I'm used to hearing all kinds of weird music at Miller Park—organ novelties, original rap songs about Prince Fielder, reggaeton—but I think this was the weirdest one yet: Last night the stadium played a fairly lengthy excerpt of "Lemon Yellow Black," a deep cut from Jets to Brazil, the almost great but mostly forgotten late-'90s, post-Jawbreaker emo band of Blake Schwarzenbach. The stadium had stopped playing the track by the time I placed it—it took me awhile, not having heard it for the better part of a decade, and since its guitar riff is similar to several other much more successful power-pop songs from the same era—and I never figured out why, exactly, they played it. Was it part of a promotion? Was it an esoteric at-bat song? Is Ken Macha actually a really big Jawbreaker fan?
I'm used to hearing Arcade Fire and TV on the Radio in stadiums by now, but this one really struck me by surprise. Any theories as to how it made Miller Park's playlist over, say, The Promise Ring's far more appropriate "Emergency! Emergency!"? Has any one else noticed the stadium playing other curiosities, late-'90s relics from Polyvinyl records or otherwise?
