Citizen King: Better Days (And The Bottom Drops Out)

       In the spring of 1999 the world was introduced to a great new band out of Milwaukee named Citizen King . They first met as high school friends who became bowling buddies.  Calling themselves The Bombast Bowlers, lead singer/bassist Matt Sims once jokingly challenged the rest of the music world to a bowling match saying *"We challenge any band that thinks they can beat us. They will go down."  At some point, after seeing lots of various artists playing in concert around home they gave up their bowling ambitions and put their collective musical talents together. They formed the band Citizen King who would eventually come to the worlds attention.

Sims: "I've got a good job at the Dollar Store"

     CK's lineup was formed from the cream of Milwaukee's musicians' community and included Kristian Riley on guitar, Malcom Michiles doing the hip-hop thing on turntables, DJ Brooks on drums, Matt Sims on bass and singing, and future Hollywood music engineer Dave Cooley playing keyboards. Their first album titled Brown Bag, released in the summer of 1995, was critically acclaimed but received little national attention.  Milwaukee audiences recognized it's originality and flocked to their shows creating the early buzz.  The band played a fusion of jazz, funk & rap finding a nice, uncrowded, niche for themselves.  While this was not a totally original genre, their music was and it still sounds as fresh and interesting today as it did when they recorded it.  The song Beautiful Machine typifies the music on CK's first offering.  While Brown Bag didn't find success through radio airplay, it did show off their talents and versatility which would later bring them fame.  

     While touring as the opener for the band Fishbone they were signed by Warner Brothers and given a chance to capitalize on their burgeoning fame and ample talent.  The album they created is called Mobile Estates and it was released in March of 1999.  It clawed it's way up the charts powered by the single Better Days (And The Bottom Drops Out) featured below.  Their new music had a more polished feel because the band had access to the best recording equipment available which they did not have during the Brown Bag sessions.  Aside from the high charting single the album also contained fan favorites Under The Influence, & Safety Pin.  
     Despite the success of the album and the high charting Better Days plus the constant touring the band's popularity eventually dropped off.  They found themselves being compared relatively unfavorably to Beck and it hurt them both critically and with audiences.  In 2002 the band split and that was that.  It's not the first time a larger act destroyed the competition.  35 years earlier The Beatles Sergeant Pepper album was released and it sucked all the air out of the room smothering almost every other popular contemporary recording and artists of the day.  I'm in no way denigrating Sgt. P, but there were many artists at that time who deserved wider popularity and airplay that simply withered away because of The Beatles commercial success.  Like those bands from that earlier time Citizen King became just another victim of the highly competitive and cannibalistic nature of the music industry.
     Better Days tells a semi-autobiographical story about the difficulties succeeding as a young adult.  The video's protagonist (played by Sims) sarcastically refers to his menial position at the Dollar Store as a "good job".  Yet no matter how successful he dreams of becoming, no matter how much luck he has with the opposite sex he can't quite break through the day to day reality of his sucky life. The twist is, that despite everything being stacked against him, he finds that he is happy.  He recognizes that his dreams of a better life are shared by his friends and they too find themselves frozen out (presented quite literally in the video) by age and circumstance.  Collective experience is what makes friends the family we choose and nothing illustrates that like a band working towards a common goal no matter what their level of success.

CK at the height of their popularity (apologies for the poor quality photo)

     The video closes with space aliens coming to earth and discovering there truly is no intelligent life here.  They leave and immediately crash into the moon proving that no matter how smart, or successful you may think you are you are still you and failure may be surprisingly close at hand.  The lesson is that if you know who you are, understand and accept your circumstances and are supported by & support friends who love you you can be happy.  That's a powerful message which the song packages in one of the most attractive and catchy tunes to have reached a worldwide audience at the turn of the millennium.   

Better Days (And The Bottom Drops Out)
 by Citizen King

I've seen better days

*http://www.musicianguide.com/biographies/1608002466/Citizen-King.html & Carrie Bell Billboard Magazine