Train - Drops of Jupiter

That pain that stayed, seemed like forever / What would you give to get away?

May 10, 2026

Release Date: March 27, 2001
Genre: Pop-rock, roots rock
Label: Columbia Records
Producer(s): Brendan O’Brien

Thanks for reading Synesthesia & Sugar! This post is public. If you know any music fans who like this type of content, please feel free to share it.

Here’s another album I got from the used CD tent, I think in summer 2011. But, of course, anyone who was alive in the early 2000s was already familiar with this album’s title track, and anyone alive a decade later was familiar with Train’s… shall we say, more quirky radio hits. They’re so much better than that. This, their best-selling album, reminds us what they had to offer before they became the cringiest car-commercial band in an era full of them.

Train was formed by an assortment of guys from various bands, who all eventually found their way together in San Francisco. While they had trouble getting signed at first, their independently released debut album did pretty well, and they toured with other ‘90s soft rock bands. For this, their sophomore effort, presumably they had more of a budget, and Brendan O’Brien was available by sheer coincidence. It paid off massively, of course, but it probably also helped the album sound more epic.

Nearly every song on Drops of Jupiter has a grand, sprawling feel to it. This is a soundtrack for a long drive down a desert highway, sun in your eyes and a dry wind in your hair. Some of the songs have a sweeping energy, while others are lonesome and reflective; frontman Pat Monahan wrote this in the aftermath of his mother’s death. This is what sets this record apart from, say, Matchbox Twenty or the Goo Goo Dolls or other bands who can often be found sharing bills with Train. The guitars wail and waver, and Monahan rejects the moody baritone that was popular in ‘00s soft rock in favor of his natural tenor -- and a perhaps unnatural southern accent, but one that suits the music. If you’re not into this style, you could find it bland, and many have; still, I think this is a more interesting, satisfying collection than most people would probably expect when they think of this band.

Highlights

Favorites:

I love the opener, “She’s On Fire.” It’s a blast of pure joy, letting the verses do the work while the chorus focuses on grabbing your attention and making you want to sing along. Like the start of a road trip, it energizes you for the rest.
“Drops of Jupiter” is an all-time pop great. For starters, it may have been divinely inspired; Monahan claims his late mother came to him in a dream to tell him about the afterlife, and he woke up to write the song within fifteen minutes. We seem to hear stories a lot about how a band’s big hit came last-minute, when the album was almost done or when they were struggling to find a single, and that was the case here too. It’s the perfect marriage of dreamy lyrics and production, swings swooping and dancing between the verses, guitars and pianos flashing like the sun. It’s not quite your typical pop hook, either, simply for how it stretches on and re-peaks well past when it needs to. There are some lines that foreshadow Monahan’s future turn toward lyrical weirdness (“deep-fried chicken”?), but they’re a lot more acceptable when you remember what the song is actually about. While I do understand people who came to hate how overplayed this song was, my not truly listening to it in full until years later meant I never had that problem. I’m not sure if younger people know this one, but I hear it in grocery stores every now and then, so I hope it lives on.
“Hopeless” is the slowest song on the album, which means it risks being boring and forgettable. Yet before I started writing this post, I hadn’t listened to this album in over a decade, and when this came on, I instantly remembered it. That slow, swaying chorus is a surprisingly sturdy earworm, and helps steer the album in another direction after the first four cheery tracks.
The bonus track “It’s Love” (not to be confused with their 2010 adult contemporary hit “If It’s Love”) unquestionably rocks harder than any of the standard tracks, and deserved a spot there. It hits, and I mean that literally -- those guitars and bass growl so much, there’s definitely some distortion or pitch bends or something going on. Monahan uses his voice quite differently, too. As wild a comparison as it is, the verses almost sound like an Incubus song. I wish this had been around track 9 or 10 on the standard edition. I wonder if there’s a story why it was left off.

Favorites:

“Something More” was originally going to be the lead single. I could see it doing decently on adult contemporary radio, but if they had led with this, the album wouldn’t have been the smash that it was. There is a prettiness to it, but it lacks the same energy as a lot of what comes before.
Another deluxe track, “Sharks,” really foreshadows the kind of music Train would make a decade later, in that it’s a whimsical acoustic jam with offbeat, cutesy lyrics. Now, I don’t hold this against it. This was clearly not meant for the actual album, it was just a little thing they came up with on the side. It’s not something worth listening to over and over, though.

Final Thoughts

This is another solid album to contribute to the Y2K adult contemporary “minivan rock” boom. It has a lot of the same longing and well-crafted hooks, but plenty of its own character. It went triple platinum, no doubt on the strength of the title track. A few years after this came a hiatus, then the musical midlife crisis that Train have probably become most famous for. I saw someone call it “the Maroon 5-ification of Train,” and while that descriptor is perfect, try not to let that overshadow the good early work.

Monahan says that, as much as fans praise this album, he doesn’t want to return to that time, because he’s happier now. Maybe he’s one of those writers for whom heartbreak and grief provide the best creative fuel, and when he’s happy, that’s when the goofy stuff comes out (see also: Taylor Swift). I still have a couple guilty pleasures among their latter catalog, such as “Save Me, San Francisco.” I don’t expect them to make another record like this, but that’s the beauty of a body of work. Once it’s out there, you can enjoy it forever. It’s not a shooting star; it’s a permanent scar.

Spreadsheet

It’s a close call, but I realize this album wasn’t reinventing anything, and I always try to think a little about how a work has been received and re-evaluated outside of my own bias. This will go in the spreadsheet as ⭐⭐⭐1/2.

Synesthesia & Sugar

Discussion about this post

Ready for more?