative rock influences: Dinosaur Jr.‘s wall of guitars, The Replacements’ ramshackle charm, and Big Star’s pop sensibilities. The result? Songs that hit like a shot of whiskey—warm, familiar, and unexpectedly powerful.

What makes That’s What Love Songs Often Do so special? It’s the sound of a band caught between slacker sloth and fierce rock assault. Producer Lou Giordano captured them at their most focused, delivering “solid alternative pop with a big guitar sound” that spans from the driving opener “Bury Me” to the feedback-drenched “It’s Your Ceiling”. Critics praised their “sturdy melodies, concisely and smartly arranged”, while others noted their ability to conjure “a potent haze of slacker sloth and then obliterate it with a fierce rock assault”.

Your Three-Step Study Plan:

Step 1: Deep Dive - Listen to That’s What Love Songs Often Do front to back. Pay attention to how Rick Ness and Blake Smith’s “strong guitar melodies complement their equally intricate vocal melodies”. Notice how they keep things “fun, never tedious” with their tongue-in-cheek approach.

Step 2: Context Clues - Revisit our previous Fig Dish interview to understand the band’s journey from Chicago’s alternative rock scene to their recent reunion.

Step 3: Critical Analysis - Come prepared to discuss what works and what doesn’t. Does their “respectably tight-fisted punch of buzzing guitar caterwaul” still hit the same way 30 years later? How do songs like “Seeds” and “Bury Me” hold up against the alternative rock canon?

This is your chance to discover why Fig Dish has been called “folkloric Chicago outfit” and understand their place in the city’s rich rock history. These are the songs that should have been soundtracking your ‘90s, even if you didn’t know it at the time.

Class dismissed—but not before you’ve done your homework!

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