The Samples

When No Room dropped in 1992, the jam-band scene freaked out. It would make you think the Samples played 20-minute fusion jams full of heady chops. But quite the opposite: back then, at the dawn of the Clinton era, the Colorado group wrote quirky, eco-friendly pop influenced by the Police's reggae vibes and Peter Gabriel's forays into world music/adult contemporary. It was campus party music all right, the perfect soundtrack for hacky-sacking at the annual spring music festival.