Mazzy Star is an American alternative rock band formed in Santa Monica, California, in 1989 from the group Opal, a collaboration of guitarist David Roback and bassist Kendra Smith. Roback's friend Hope Sandoval became the group's vocalist when Smith left the band.^[1]

Mazzy Star is probably best known for the song "Fade into You" which brought the band some success in the mid-1990s and was the group's biggest mainstream hit, earning extensive exposure on MTV, VH1, and radio airplay. Roback and Sandoval are the creative center of the band, with Sandoval as lyricist and Roback as composer of the majority of the band's material.

***

Members:

Hope Sandoval

Main article: Hope Sandoval

Hope Sandoval was born in 1966 and grew up in a Catholic Mexican-American family in East Los Angeles, California. She attendedMark Keppel High School. In 1986, she formed the folk music duo Going Home with Sylvia Gomez, and recorded one album produced by David Roback, which is yet to be released.^[50]

Besides vocals, Sandoval plays acoustic guitar, harmonica, Hammond organ, percussion, glockenspiel and xylophone. During live performances, Sandoval prefers to sing in near-darkness with only a dim backlight, playing the tambourine, harmonica, glockenspiel orshaker.^[51] She is reputed to have a shy personality, and rarely interacts with the audience,^[52] once stating "I just get really nervous. Once you're onstage, you're expected to perform. I don't do that. I always feel awkward about just standing there and not speaking to the audience, but it's difficult for me."^[4]

David Roback

Main article: David Roback

In Mazzy Star, Roback plays guitar, keyboard, and piano. He wrote almost all music for Mazzy Star, and he has also produced all their recordings.

Roback grew up in Pacific Palisades, California, graduating from Palisades High School in 1975. He started a band called Rain Parade with his brother Steven. They first hit the scene in 1982 as part of a loose aggregate of psychedelic 1960s-influenced guitar bands in Los Angeles, and they were in the forefront of that movement which lasted a couple of years.

After Rain Parade's first album and tours, Roback left the band. He then became involved with ex-Dream Syndicate bassist Kendra Smith and formed a new band called Clay Allison in 1983. The recordings from the summer of that year remained unreleased until the 1989 release of Opal Early Recordings.

After Clay Allison's 1984 tour, the band decided to go with a name change, and went from Clay Allison to Opal, whose sound was defined by Roback's spare, distorted guitar work and Smith's vocals. They released the Northern Line EP in 1985. SST Records signed Opal and released their album Happy Nightmare Baby on December 14, 1987. During the Opal tour in December 1987, Smith left the band. She was replaced by Sandoval, and they toured Europe through early 1988. Roback and Sandoval had an intimate relationship at this time and after Opal was disbanded, they took the remaining members of Opal and changed their name to Mazzy Star.

Since 2001, Roback has permanently resided in Norway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazzy_star

Comment: Slow & heavy in the blood like the best of junk.

Dream Pop from the portals of the unconscious.

Esoteric? At first. But when you look around digging up some critics in the know you gain insights into just what it is you're listening to. Music  to f@ck by. &/or be f@cked by. Its nice both ways.

(We have to get our needs met. That's my project anyway. A life-affirming duty.)

Wish the following was mine.

Here's an excellent take on this exceptional song:

Mazzy Star, a female fronted alternative slow core band, achieved their greatest success in 1994 with the single ``Fade Into You.'' The song, with lyrics by vocalist Hope Sandoval and music by guitarist David Roback, peaked on the Billboard Modern Rock charts at number three. ``Fade Into You'' was also a Top 50 single in both the United States and the U.K. The video was prominently featured on MTV, and the song has been featured in movies such as Angus, Nicholas Cage's 2005 Lord of War, Guy Ritchie's Swept Away, and countless television shows such as Alias, Desperate Housewives, Roswell, Without a Trace, Cold Case, Gilmore Girls and CSI Miami.

The song has different meanings to different people. For most, it's a reminder of an era of alternative music that defined a generation post Seattle-grunge. Memories of teenage make out sessions, slow dances, and romantic courting. Some people take the lyrics as words coming from a shy wallflower type that is finally confessing their feelings to the object of his or her affection.

The lyrics are most widely interpreted as a bittersweet story of falling in love with someone that is slightly damaged and incapable of living up to expectations. Hope Sandoval hauntingly sings of trying to connect with her partner on both an emotional and physical level; until, she begins to realize that this person can't give back. They aren't quite positioned where they need to be in life. You can hear the disappointment and heartbreak in the way she sings her lyrics.
She has in many ways given herself to whomever she sings to. They have become everything to her and she's lost herself in the process. She's faded into him and has discovered that she's slightly damaged as a result.

The verse ``I think it's strange you never knew'' seems to suggest that this person hasn't even noticed Hope's heartache or her true feelings because their soul is damaged, their world may be dark, and they're self-centered and lacking a certain depth. It's as if this person fails to realize that the couple aren't the same two people they once were. He never noticed that she's morphed into something to appease him rather than something true to herself. (musicbanter.com)

source: [Thx to Mags2U on November 02, 2012 @ http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/16192/www.musicbanter.com ]

Fade Into You

I want to hold the hand inside you
I want to take a breath that's true
I look to you and I see nothing
I look to you to see the truth
You live your life
You go in shadows
You'll come apart and you'll go blind
Some kind of night into your darkness
Colors your eyes with what's not there.

Fade into you
Strange you never knew
Fade into you
I think it's strange you never knew

A stranger's light comes on slowly
A stranger's heart without a home
You put your hands into your head
And then smiles cover your heart

Fade into you
Strange you never knew
Fade into you
I think it's strange you never knew

Fade into you
Strange you never knew
Fade into you
I think it's strange you never knew
I think it's strange you never knew

--song written by David Roback & Hope Sandoval