I’m sneaking this post in on a Friday night when Scott is stranded in his New Mexico cottage, paralyzed by the sub-zero weather and a lack of heat due to a natural gas outage. I figure if he can proclaim his bold new love for Casper Van Dien I can get all gay for Hanson.

As I’m sure everyone knows, it all started with the monster hit MMMBop, for my money the greatest bubblegum pop song of all time. Sure it’s catchy as hell but the upbeat non-ironic performance keeps it from grating, even after repeated exposure.

As is usually the case when a band comes out of nowhere with a monster hit, there was nowhere to go but down. But Hanson didn’t crash, the boys continued to tour and grow as musicians. Here they are at SXSW in 2008, performing the Three Dog Night classic, Never Been to Spain:

They resurfaced earlier this year with their biggest hit since MMMBop, Thinking ‘Bout Something, complete with a fantastic video tribute to The Blues Brothers and Ray Charles. And yes, that’s Weird Al on tamborine:

As if all that isn’t enough, Taylor Hanson started a side project to play power pop, the supergroup Tinted Windows. Supergroup? That’s so 80’s. But what else do you call it when you have James Iha of Smashing Pumpkins, Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne and Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick using their combined powers for the benefit of all mankind?

Make fun of me all you want but dammit, I love Hanson. Just don’t tell anyone, ok?