My Favorite Cracker Album: Gentlemans Blues – by Arie Haze

This album called me back to Cracker, after starting to veer off to consider other bands “my favorite!” I was in a place in my life where Industrial had taken over my soundwaves and life was changing. I was starting my senior year of college, was about to get married, and I was hitting up goth clubs a few days a week. My grunge and rock roots were getting stomped out by electronic music and dark wave. I was struggling with stress, depression, and excitement – all at once! When I first heard “I Want Out of the Circus” and “Hold of Myself,” I couldn’t stop listening to them, over and over and over. “Hallelujah” and “James River” also took me to my dark place without having to go to the goth clubs.

I felt the somberness of this album spoke to me and the person I was at that moment in my life. This album has a song for almost every persona of my being. After college, songs like “The World is Mine” and “Trials and Tribulations” became anthems I lived by. This album became one of those that was on heavy rotation in my life, year after year.

Over the years, the song I grew to love the most was “Been Around the World,” especially since the beginning of Camp-Out. Having friends and loved ones so far away was something I started to relate to, regardless of the intimacy of the song – though I had some of those feelings too. When I celebrate with my fellow Crumbs, “Good Life” is a song that sets the tone. This album brought me back to where I belong… in 1998 and every year since!