promise and warning post number nine hundred.  i was exploring some contemporary female-fronted pop last night.  i listened to a couple different acts, and i thought to myself, maybe 2016 just isn't the year for that kind of thing.  then i found myself wishing i was listening to hazel.  i hadn't listened to this album in ages and ages.  i listened to it so much when it came out in 1995 that i think i wore out the grooves on the cd.  then later, i discovered heavier angrier music, and somehow i felt it wasn't ok for me to love pop-punk like this.  so i shelved it.  and, that's an ok thing to do, i think; it's even a necessary thing to do time and again.  certainly i needed to end my obsession with the afghan whigs and pearl jam after elementary school in order to move forward onto greener pastures.  but, once in a while, you can pick up an old record like this one, that's now over 20 years old, and think, yep, this one's still got it.  that's how come i chose this record for this special post.

_alibi