Remember when radio was really, really weird? In the late 1990s, there was a gap between the dominant forces in modern rock. Grunge had sputtered but the nü metal movement had yet to take hold, which left about a three year window where modern rock radio was just bizarre. Odd tunes like Marcy Playground's "Sex and Candy," Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta," Nada Surf's "Popular" and Primitive Radio Gods' "Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money in My Hand" became inescapable radio staples, partially because they were great songs but also because nobody really knew what else to do. It was a wild time, because you never knew what was going to break out. It seemed like anything could become a hit, and as a result, the radio world felt a little more open-minded a free-wheeling for a time.
Case in point: 1997 saw the rise of Diddy (then still known as Puff Daddy), the strange dominance of Hanson and the first hints of the Backstreet Boys on pop radio. Meanwhile, a wacky little tune called "Your Woman" snuck its way onto modern rock radio and landed in heavy rotation for a few months. The song was by a group called White Town (actually just a straight-edge former Marxist named Jyoti Prakash Mishra), who released the album Women in Technology on this day back in '97. Built around a trumpet line lifted from a Bing Crosby tune and a sample from the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star," the gender-bending track was hypnotic, subversively catchy and refreshingly off-kilter.
Unfortunately, "Your Woman" was White Town's only hit, but Women in Technology remains a fabulous curiosity and the video for "Your Woman" is a delightfully cinematic homage to the classic surrealist film "Un Chien Andalou."
