Jellyfish

Jellyfish was a San Francisco band that formed in 1989 and spent its whole short life being too much of everything for the times: too many harmonies, too many hooks, too many ideas crammed into every song. Andy Sturmer, who drummed and sang, and Roger Manning, on keyboards and vocals, had met in high school over a shared love of jazz, post-punk and British pop, done time together in Beatnik Beatch and then broken off to write on their own. Jason Falkner on guitar and Roger's brother Chris on bass completed the first lineup.

Bellybutton, released on Charisma in 1990, was a candy-coloured power pop blast that took '60s classic rock and XTC-style cleverness and served them up with a grin. "That Is Why" and "The King Is Half-Undressed" did well on the modern rock charts. After the tour, Eric Dover and Tim Smith took over guitar and bass, and Spilt Milk in 1993 went for broke, a bombastic, orchestrated studio fantasia that the band saw as their grand vision realized. "The Ghost at Number One" and "He's My Best Friend" came from that one.

Critics adored them and a devoted cult formed, but hair metal and grunge had the airwaves and the sales weren't there. They split in 1994, with tension between the two writers and Sturmer unhappy as frontman. Manning went on to Imperial Drag and session work, and the records have gone on inspiring a generation of melody-obsessed bands since.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.