Great Moments In Pop – The 90s Part 26.

Following on from my piece on Len, this is another Canadian group who were briefly famous for their memorably quirky songs (Barenaked Ladies who I looked back a while ago also fit into this category of course). Crash Test Dummies were a rock group, but incredibly, none of them were actually crash te… no, I should stop doing that joke really.

Their frontman was Brad Roberts, and they had already been together for about five years, when they hit the big time. In April 1994 “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” was released, and this reached no. 2. Now this is another one of those songs where you either liked it or found it immensely irritating. You might start to think that I like songs that could be classed as “irritating”, but that’s not always the case!

They would go on to win the 1994 MTV Europe Music Award for Breakthrough Artist. I also remember seeing a trail online for ITV’s Stars In Their Eyes from March 1996, featuring some of the pop stars who were going to be imitated in that edition. They were all namechecked, apart from one who was captioned “Crash Test Dummies”. Now many not too many people might know the name of the group’s singer.

It did seem to me to be a little odd though. But I suppose that it was good that there was someone who was aiming to imitate Brad’s rather distinctive deep voice. He didn’t win, though. I imagine that Crash Test Dummies are another one of those groups where people think that they were a one-hit wonder, but this isn’t the case. Their album also reached no. 2 in 1994.

And in July 1994, “Afternoons And Coffeespoons” was released, and this reached no. 23. And next in April 1995 was “The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead”, which was a cover of an XTC song that had been a minor hit in 1992. This also featured on the soundtrack to the film Dumb And Dumber. This reached no. 30, and turned out to be their third and final hit single in the UK. They have now made eight albums.

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