Album Essentials: Cranberries "Everybody Else Is Doing It So Why Can't We" (1993)
By Dave Swanson - Summit FM Contributor
The Cranberries emerged from an unheralded Irish music scene to deliver many beloved records over the years. Beginning in 1989, the band did the usual maneuvers to gain ground in fairly short order. After initially being courted by indie stalwarts Rough Trade, a wider bidding war began, and they ultimately signed with Island Records, who issued their debut album, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? in the spring of 1993. It was a perfect time to be a new band in search of an audience, as the doors were still flung wide open in the post-Nevermind alt-rock world of the moment.
“Island were actually the last label to show an interest," noted guitarist Noel Hogan in a 2001 interview, "but their A&R guy, Denny Cordell, was just completely different from the others. He was an English guy based in New York. He’d produced [Procol Harum’s] ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale,’ he knew [Island boss] Chris Blackwell and the whole business inside out, but he was realistic too. Unlike the other labels, he didn’t promise us the world. We just had a feeling about him and, thankfully, we were right."
The band even acknowledged their first steps as tentative. “This was around the time of The Joshua Tree, and U2 were just massive,” continued Hogan. “If you thought Irish rock music, you thought U2, but that was way out of our reach. Coming from a small town in the south of Ireland, we thought no further than forming a band and playing a local club in front of a few friends if we ever got good enough. Really, we would have been content with that.”
The Cranberries’ sound drew from all sorts of inspirations without any easy label applied. This, it seemed, helped the band establish their own identity. With all songs co-written by singer Dolores O'Riordan and guitarist Noel Hogan, the two quickly developed a perfect writing partnership. The first single from the album, “Dreams,” made a respectable but less than stellar showing, missing the Top 40. The follow-up, however, told a different story.
Released in February 1993, “Linger” caught on at MTV as well as alternative radio, reaching No. 8 as a single and pushing the album into the Top 20, peaking at No. 18. The somewhat ethereal, dreamy delivery set it apart from much of the alt-rock output of the era, and despite frequent comparisons to both the Sundays and Sinéad O'Connor, it found an audience all its own.
The band carried on for several years before taking a hiatus in 2003, then reforming in 2009. Sadly, vocalist Dolores O'Riordan, who had faced a variety of struggles and demons, was found dead on January 15, 2018, from alcohol intoxication. She was only 46.