Turn It Upside Down

by Stephen Thomas ErlewineSuccess hits a lot of bands hard, but few harder than the Spin Doctors. Like many bands, the Doctors had the proverbial lifetime to write their first album, and just a few short months to deliver a second. And in those months, they were constantly attacked by critics and alt-rock fans, who thought they sneaked onto the charts through deceptive marketing. They didn't weather the criticism especially well, and their second record, Turn It Upside Down, is pretty much an over-thought mess. They were at their best turning out tuneful, barroom rockers, occasionally letting them run a little bit longer with jams. Here, the jams, not the songs, are at the foundation of the music, and there are no hooks (outside of "Cleopatra's Cat"). Furthermore, the production is cautious and glossy, resulting in a stillborn album that shows everything that could go wrong when a jam band decided to plunge headfirst into the mainstream.