Almost Hits: Spacehog - In The Meantime (1996)

In 1996, Spacehog, a British one-hit wonder formed in New York City had a #32 hit with "In The Meantime," their very first single. The track was the group's commercial peak and they never came close to the top 40 again. It was also their highest charting single in their native UK.

Resident Alien, the debut CD "In The Meantime" was pulled from was just moderately successful too, rising only as high as #49 on the US album chart. Each of Spacehog's two succeeding albums failed to make the top 100 and by 2002 the band was over except for a shortlived reunion in 2013 that produced a final album that earned little recognition.

In a 2018 interview composer and lead singer Royston Langdon discussed the single's opaque lyrics with Songfacts,"It's me trying to reach people. It's using some kind of metaphor of a worldly or inner-worldly search for the end of isolation, and the acceptance of one's self is in there. At the end of the day it's saying whatever you gotta do, it's OK, it's alright. And I think that's also me talking to myself, getting through my wan anxieties and fear of death. That's what it all comes down to. What's so beautiful about it is that it continues to connect with people."

"In The Meantime" used a musical device commonly employed by 90s grunge bands. The quartet's song has mellow verses mixed with loud, hard rocking choruses and bridges filled with riffs, hooks and distorted guitars.

Musically, the song was created using a sample from an obscure piece of music, "Telephone and Rubber Band" by another English group with the cool name of Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

"In The Meantime" has been featured on the soundtrack to several TV shows and and in versions of the video games Rock Band and Guitar Hero. 
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Almost Hits is an occasional exploration into songs that failed to reach the top 20 on the American Billboard Hot 100. Many have become classics despite what their chart position would indicate.

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