Lisa Loeb
By All Music Guide
By All Music Guide
Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories began to gig around the Midwest, playing at Austins South by Southwest seminar. Loeb then hooked up with producer Juan Patiño, and in early 1992 released the cassette-only Purple Acoustic Tape, which she sold at live shows. Several major labels showed interest in her, but Loeb remained unsigned by late 1993, when her friend Ethan Hawke asked her to contribute a song for his next picture. Director Ben Stiller decided that he liked one of Loebs other songs even better, so Stay was inserted on the soundtrack. Released as a single in May 1994, it reached number one two months later and eventually sold over 750,000 copies worldwide. Loeb & Nine Stories received a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Performance by a Group, and won a Brit Award for Best International Newcomer. Geffen Records, which had shown interest in Loeb before Stay, signed her later in 1994 and re-teamed her with Juan Patiño. Her debut album Tails was released just over a year after her signing, and proved successful with commercial radio as well. Firecracker appeared in 1997, scoring a hit with I Do. Tours with the Wallflowers and Chris Isaak followed later that summer, as well as a stint with Lilith Fair.
Five years later, Loeb returned with a third effort and her debut for A&M, Cake and Pie. She co-produced the album and collaborated with an impressive cast, which included Glen Ballard, boyfriend Dweezil Zappa, Randy Scruggs (Vince Gill, Sawyer Brown, Waylon Jennings), and Peter Collins (Bon Jovi, the Indigo Girls). First single The Way It Really Is was a moderate hit among college radio; We Could Still Belong Together was also included on the soundtrack to Legally Blonde. In mid-2002, Loeb inked a deal with Artemis. She relaunched Cake and Pie under the title Hello Lisa, which featured Sanrios signature Hello Kitty artwork on the cover, that November. The Sanrio/Loeb union proved fruitful, as it coincided with the cutesy characters popularity boom in trendy Hollywood.
For her next trick, Loeb reunited with old college pal Elizabeth Mitchell for the childrens music album Catch the Moon; it featured a pleasant mix of raditionals and originals. In January 2004, Dweezil & Lisa premiered on The Food Network. It followed Zappa and Loeb in the daily lives as rockers and food lovers. Although it didnt include the single of the same name, The Way It Really Is was the title of Loebs 2004 album, her first for the Zoe label. The Very Best of Lisa Loeb first saw release in 2005 in Japan, and then early the next year in the rest of the world.
