commercially disappointing major label rock/alternative albums of 1996

seminal previous some dude threads to cross reference:
http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&;threadid=86716
http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&;threadid=74852
http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&;threadid=39183

oops, that didn't work:
Stylus's Top Ten Momentum Killing Follow-Up Singles to Breakthrough Post-Grunge Albums
poll: megaselling rock albums released in 1991
Pearl Jam - No Code

classic some dude poll!

i dunno if it'll do as well as some of my earlier works, but i think it'll attain a cult following over time

still play these:

Afghan Wigs - Black Love
Pearl Jam - No Code
R.E.M. - New Adventures In Hi-Fi

I voted for New Adventures In Hi-Fi. I loved it at the time and still rate it highly now.

screaming trees or afghan whigs. Arguably for some the best albums they made

I'm not distributing their place in this poll, but Weezer is almost in their own category: the only one that sold more and more units in catalog?

*disputing

lots of Tori stans might creep out and vote for BFP.

It's true that this is a matter of degrees. Razorblade Suitcase hit #1 and "Swallowed" and "Greedy Fly" got almost as much airplay as the SS singles but it's still considered a failure.

how i would rank the ones i've heard: Posies > REM > Pearl Jam > Counting Crows > They Might Be Giants > Soundgarden > Elvis Costello > STP > Tori Amos > Screaming Trees > Afghan Whigs > Metallica > Weezer > Porno For Pyros > Neil Young > Presidents

yeah a LOT of these albums were the acts' first as an established brand and got their highest Billboard 200 peak, just didn't have staying power.

Pinkerton was a commercial disappointment at the time and seemed to attract some scatching reviews. I have no problem with the record at all, but it's amazing how far general opinion of the record seems to have swung so far in the other direction that folks seem to overrate it now more than anything.

how much did ATUSB ship over Brutal Youth? I know the latter hit the top forty but it couldn't have been by much.

and in the case of something like Load, which was following up the biggest-selling album of the SoundScan era, you can't really pretend a sales decrease wasn't inevitable, but just keeping albums like that on here for the sake of completism and to show the range of different kind of dropoffs that happened that year.

It's true that this is a matter of degrees. Razorblade Suitcase hit #1 and "Swallowed" and "Greedy Fly" got almost as much airplay as the SS singles but it's still considered a failure.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 3, 2012 5:58 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Most things that Bush did were generally considered a failure in their home country ;)

Costello is on the lower end of the sales spectrum in this list and it's always harder to find firm numbers on those kinds of albums, but i still have a strong hunch it was bought maybe half as much, and in any even the singles were far less successful.

haha yes -- also known as A Flock of Seagullysm.

xpost

for comparison, acts who released their highest selling albums in 1996: Dave Matthews Band, Sublime, Marilyn Manson, Beck, Rage Against The Machine

between Spike and the Bacharach collab EC inhabited a strange interzone. I'm not sure who was buying his records besides me.

I remember the boxes and boxes full of unsold Hootie and Black Crowes CDs. The horror, the horror.

(so are we voting for the worst selling album here or the most overlooked or what?)

sorry, i should have clarified: vote for the best/your favorite or whatever

that black crowes album is where i jumped ship. it was awful. still adore the 1st 3.

i will stick up for that porno for pyros album too and the pearl jam album is their best.

To offer a UK perspective: I think Jagged Little Pill, funnily enough, was one of the highest selling albums in 1996. Oasis' (What's The Story) Morning Glory? was released the previous year, but copies were still flying off the shelves throughout the year.

but i had to vote 'Dust'

yeah obv a lot of '95 albums reigned over '96 (Mellon Collie, Garbage, The Bends)

lol I reviewed the Soundgarden record for my college paper.

i like it, but then diminishing returns of the Superunknown era is my idea of a good time

I still think there's some good stuff on Down On The Upside, although I've always felt the record should have been a lot shorter, with a few of the lesser tracks bumped off. Never been a fan of 'Applebite', for example.

Weezer's Green album and Make Believe did more than pretty well after Pinkerton, did they not.

should probably be pinkerton but i voted for stone temple pilots, there were some good songs on that album

i think the CD-era largesse peaked around '96-'98 where seemingly every album being released was a few songs too long, but Soundgarden did 70-minute indulgence better than many

yeah Weezer def had the best sales rebound of any of these bands, but obv they did the whole depressed hiatus thing first

Amazing Disgrace has grown over the years into perhaps my favorite Posies album. I saw them on that tour and they were terrific, too. That album might be the closest one to bridging their live sound with their recorded sound.

lol oh man do i remember this year

yeah Amazing Disgrace was the album that got me into the Posies and i have a huge sentimental attachment to it, even though it is definitely flawed and i probably consider Frosting a better album overall.

That's a pretty sad list. I still like the Soundgarden, Tori Amos, and Weezer albums, but New Adventures In Hi-Fi is one of my favorite REM albums so it's an easy choice.

Also, "Volcano" is awesome and probably my favorite PUSA single, but I'm pretty sure I've never heard the whole second album.

for some reason either my brother or i bought the PUSA album. it's probably as good as the first, but, y'know, what does that even mean.

Boy, Veruca Salt just missed this list by two months.

a lot of 95/97 albums are in the same boat but i wanted to emphasize what a bloodbath '96 was in particular

my firs thoughts about this period were "Belly and Juliana Hatfield."

Before I opened this thread I knew I was voting for black love

album sales in general didn't drop in '96 so i kinda wonder if there was some mass exodus to, like, rap and country among teenagers in that period or if the rock crowd just became really fractured post-Cobain and a thousand different indie bands siphoned off the fans of these 20 platinum acts

Was just listening last night to Three Snakes and One Charm and it's still my favorite Crowes album.

my firs thoughts about this period were "Belly and Juliana Hatfield."

Fond of both of those albums.

if ship had included '95, yes, King would have been my pick.

good lord this list is mostly horrible. i have hopes for ilx managing not to vote for pinkerton, not that its bad, just that its what the rest of the internet would vote for and i am elitist scum

I voted No Code, my favorite PJ album & one I have a lot of time for still.

Broken Arrow really seemed like one album too far. saw Neil live on that tour & was both rocked & shocked at how pointless it seemed.

jesus christ, WHIGS

I recently burned a CD-R with "Universal Heartbeat" on it.

i am voting for boys for pele? how did that happen

my firs thoughts about this period were "Belly and Juliana Hatfield."

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 3, 2012 2:42 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Heard songs from both of them today!

oh wow "Universal Heartbeat," now that's a song i haven't heard or even thought of in 10+ years

Why wasn't this a huge hit?

Before I opened this thread I knew I was voting for black love

Afghan Whigs were a band i always assumed i'd really dig but never got around to their albums until Spotify made it super convenient and uh...nah, don't really like them nearly as much as i thought i would.

^this

yeah Amazing Disgrace was the album that got me into the Posies and i have a huge sentimental attachment to it, even though it is definitely flawed and i probably consider Frosting a better album overall.

i'm gonna vote whigs, but cosign - ken stringfellow wrote an incredibly detailed recording diary of amazing disgrace that's somehow still floating around the internet and makes it very clear how much thought went into that record (and/or how much money DGC was willing to blow on it)

oh sweet, thanks for the link!

it is kind of fun to hear about how much money was flushed away in the after glow of those 91-94 boom years.

some dude, would you have considered Bob Mould's eponymous record? A big disappointment after the Sugar records.

afgan wigs in a heartbeat

i really like the posies, and even ken stringfellow solo, but please

Before I opened this thread I knew I was voting for black love

― mookieproof, Thursday, May 3, 2012 1:55 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

i think you have to be in just the right mood to hear black love, and also listen to it all the way through to get the full effect. it's a real start-to-finish corker imo.

the Mould wasn't major label, was it?

Rykodisc, I think

yeah ryko was still indie back then

album sales in general didn't drop in '96 so i kinda wonder if there was some mass exodus to, like, rap and country among teenagers in that period or if the rock crowd just became really fractured post-Cobain and a thousand different indie bands siphoned off the fans of these 20 platinum acts

― Neil Young’s social media channels (some dude), Thursday, May 3, 2012 11:44 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

alanis

pinkerton is the only album on this list that i've ever even come close to liking, so that.

Another couple of flops (at least in the UK):

Tricky - Pre Millennium Tension
The Auteurs - After Murder Park

Both decent records imo

i listened to Pinkerton again today trying to figure out if i'm being stubborn and contrarian about it but no, it's just terrible.

Afghan Whigs were a band i always assumed i'd really dig but never got around to their albums until Spotify made it super convenient and uh...nah, don't really like them nearly as much as i thought i would.

― Neil Young’s social media channels (some dude), Thursday, May 3, 2012 11:57 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^this

― O_o-O_0-o_O (jjjusten), Thursday, May 3, 2012 11:57 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

afghan whigs are just horrible. so bellowy and gross. like being beaten with a sweaty brick.

Weezer were never good for more than four singles.

i listened to Pinkerton again today trying to figure out if i'm being stubborn and contrarian about it but no, it's just terrible.

it's not a great album, overall, but it does have some great songs on it. suppose a lot of these are half-defensible by that standard...

Weezer were never good for more than four singles.

i like the debut pretty much all the way through.

No Sammy, Tales Of Great Neck Glory, no credibility.

I must have listened to that PUSA album 50+ times back in those days. Mostly because it was the only tape I owned and I didn't always have access to a CD player. I actually got the first PUSA disc taken away from me (I was blasting it in my room w/ the window open and my parents came home right as "Fuck you kitty" came on). Dunno if I could stomach II today - I remember "Lunatic to Love" and "Volcano" and maybe "Mach 5" well but the rest was full of so much generic rock riffing and genuinely unclever lyrics, though I remember a few funny moments in retrospect.

I voted Factory Showroom - I remember such a huge backlash at the time since it had things that resembled *real* three-verses-and-a-bridge songs and had ONLY 13 songs on it, but in retrospect it was a pretty tight album. "Spiralling Shape" was my favorite song ever for a while.

some major sophomore slumps on this list!

underperforming major label debuts are a different category re: Sammy

whigs

Bush - Razorblade Suitcase
Counting Crows - Recovering The Sattelites
Gin Blossoms - Congratulations I'm Sorry
Hootie & The Blowfish - Fairweather Johnson
Metallica - Load
Pearl Jam - No Code
Soundgarden - Down On The Upside
Stone Temple Pilots - Tiny Music... Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop

All of these had songs that were on the radio a lot.. some had #1 modern rock singles, and a few of these were #1 on Billboard albums. And except for Pearl Jam, they all had decently huge MTV videos.

http://emptyv.multimedia.cx/eMpTyV/index-1996.html - they all have videos featured in this list which was shown on MTV several times and whose results were partially based around album sales.

i remember secretly thinking 'razorblade suitcase' at least sounded awesome (not knowing anything about albini at the time) and also liking (gulp) ministry's dylan cover

feel like there's a whole paper to be written about just the titles of these records.

I used to be crazy about Black Love, but the only one of these that I think is classic now is Pinkerton.

If Exit The Dragon had been 1996 I might have voted for it just to keep it from getting a goose egg, though.

Fuckin... this list makes me feel like I'm lying on my back in a used bin, in a state of sleep paralysis.

wow awesome link billstevejim

Vatican gift shop, Ioved it. Also the art.

real talk, i heard "Old Man & Me" on the radio recently and kinda jammed to it

I don't get why Pinkerton sounds bad to some people.. "Falling For You" and "Across The Sea" are the exact opposite of "terrible"

boys for pele i guess

really im not voting because ive only heard four of these records

this is not what the 90s was like in my head

STP's transition from grunge cavemen to pop art aesthetes was very abrupt and difficult for people to accept

oh c'mon lamp just vote for tori

Pinkerton and STP are both solid. I'm gonna vote for Tiny Music because Pinkerton will receive votes no matter what.

take "Big Bang Baby" off Tiny and I think its value drops estimably

very abrupt and difficult for people to accept

haha you got that right

"Tumble in the rough" -> "big bang baby" - > "lady picture show" is a pretty awesome 3 in a row.. "Ride the Cliche" is great also.

Poor Scotty dubs

I'm lying on my back in a used bin, in a state of sleep paralysis

Primitive Radio Gods title

even if you're a fan of pinkerton it's not hard to see why it wouldn't be your first choice to license singles to rockband.

the '99 list from billstevejim's link could be from '89:

Blink 182 – All the Small Things
Bush – The Chemicals Between Us
Eve – Gotta Man
Warren G. f/Mack-10 – I Want It All
Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey – When You Believe
Jay-Z – Girl’s Best Friend
Moby – Bodyrock
Offspring – She’s Got Issues
Powerman 5000 – When Worlds Collide
Sting – Brand New Day

CLASSIC VIDEOS
Billy Joel – We Didn’t Start the Fire (1989)
Sir Mix-a-Lot – Baby Got Back (1992)

imo top 20 best singles from these albums:

Soundgarden - "Burden In My Hand"
Counting Crows - "Angels Of The Silences"
Pearl Jam - "Who You Are"
Stone Temple Pilots - "Big Bang Baby"
Tori Amos - "Caught A Lite Sneeze"
Metallica - "Hero Of The Day"
Better Than Ezra - "Desperately Wanting"
The Cranberries - "Salvation"
Weezer - "El Scorcho"
R.E.M. - "Bittersweet Me"
Hootie & The Blowfish - "Old Man & Me (When I Get To Heaven)"
Screaming Trees - "All I Know"
Elvis Costello - "It's Time"
The Presidents of the United States of America - "Volcano"
The Posies - "Ontario"
Afghan Whigs - "Honky's Ladder"
Bush - "Greedy Fly"
Weezer - "The Good Life"
Tori Amos - "Professional Widow"
Porno For Pyros - "Tahitian Moon"

spotify playlist I'm considering making for myself that reveals which albums I've heard deep cuts from and which ones I've never heard:

"My Enemy"/"A Walk"/"Desperately Wanting"/"Swallowed"/ "Angels Of The Silences"/ "Salvation"/ "Mint Car"/ "Follow You Down"/ "Hero Of The Day"/ "I'm The Ocean"/ "Mankind"/ "Mach 5"/ "Tahitian Moon"/ "Departure"/ "Sworn And Broken"/ "Pretty Noose"/ "Wax Ecstatic"/ "Big Bang Baby"/ "I Can Hear You"/ "Hey Jupiter"/ "El Scorcho"

lol xpost swear to god

man, NO ONE likes that cure album..

"Want," "The 13th" and "Mint Car" I'll rep for, though it's def the end of the road for me

don't know if i heard more than 2 or 3 of these in their entirity. love Tahitian Moon and the STP singles. don't recognize the names of any of the soundgarden singles from this album.

I've always liked "Smile" by Pearl Jam and was unsure why it wasn't a huge radio hit..

The Presidents of the United States of America - "Volcano"

Yeah, Wild Mood Swings is far from one of my favourite Cure releases. I'd definitely keep the three songs da croupier listed above, and maybe 'Return' at a push, but that's about it.

man i love pinkerton but i don't really get "el scorcho" at all, it's a terrible and embarrassing song

Hongro is the board's Wild Mood Swings champion iirc

1996 was not the right year to release a single like "The 13th."

"eclectic" and "bright" were the college radio charts in 1990

I've always liked "Smile" by Pearl Jam and was unsure why it wasn't a huge radio hit..

― billstevejim, Thursday, May 3, 2012 3:48 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

for a while PJ had worked out a nice scam of letting their not making videos translate to radio playing whatever catchy songs were on the album whether or not they had videos. by No Code that had started to slow down and "Red Mosquito" was the only non-single that charted. "Smile" is pretty good but i dunno if it really was an obvious hit.

down on the upside, easy

xp "smile" stood out for me the first time i heard it because i could remember the words very quickly..

damn you metallica, for being powerful enough to keep spotify from cutting into your cd sales. everyone else on my list is willing to be exploited however.

well I loved that Bad Religion album but they were also my favorite band at that point.

spotify has no hootie. DOWN WITH HOOTIE

1996 was not the right year to release a single like "The 13th."

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 3, 2012 7:52 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I totally agree. I can't speak for the US, but in the UK it felt very much out-of-step with what was going on at the time. I like 'The 13th' a lot, but 'Mint Car' was definitely a more obvious single.

'i don't really get "el scorcho" at all, it's a terrible and embarrassing song'

it's a little goofy, but no more embarrassing than a few of the other tracks on that album -- the other tracks are so earnest, they're actually a little more embarrassing, to be honest. (I guess it's the difference between camp and kitsch?) i'd definitely monetize "el scorcho" over the others.

Soundgarden - "Burden In My Hand"
Counting Crows - "Angels Of The Silences"
Pearl Jam - "Who You Are"
Stone Temple Pilots - "Big Bang Baby"
Tori Amos - "Caught A Lite Sneeze"
Metallica - "Hero Of The Day"
Better Than Ezra - "Desperately Wanting"
The Cranberries - "Salvation"
Weezer - "El Scorcho"
R.E.M. - "Bittersweet Me"
Hootie & The Blowfish - "Old Man & Me (When I Get To Heaven)"
Screaming Trees - "All I Know"
Elvis Costello - "It's Time"
The Presidents of the United States of America - "Volcano"
The Posies - "Ontario"
Afghan Whigs - "Honky's Ladder"
Bush - "Greedy Fly"
Weezer - "The Good Life"
Tori Amos - "Professional Widow"
Porno For Pyros - "Tahitian Moon"

^^^^this looks positively hellish to me tbh

Video didn't help

Was this the year alt-rock died? This is a pretty dire list. The only two I own are the REM and Soundgarden and I don't really like either. Think I'll pass...

I still play "Black Love," and would have no problem playing "New Adventures." "No Code" holds up well, for Pearl Jam. "Pinkerton" is pretty good, too. "Down on the Upside" features one of only a couple Soundgarden songs I really like.

Some of those above albums were so bad they were in cutout bins the day the album came out.

Don't think I've ever heard Neil Young's "Broken Arrow," which serves the same purpose for an act I otherwise adore as "Test for Echo" does for Rush.

"Only Wanna Be With You" is available, hootie-wise, thanks to a Rhino Hi-Five: Summer Hits comp. That and "I Go Blind" are it, though.

I definitely understand if someone thinks "El Scorcho" is the stand-out, either in a good or bad way.

"I'm The Ocean" is the only track on Mirror Ball that I think is a must-hear for Neil fans.

"I'm The Ocean" is his best post-SWA track period.

xp Re: the year alt-rock died, a similar thread could have easily been put together for 97 or 98. it was a totally different game by the start of 99.

eminem/blink/slipknot/etc

a similar thread could have easily been put together for 97 or 98.

samadhi, yo. samadhi.

this is Filth Pig btw

if some dude made similar lists for 1997 and 1998, i would certainly take kindly to them.

i think the roster of high profile failures was smaller for '97 or '98, but yeah it was an overall trend all through that period.

i checked Test For Echo when putting together the list but Rush held onto the same kind of sales figures as Counterparts

amazingly we haven't even gotten to how uniformly bad the cover art is for almost every single one of these, either.

was the cover art great for any of the big hit albums before these, though?

Not a fan of any of these but if I had to listen to any one of them right now it would be October Rust.

'99 was the year after the first huge major-label merge.. lots of rock bands were dropped from majors, and the ones who weren't received little to no push regarding radio spins.. bands like cardigans and local h and nada surf tried to follow-up on their initial success but no one was working to promote them, and the idea of maintaining career artists out of the 90's alt-rock bands seemed like a lost cause.

aka weezer chose a very good time to go on a batshit insane hiatus.

REM> Screaming Trees> Tori> pthrrrt

was the cover art great for any of the big hit albums before these, though?

― da croupier, Thursday, May 3, 2012 4:07 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

probably not, no, just saying

man, NO ONE likes that cure album..

because it's a bag of shit

it has 2 great songs ("Want", "The 13th"), 4 good/okay songs ("Jupiter Crash", "Trap", "Bare", "Treasure"), one song I like even though I think it's objectively terrible ("Gone!") and then everything else is horrible (I will grant them "Round and Round and Round" was great live but not so much on record)

this is Filth Pig btw

― suidavyvan eht nioj (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, May 3, 2012 2:05 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nuh-uh. "Reload" is the shit, tho.

i like mint car even though it's so stupid.

listening to it now!

CLOUDS DRIFT BY AND EVERYTHING IS LIKE A DREAM

what i don't get is that robert smith claims that he hated "friday i'm in love" and then "mint car" was obviously intended to be a follow-up to that song.

the fact that both "Mint Car" and "Return" are on that album hurts me deep in my heart

what i don't get is that robert smith claims that he hated "friday i'm in love" and then "mint car" was obviously intended to be a follow-up to that song.

Maybe he thought "Friday I'm In Love" was too charming? idk

"We hated our second highest charting single so much that we're going to hold our noses and record a soundalike."

is he actually saying anything during the guitar break just before the two minute point? "sinkin shacuzzy in a goomp"?

that part rules haha

Though I might dismiss it as hoary pseudo-psych if listening for the first time at 29, I loved "Dust" at the time. And I still play it, and I don't know anyone else who owns it - unlike about half the albums here, it really was a flop. So it gets my vote.

Smart poll. I would totally read a book on 1996: The Year Alternative Broke (But In a Bad Way)

"yeah, sink in...shark coozie in a hoo............................OW!"

lol this song is hiliarous, i don't think i'd heard "mint car" SINCE 96

I think it's code for "please please please kick me in the nuts as hard as you possibly can"

Dust got really strong reviews in the UK. I was under the impression it was big in the US until I was writing something about Lanegan and discovered how badly it bombed.

God all these songs got serious rotation on State College's The Revolution 101.1. I've said it elsewhere, but I didn't realize how privileged I was to have a local radio station that played all this shit as well as like, Chavez and Sebadoh in 1996.

the tragic thing is, no matter how bad I think "Mint Car" is, there are WAY WAY WAY worse songs on WMS

fucking "Club America" for example, I dare you guys to sit through that

haha been there did that in 1996

the only song I can recall from a mixtape i made off the radio around this time that isn't on the above album list is NIN's "The Perfect Drug"

do most cure fans hate mint car this much?

I had just become arts editor of my college paper after writing a couple of years and I had never seen so many promo CD's coming into the office; I saw every one of the albums here around the office at some point (I reviewed that Cure album) along with Imperial Teen, Jonny Polonsky, Jars of Clay, etc. Major labels were swimming in loot.

lol i heard the big Jars of Clay song on the radio the other day

produced by Adrian Belew!

xxxpost:

Nope. I like 'Mint Car', and I like 'Return' too.

pinkerton

wild mood swings was bought out of loyalty. The point where I ceased to look forward to new Cure albums (unimaginable to my teenaged self). They have done good stuff since tho.

produced by Adrian Belew!

presumably called after jerry harrison said he was busy

dammit, I was actually going to get some studying done today before Some Dude had to go and post a list of alternative rock albums

on that 'time and place' tip it's really striking to me how many of these albums I can remember being absolutely ripped apart in the NME - like obviously most of this wasn't their bread and butter in the mid 90s but I think that being a huge-but-faltering American alt-rock band was just the worst thing you could be from that perspective

Whigs and S. Trees exempt from this iirc

underperforming major label debuts are a different category re: Sammy

I don't know that could've possibly underperformed. Pretty sure I bought it sight unseen because the tape was selling for, like, four bucks brand new. Pretty decent album, too.

oh c'mon like Jerry Harrison wouldn't have accepted the chance at carving more throwing copper.

i said "busy," not uninterested

was there actually a Screaming Trees album that sold 'well'? xp to Dorian

dammit, I was actually going to get some studying done today before Some Dude had to go and post a list of alternative rock albums

― da croupier, Thursday, May 3, 2012 4:25 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

lol i started the thread against better judgment on a busy work day, if it's any consolation

Sweet Oblivion was a pretty minor blip as far as grunge's boom years go, but it still sold probably several times more than any other Screaming Trees album before or since

incidentally the only year i went to Lollapolooza was '96, where i saw Metallica and Soundgarden and the Trees work these albums

i think this is the first time I've heard "Mach 5" in over a decade. It kicks harder than I remembered!

these guys could have been alt-rock's ZZ Top if they weren't such fucking goofballs

never cared for the screaming trees after they left sst. a few good songs on uncle anaesthesia, i guess, but it's mostly dull. didn't care for sweet oblivion at all, and never heard dust.

i think this is the first time I've heard "Mach 5" in over a decade. It kicks harder than I remembered!

these guys could have been alt-rock's ZZ Top if they weren't such fucking goofballs

― da croupier, Thursday, May 3, 2012 1:35 PM (6 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i half like the first album, but the second is disappointing. "volcano" is great, "ladies and gentlemen" has an awesome chorus, "mach 5" and "supermodel" are okayish. no need for the rest.

^ based on memory. just tried to listen to "supermodel". so painful and bad.

wtf why I am listening to WMS

"Strange Attraction" is so terrible, I wish I had back the time I wasted trying to convince myself I liked it

Win a eulogy from William Greider
A car crash, ptomaine, disposable lighter
A bus plunge, avalanche, RV, vinegar cider
Free-fall, motorcycle, hang-glider

Trying to figure out what percentage of these albums were recorded while wearing sunglasses

xpost Jars of Clay is from Nashville, which is where Adrian Belew has a studio/lives. It's weird to think of King Crimson jamming away in some weird corner of Music City.

"Dust" is actually a pretty solid album, like "Black Love" pretty much what you'd hope from its predecessor (which is very underrated, that "Sweet Oblivion")

I've grown to enjoy the Superunknown stuff but I think "Pretty Noose" was the first and last Soundgarden song I liked at the time it came out

Trying to figure out what percentage of '90s alt albums are in any way defensible once you've read the lyrics.

first PUSA album is a classic. maybe it hasn't held up all that well but it's at least as good as "Nevermind" isn't it? I cannot seperate that album from Domino's pizza and Mountain Dew and Goldeneye 64 and the Ice Age Magic set, it all goes together to me.

IMO the one that got half-deleted "Freaked Out and Small" was actually very good. I still like 'em..

lol frogs

Trying to figure out what percentage of '90s alt albums are in any way defensible once you've read the lyrics.

I CAUGHT THE MOON TODAY
PICK IT UP
THROW IT ALLLLL AWAY

I would just like to note that apparently the title track of Wax Ecstatic is actually "Wax Ecstatic (To Sell Angelina)"

lol that and the bad religion and cure songs are the ones on your playlist that i was like "what does this sound like again? woah, i totally know this"

want to be pedantic about you including a song from Neil's '95 album instead of Broken Arrow, though

haha oh wooops

they're both short titles i got confuuuused

Here's something that is automatic
It's Wax Ecstatic
When life is nothing less than tragic
It's Wax Ecstatic
When life has lost all it's magic
It's Wax Ecstatic
When life can't promise the fantastic
It's Wax Ecstatic

('ecstatic' pronounced 'astatic', of course)

i'm just going to remove neil entirely then cuz broken arrow has great stuff but he kind of stopped being "alternative" after mirror ball, imo.

the first POTUSA record was the first CD i owned when i was a kid iirc

i'm listening to "tiny music" right now and this is OTM:

"Tumble in the rough" -> "big bang baby" - > "lady picture show" is a pretty awesome 3 in a row.. "Ride the Cliche" is great also.

― billstevejim, Thursday, May 3, 2012 2:35 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i forgot how good "lady picture show" is

the first POTUSA album is what should be played at a party of screaming 9-year-olds running around hopped up on caffeine and sugar

well that was me in 1995 so yeah

the first POTUSA record was the first CD i owned when i was a kid iirc

I went to a PUSA show two years ago and literally everyone I saw was in their mid-20's. "People born in 1986" is basically their whole audience.

i'm just going to remove neil entirely then cuz broken arrow has great stuff but he kind of stopped being "alternative" after mirror ball, imo.

― da croupier, Thursday, May 3, 2012 4:57 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

i'm pretty sure i saw the "This Town" video on 120 Minutes. i'm also pretty sure it's the single worst song on any of these albums.

i had 17 of these

yeah, Neil was still headlining horde and doing crazy, post-sonic youth versions of "Like A Hurricane" in Jim Jarmusch directed footage, but if I was going to put a song from Broken Arrow on this it would be "Big Time" or "Music Arcade" and neither have anything to do with the other shit on the playlist while "I'm The Ocean" at least has Pearl Jam on it.

I'll rep for No Code start to finish -- still my favorite PJ album

yeah yeah yeah, shocking right

oh man i never realized how much of a "Purple Rain" lift "Hey Jupiter" is until just now

Three Snakes & One Charm is great too, Johnny Fever otm

re: Factory Showroom, I pretty much only know the 3 songs they did on their live album a year or 2 later, but "SEXXY" "XTC Vs. Adam Ant" and "Til My Head Falls Off" are all decent IMO

I forget which one of those Neil records had slap bass

wtf why I am listening to WMS

"Strange Attraction" is so terrible, I wish I had back the time I wasted trying to convince myself I liked it

― I'M THAT POSTA, AAAAAAAAAH (DJP), Thursday, May 3, 2012 8:41 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I keep forgetting that song exists!

xpost to alfred

Mirror Ball, thank Jeff Ament on "Scenery"

a friend of mine said that Mint Car was her favorite Cure song

I'm still debating whether or not this proves or disproves that she likes the Cure at all

a friend of mine said that Mint Car was her favorite Cure song

I'm still debating whether or not this proves or disproves that she likes the Cure at all

― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, May 3, 2012 9:08 PM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, it is possible to like both 'Mint Car' and 'Cold', y'know.

YEAH, sarkozy in a shoopie doopie doop............................ow!

her FAVORITE song?

I'd be more worried if 'Strange Attraction', 'Club America' or 'Bananafishbones' was her favourite Cure song, really.

perhaps she's never heard "push"?

'Bananafishbones'

hey now

Trying to figure out what percentage of '90s alt albums are in any way defensible once you've read the lyrics.

bananafishbones is fucking awesome i will kill u xposts

bananafishbones is fucking awesome i will kill u xposts

― O_o-O_0-o_O (jjjusten), Thursday, May 3, 2012 9:17 PM (56 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I suppose that would ensure that I'd never get to listen to it again, so I'd treat it as a mercy killing :P

hahaha

can I just say that I still hate Bush with every fiber of my being

http://imagecache6.allposters.com/LRG/18/1870/JJX8D00Z.jpg

gah depressing. That headline!

and "The Orange County Scene"

and "The Orange County Scene"

It was the '90s - "The Orange" and "County Scene" might well have been two separate bands.

I'm trying to figure out what year that RS could've possibly been issued.

did belly have something out in early 95?

yeah King joins Exit The Dragon on the 1995 list

the only thing i could see normal people recognizing on that cover is "Slash"

april 10 1995, apparently

reportedly the lowest selling RS ever

no reflection on King, an awesome album I'm listening to now.

reportedly the lowest selling RS ever

i'm surprised, as the orb has always been a popular type of sphere

Tanya D is still (sorta) doin' it, too. I really dig her recent, country-ish solo stuff.

Afghan Whigs - Black Love
I think most bands would have a hard time following up on Gentleman, which was excellent but also not a hit. Record is way dark and some of the lyrics might push it, but it’s Dulli, that guy isn’t exactly subtle. Definitely not one of the records for someone to check out first, but if you like the Whigs, you pretty much end up liking them all.

The Black Crowes - Three Snakes And One Charm
I definitely give a longer look to these guys than many on ILX, where this band is pretty damn well hated by some. That said, this one isn’t nearly as good as the three before it even if you dig their shtick.

Bush - Razorblade Suitcase
Killer sound, but the tunes are not as catchy. Never ‘owned’ this one, but I had roommates and if you turned on an “X” station you couldn’t really avoid them.

Counting Crows - Recovering The Satellites
Kind of see above, as you could hear them around. I kind of like some of their mopey popular tunes like “A Long December”.

The Cure - Wild Mood Swings
This is the last Cure CD I bought and I don’t remember it much at all.

Metallica - Load
This thing makes the black album seem like Masters of Reality. Heard it and thought it sucked. To me a big difference is that it didn’t sound like a band in a room, it had that real tight ass sound with all of the freaking life sucked out of.

Ministry - Filth Pig
It’s way different than what Ministry had been doing, as I think they got over the whole speed thing and tried to go a different way and some of the fans just didn’t dig it. I kind of remember digging this one more than popular opinion which thought it was total crap. It wasn’t nearly as catchy as their last two records either, which didn’t help. My CD disappeared years ago though and I haven’t got it back. Probably could get this for a buck out some CD bins.

Neil Young - Broken Arrow
Tunes on this one are just not that great or memorable. This is a big shake above say Landing on Water and sounds a heck of a lot cooler, but after a few listens it is still on my shelf and I haven’t probably heard it in 15 years.

Porno For Pyros - Good God's Urge
This band just pretty much sucked.

R.E.M. - New Adventures In Hi-Fi
I kind of which I had this CD, as borrowed it a long while after it came out and kind of dug it. Last REM I bought new was Out of Time.

Screaming Trees - Dust
Cool and unique album and it caught on with like 150 people in the whole country.

Soundgarden - Down On The Upside
Like all of their A&M albums, they would probably make better 40 minute CDs instead of the long ones they did. I liked it, but definitely some of the indie rawk purists I knew f’in hated them.

Weezer – Pinkerton
I’ve only heard this one in passing. I heard their first one a ton and the one that came a couple years later from roommates a bunch.

I finally voted -- for R.E.M.

r.e.m. is the obvi vote for me but i'm trying to come up with something else

did anyone else here defend razorblade suitcase?

I want names

wait are you saying you are defending it?

i'm thinking about it...it's a great-sounding record with a couple of good singles and bush were never as bad as people claimed

except they were worse

"wax ecstatic" is an amazing example of overreaching; my god that album has some stuff

it has TWO DIFFERENT SONGS that are literally about drag queens!

Metallica - Load
This thing makes the black album seem like Masters of Reality. Heard it and thought it sucked. To me a big difference is that it didn’t sound like a band in a room, it had that real tight ass sound with all of the freaking life sucked out of.

There are several problems that I have and have always had with Load... numerous problems. Funnily enough, though, Bob Rock's production has never been one of them. Obviously, first and foremost, the album is wayyy too long even by the standards of the '90s, utilising the VERY maximum possible running time down to the very last fuckin' second. It says a lot about the state that Metallica were in at this point in time (coming off the back of a mega-successful record, and indulging in massive amounts of alcohol and cocaine) that rather than bump one of the lesser tracks, like 'Cure' off the album, they actually edited the ending to 'The Outlaw Torn' down so they would reach the maximum running time possible. One gets the impression they thought that everything they touched would turn to gold at this point. Then there's the dodgy song-sequencing, making the album feel incredibly samey, and the issue of the material itself: there's some decent tracks on the album, but I just get the impression on Load that they weren't spending enough time WORKING on the songs and JUDGING whether they were any good or not. It just felt that they'd knock something out and it'd be like "oh, that'll do... *snorts line* in fact, no that's fuckin' amazing, that's fuckin' cool ass... let's knock out another song while the iron's hot", so they just accumulated this huge batch of stuff that was in places under-worked and then couldn't decide which of their 'cool ass jamz' to release, so they put 'em all out.

I own more of these than I care to admit, but I'll rep for Black Love, which had the misfortune to be too near Gentlemen's light

Load is still better than the complete and utter shite thats come out after

Oh, I completely agree. I'd take the best of the material on Load plus a couple of choice selections from Reload over everything Metallica has done since.

reload was dire. but ugh they split up it never happened

Reload *is* dire, but I do think 'Fuel' is at least a keeper. I have a soft spot for 'Low Man's Lyric' too, but that's about it.

Looking at Load's tracklist I would probably drop '2x4', 'Cure', 'Poor Twisted Me', 'Thorn Within' and 'Ronnie' ... and then include the FULL version of 'The Outlaw Torn', and 'Fuel' and 'Low Man's Lyric' from Re-Load. Don't know what order I'd put the tracks in, though... and I'd still be on the fence about 'Bleeding Me'; some days it bores the shit out of me, and other days it doesn't.

it almost doesn't make sense to even begin to assess the number of bad decisions involved in Load or later Metallica in general. but it still totally astounds me that after the back album the song they decide to come back with is "Until It Sleeps."

we haven't really talked about it much but lemme just say Recovering The Sattelites is so much better than it has a right to be, the better half of it is kind of perfect. and Duritz isn't as embarrassing as Dulli.

whoa whoa whoa

Duritz isn't as embarrassing as Dulli.

haha no

durtiz's head alone, before he even opens the mouth attached to it, is more embarrassing than dulli.

i tried with the Whigs, man, i really tried, but the vocals are just awful

some dude otm

Oooooooh, it's onnnnnnnnn...

(Personally, I think they're both kinda doofy, but I have the sense not to say as much around here...ooooooops.)

yeah i'm kinda trolling because i'm kind of amazed that Black Love seems to be arising as the consensus favorite

voted down on the upside tbh

i tried with the Whigs, man, i really tried, but the vocals are just awful

This is me and the Hold Steady, so I sympathize with your unpopular opinion.

eh I would be amazed if pinkerton doesn't win this poll

Also, ftr, the Whigs and the Crows had some pretty good songs, but I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a fan of either. As opposed to a few other acts on this list (at least within the general era covered by this list).

i tried with the Whigs, man, i really tried, but the vocals are just awful

This is me and the Hold Steady, so I sympathize with your unpopular opinion.

― You Don't Throw Oranges On An Escalator (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, May 3, 2012 10:43 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

ok then we're 2 for 2 on the same page dude

http://foodcourtlunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/duritz3.jpg

durtiz's head alone, before he even opens the mouth attached to it, is more embarrassing than dulli.

Anybody remember when Dulli and Donal Logue guest hosted 120 Minutes? That was fun. He should've done more of that.

duritz is hilariously horrifying. but "i'm not sleeping" and "children in bloom" and "catapult," those are some great brooding guitar rock songs imo.

was donal logue in character as jimmy the cab driver?

counting crows ugh x 10000, fans treat them like some kind of second-coming Dave Matthews Band and I DON'T GET IT I DON'T I DON'T I DON'T

sorry

calm now

I don't know what prompted it, but I felt compelled to 'check in' on Duritz via GIS a couple of months ago. I mean...props on consistently rockin' the dreads for > 15 years, dude.

I know what prompted it

you are secretly in love with him

well it's easier when they're fake

was donal logue in character as jimmy the cab driver?

No, but I think that was the first time I'd seen him not as Jimmy the cab driver. REVELATORY.

dulli is/was ridiculously over the top, which was not too fashionable at the time (or to me in general). but he totally pulled it off live and however 'obvious' the whigs' rock/soul thing seems, i'm unaware of anyone (apart from prince, who they obviously adore) managing it

I can't think of a musician whose career began with execrable hair that I've been fond of

i am still trying to get over the revelation that donal logue was jimmy the cab driver

Anyone good enough for Jen is good enough for me, VG.

i tried with the Whigs, man, i really tried, but the vocals are just awful

― Neil Young’s social media channels (some dude), Thursday, May 3, 2012 7:39 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

some dude otm

― iatee, Thursday, May 3, 2012 7:39 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

cannot be said enough

soon i will be forced to link to aero's reviews of said whigs

dulli is/was ridiculously over the top, which was not too fashionable at the time (or to me in general). but he totally pulled it off live and however 'obvious' the whigs' rock/soul thing seems, i'm unaware of anyone (apart from prince, who they obviously adore) managing it

i can't think of two musicians who have less in common that prince and fucking greg dulli

Greg Dull more like amirite?

I can't think of a musician whose career began with execrable hair that I've been fond of

http://addictedtovinyl.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/bnlgordon.jpg??????

yeah i don't even really object to dulli's lyrics/persona or the whole sketchy R&B thing, if anything that's why i wish i could tolerate the singing itself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT5K4-WWjT8

forever what i associate with this particular era: the radio IDs from the slightly cooler modern rock station that you had to really work hard to hear if you lived where i did, leading to me building a huge DIY antenna (which worked!) during the summer between 8th/9th grade

I now have "Einstein On The Beach (For An Eggman)" on a loop in my head. Thank you, this thread.

lol contenderizer

I remember that 2nd PUSA album was great, but I haven't heard it in over a decade. I did hear a bootleg of a show a few years ago and the entire audience was enthusiastically singing along to every single song. It sounded so fun!

yeah i don't even really object to dulli's lyrics/persona or the whole sketchy R&B thing, if anything that's why i wish i could tolerate the singing itself

yeah, exactly. the boozy, self-loathing/aggrandizing cad thing is fine by me, and i like the idea of fusing heavy soul with heavy rock, but the voice just grates, and it doesn't work with the music. every element of the sound is so thick and oppressive and unnuanced. the guitar churns, the vocals bellow, the rhythm section mulches, and there's no room to breathe. musical waterboarding.

have i mentioned that i don't like the afghan whigs?

you have! no particular reason to heed your taste tho

On my site I have Soundgarden rated highest, then Screaming Trees and Afghan Whigs. But I'm feeling Black Love the most right now, partly because they're on my mind as I'll be seeing them at Lollapalooza for the first time since about 1992. I would have also included Tricky - Pre-Millenium Tension, though I'm not sure what kind of sales Maxinquaye had. More than a lot of these I'm sure. Ride - Tarantula too.

first Remy Zero album

(actually Ill probably vote Hi-Fi)

you have! no particular reason to heed your taste tho

of course not. it's mine, after all.

two of my best friends are huge & eternal whigs/dulli fans. have tried so often and long to "get it", to no avail :(

291 posts and nobody's claimed Hi-Fi is R.E.M.'s last good album. Pleasing!

thought that was a given?

^

most played 1996 hits on modern day alternative rock radio:

1. Sublime - "Santeria"
2. Sublime - "What I Got"
3. Green Day - "Brain Stew" / "Jaded"
4. Sublime - "Wrong Way"
5. Smashing Pumpkins - "1979"
6. 311 - "Down"
7. Bush - "Glycerine"
8. Cake - "The Distance"
9. Bush - "Machinehead"
10. Smashing Pumpkins - "Tonight, Tonight"
11. The Butthole Surfers - "Pepper"
12. Sublime - "Doin' Time"
13. 311 - "All Mixed Up"
14. Local H - "Bound For The Floor"
15. Rage Against The Machine - "Bulls On Parade"
16. Beck - "Where It's At"
17. Oasis - "Champagne Supernova"
18. Stone Temple Pilots - "Trippin' On A Hole In A Paper Heart"
19. Smashing Pumpkins - "Zero"
20. Sublime - "Caress Me Down"
21. Spacehog - "In The Meantime"
22. Marilyn Manson - "The Beautifu People"
23. Soundgarden - "Burden In My Hand"
24. Sublime - "April 29, 1992 (Miami)"
25. Tool - "Stinkfist"
26. Beck - "Devil's Haircut"
27. No Doubt - "Spiderwebs"
28. Beck - "New Pollution"
29. Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Aeroplane"
30. Garbage - "Only Happy When It Rains"

that seems about right

And to think Garbage had two way bigger hits that year!

only 2 songs from the 'commercially disappointing' list! congrats STP and Soundgarden, you outlasted "Swallowed" and "Who You Are"

I wanna say that STP track was in the year-end radio top ten, but I could be wrong.

probably, yeah, it was pretty ubiquitous

"Desperately Wanting" is the song i hear on the radio now most besides those 2, though, and it's kind of great.

lots of Tori stans might creep out and vote for BFP.

not a stan but voted for this. it's a pretty strong record.

basically the reason i put "alternative" in the subject line instead of just "rock" was to include that nutty harpsichord-filled album

it'll be pretty interesting to see who wins, though. i figured initially that it'd be a battle between Weezer and REM but maybe Whigs and Tori are in contention too.

I would have also included Tricky - Pre-Millenium Tension, though I'm not sure what kind of sales Maxinquaye had.

I think someone mentioned upthread that P-MT fit the theme of this thread w/r/t British sales figures. Had it been included, it would've been my pick for sure.

Pele got my vote.

Boys For Pele would probably be my second pick from the list after New Adventures.

yeah i wasn't really sure what his US sales figures were like and it was just a little beyond the spectrum on which tori amos was an outlier so i just didn't bother w/ tricky (xpost)

if PMT had been in there, i'd have gone w/ that instead of weezer. some went on at the time abt how it was a career-suicide level disappointment, but i thought it was pretty damn great.

Fuckin' Spacehog.

This year, oddly enough, marks the beginning of a long period of detachment from mainstream whateverosity, where I was digging further back instead of listening to what got played on the radio when my wife was in the car.

Voted for DUST, though I found it a disappointment after SWEET OBLIVION, which I played right into the ground after it came out.

xpost

It really was. I daresay both Tricky and Tori hit their peaks in '96.

i don't really consider any of these albums the artist's best, other than stuff like Counting Crows or Porno For Pyros where there's not much competition. a lot of 2nd bests and 3rd bests, though.

Just have to say that the Gin Blossoms album from '96 is the product of a band that should have hung it up after the dude who wrote all of their good songs committed suicide. It's kinda surprising that it did as well as it did.

Alfred otm about King btw; that is a dope fucking record

Dulli's vocal style is actually the thing I like least about Afghan Whigs but the band is really good. Counting Crows are one of my most hated bands of all time, "'Round Here" is one of the worst pieces of lyric-writing I've ever heard, I used to be kind of obsessed by how terrible it was. Well there you have it my opinion on the whole Afghan Whigs Counting Crows question of 2012

Anybody remember when Dulli and Donal Logue guest hosted 120 Minutes?

They reenacted scenes from The Godfather 2 with super soakers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHnB-xdeDYI

This is fucking amazing.

Why doesn't MTV let people goof around anymore?

I can still picture most of these CDs sitting in the 'new releases' racks of Way Ahead Records even though I've heard less than half of them. Porno for Pyros grabbed my attention because they'd used the same font as The Chemical Brothers.

This is a close run thing between Black Love and New Adventures for me. I like Pinkerton and Boys for Pele a lot too. Not a big PJ fan but I've got time for No Code. Wild Mood Swings is one of the worst records I've ever heard.

This may have been the greatest year in the history of music.

Pinkerton.

This may have been the greatest year in the history of music.

― Jeff, Friday, May 4, 2012 7:34 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

when i started looking back at '96 and eventually getting the idea for this thread, i started out going "wow, 1996 has the highest concentration of albums i like of any year ever," but then i realized i didn't really love many of those albums, and not nearly as many as for '95 or '94

P&J poll:

1. Beck: Odelay (DGC) 1134 (110)
2. Fugees: The Score (Ruffhouse/Columbia) 602 (58)
3. Sleater-Kinney: Call the Doctor (Chainsaw) 456 (35)
4. DJ Shadow: Endtroducing . . . DJ Shadow (Mo' Wax/FFRR) 404 (40)
5. Los Lobos: Colossal Head (Warner Bros.) 403 (37)
6. Steve Earle: I Feel Alright (Warner Bros.) 387 (37)
7. Stereolab: Emperor Tomato Ketchup (Elektra) 379 (35)
8. Amy Rigby: Diary of a Mod Housewife (Koch) 371 (34)
9. Tricky: Pre-Millennium Tension (Island) 355 (38)
10. Pulp: Different Class (Island) 351 (31)
11. R.E.M.: New Adventures in Hi-Fi (Warner Bros.) 348 (38)
12. Everything but the Girl: Walking Wounded (Atlantic) 340 (30)
13. Patti Smith: Gone Again (Arista) 330 (31)
14. Wilco: Being There (Reprise) 264 (26)
15. Cassandra Wilson: New Moon Daughter (Blue Note) 225 (19)
16. [File Under Prince]: Emancipation (NRG) 213 (21)
17. Iris DeMent: The Way I Should (Warner Bros.) 211 (18)
18. Me'Shell NdegéOcello: Peace Beyond Passion (Maverick/Reprise) 209 (21)
19. Nearly God: Nearly God (Island) 183 (17)
20. Maxwell: Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite (Columbia)

Emancipation and Chaos And Disorder definitely deserve an honorable mention in the "plummeting commercial fortunes in 1996" stakes.

my firs thoughts about this period were "Belly and Juliana Hatfield."

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 3, 2012 2:42 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol I saw TD and JH play together around then but I think it was 1997 not 6. I left 1/2 way through the show. It was just not good.

huh, good year for Tricky P&J-wise

Pinkerton

me and some dude, just a couple of lonely guys thinking about kim thayil.

kim thayil himself is one of us, i believe

that old spin article where thayil zings the shit out of billy corgan makes him in my view maybe the most lovable figure of 90s alt rock

I'm only halfway kidding about the greatest music year. It just so happened that it coincided with my sophomore year in high school, prime radio listening years.

thayil seems like a bro

could play the shit outta the guitar, too

if ship had included '95, yes, King would have been my pick.

underperforming major label debuts are a different category re: Sammy

if either '94-'95 or underperforming major label debuts get polled I will be v agonised between King, You'd Prefer an Astronaut, Speed is Dreaming, Pony Express Record

from this list I guess it's Dust, Hi-Fi or Pele but eh

that old spin article where thayil zings the shit out of billy corgan makes him in my view maybe the most lovable figure of 90s alt rock

as a 14y/o girl I found the article where Thayil declares "we don't make music for 14 year old girls to diddle themselves to" made him one of the least lovable figure of 90s alt rock, but I concede not many people here were 14y/o girls

put me on the list of people who always thought they'd like Afghan Whigs until they actually heard them

haha i know right!

wow thayil was pretty deluded about his lead singer's heartthrob appeal huh

man I wish Thayil was on ILX

Anyways, I would likely vote for King over any of these albums, but do this for '95 and it gets a bit dodgier; that year has a bunch of albums I love to a ridiculous degree. I really have been coming to a slow realization that 95-00 might have been one of those great epochs in music...

This poll has inspired me to finally check out those Posies and Pearl Jam albums, both of which are well overdue for a listen from me...

ok nm re Thayil

maybe we can use this thread as a noms thread for a '95 poll, feel free to list any that come to mind and i'll put the thread together at some point

in any list of disappointing alt rock albums from '95 I would vote for Pacer

Hum - You'd Prefer an Astronaut! I dunno if it was really ever expected to do well though so I will defer to an American on that

(their cultural impact was p. much zero here in the UK, think I heard "Stars" about twice on the radio and just happened to write down its name and remember it when I later saw the album in a bargain bin)

but I wouldn't vote for Hum over Belly so it doesn't matter anyway (oh, I forgot about Pacer)

okay the first song off of Amazing Disgrace--"Daily Mutilation"--is kicking all kinds of ass

yes that album is a bit of an ass kicker.

Dust without a second thought.

Hum's cultural impact in the states was also roughly zero, spacecadet. "Stars" got some decent play on alternative radio, but that was about it. I don't even remember there being a video, so I can't imagine expectations were super high. Good album, though. And yet another (like Sammy's) that I bought largely thanks to some weird pricing experiment back then wherein labels were selling certain albums by 'fresh faces' for about half the usual album price. It was the same deal with the Kids soundtrack, iirc. Found some good stuff via that experiment!

"Stars" was a pretty big hit. Howard Stern made a big deal of having them come on the show and play it! And even when Downward Is Heavenward came out, 120 Minutes hyped up the premiere of the first video.

i think the correct answer here is Weezer, but i have a wild hair up my ass to give the nod to either REM or Afhan Whigs.

i think having a wild hair up your ass would seem to dictate that you vote for afghan whigs, even if i'd prefer that you vote for rem

And I second or third or fourth whoever said this was, like, the greatest era for music (although, obviously, this particular list isn't exactly indicative of the era's riches). Mmmmmmaybe not objectively, but the stuff I listened to/discovered ca. '92-'96 was hugely influencial and a surprising amount of it still holds up now that my rose-tinted glasses have crumbled into dust.

haha some dude, that puts me in a spot of bother. i think i'll go with Afghan Whigs??

Re: "Stars", maybe I just never got a sense of its impact. Aside from my own copy of the album, I don't think I ever heard it anywhere but my local alt rock station, so I guess I just figured Hum were on par with, like, the Refreshments or Seven Mary Three in terms of fame/cultural impact.

(And yes, for anyone who's thinking it, I'm talking about pre-Kng of the Hill Refreshments.)

heh yeah "Stars" was not as big as "Cumbersome," unfortunately.

I always felt like "Cumbersome" was written sometime between the point when Seven Mary Three discovered the word 'cumbersome' and the point when they fully grasped its meaning.

lol otm

hahahah

Thayil Spin interview, for posterity

LOLs from this still as fresh as the day they were printed...

A couple of days and a harrowing plane flight later, the band makes it to a resort town called Surfer's Paradise, which is more or less the Miami Beach of Australia, a skinny coastal town about an hour south of Brisbane, pounded by waves and plagued with jellyfish, crowded with high-rise hotels popular with JApanese honeymooners. Surfer's Paradise is the jumping-off point for the Big Day Out tour, a sort of Australian Lollapalooza that Soundgarden will headline this year. In the lobby bar of one of the tallest hotels, Cornell and Thayil are settling back with a couple of beers when Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins wanders through, and decides to join them for a strawberry margarita. Corgan chatters about the pain of his life, the supposed incompetence of his band (everybody rolls their eyes), the lifesaving virtues of Jungian therapy, bands that suck. Cornell gets up to leave. Corgan tells Thayil how important Soundgarden used to be to him, and he baits him by saying that the Pumpkins sometimes do a cover of Soundgarden's "Outshined" that segues into a Depeche Mode song or something.

"I'm thinking of making my next album really new wave," Corgan says, "like '83-'84 new wave, not like Berlin. I spend all my time doing things that may be a bit tangential, but I think I'm going to go back to the core, the heart music. Echo and the Bunnymen."

This is standard stuff to anybody who has read even a single Billy Corgan profile, the basic curriculum of Pumpkins 101. But Thayil isn't buying. He's sore.

"Don't you see," Thayil says, "you're this incredibly talented guy. People like your music. You have a good band. You sell a lot of records. You don't need all this...stuff."

"What sign are you?" Corgan asks.

"What do you mean, what sign am I?" Thayil says. "What difference could that possibly make?"

"C'mon," wheedles Corgan, "when is your birthday?"

"All right, goddamn it: September 4th."

"Aha!" Corgan says. "A Virgo. You're argumentative."

"Damn right, I'm argumentative," Thayil says, and takes a long, angry pulll at his beer, "which you should know because I've been arguing with you for half an hour, not because of any sign."

"I'm a Pisces," Corgan replies. "We pick up on those things."

A minute later, Corgan, still probing, finally finds the key to Thayil's heart: "I hate how in magazine pictures, they always stick me somewhere in the back."

Thayil explodes: "What do you mean? You write all the songs, and you do all the interviews. You play the instruments on the album. You control the band to the extent that most people think of Smashing Pumpkins as the Billy Corgan Experience, and all you care about is some photograph?"

"But I hate it," Corgan says, "it means they don't think I'm the cute one."

"Ooh," Thayil says a little too loudly as Corgan walks away, "I'll bet he's going to call his therapist in Chicago, wake her up at four in the morning, and tell her about that big, mean bear who made fun of him."

The next day at the Big Day Out festival, Thayil is talking to Kim and Kelley Deal in the Breeders' dressing room when Corgan walks past wearing a long-sleeved Superman T-shirt like the one your four-year-old nephew probably owns.

"You hurt me deeply," Corgan says, touching the giant S on his chest and pouting. "You hurt me deeply in my heart." The Pumpkins go on to play the best set anybody has ever heard them play, their usual passiveness and precision overlaid with an unfamiliar scrim of anger that throws their music into brilliant relief.

oops here's the link to the full article too

http://web.stargate.net/soundgarden/articles/spin_4-94.shtml

wkiw Thayil

man 90s indie rock/punk major label debuts would be a motherfucker of a poll.

oh my god that's amazing

makes me want to get into Soundgarden tbh

Am 85% sure I could post a scan of that. PS, anybody wanna buy a bunch of old SPINs?

Not sure how well Brutal Youth sold, but I do remember hearing "13 Steps Lead Down" on the local "alternative" station and it was actually the song that first got me interested in Costello (I was 14).

Still think All This Useless Beauty is one of the most underrated records in his catalogue and it gets my vote easily, though it might be worth mentioning that I've always had significant trouble giving a shit about Weezer.

dan i kinda cant believe you're NOT into soundgarden

The next day at the Big Day Out festival, Thayil is talking to Kim and Kelley Deal in the Breeders' dressing room when Corgan walks past wearing a long-sleeved Superman T-shirt like the one your four-year-old nephew probably owns.

ok, Kim Thayil, all is forgiven (except everything I've heard from the Soundgarden reunion)

A minute later, Corgan, still probing, finally finds the key to Thayil's heart: "I hate how in magazine pictures, they always stick me somewhere in the back."

Thayil explodes: "What do you mean? You write all the songs, and you do all the interviews. You play the instruments on the album. You control the band to the extent that most people think of Smashing Pumpkins as the Billy Corgan Experience, and all you care about is some photograph?"

"But I hate it," Corgan says, "it means they don't think I'm the cute one."

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRQGWMHy4_gTA3lpIUmLZFWhT-YwjraukTQFgoZzHcLDgFW1LO9l9A7XAWm

xxp: I do like "Black Hole Sun" but that's really the only thing by them I know (besides "Spoonman", lol)

Jealous of you Dan --- you got some fun ahead if you're gonna give into Soundgarden.

Their reunion show last year sent me diving back into Superunknown, which I thought I didn't like...turns out I was RONG
Like a Suicide, Day I Tried To Live, Head Down...holy shit

Black Hole Sun is still the worst though
god I hate it

Soundgarden's heyday was right when I was at the peak of my raverraver listening, where the only things I listened to that weren't in the 140+ BMP range were Cure, TKK and NIN albums

This may have been the greatest year in the history of music.

― Jeff, Friday, May 4, 2012 4:34 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

when i started looking back at '96 and eventually getting the idea for this thread, i started out going "wow, 1996 has the highest concentration of albums i like of any year ever," but then i realized i didn't really love many of those albums, and not nearly as many as for '95 or '94

― some dude, Friday, May 4, 2012 6:13 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

96 was a great year. there's even a thread about it. (that links to a list of fifty-some albums from '96 that i love, thread in general = defend 1996.)

the idea that it might have been a bad year is bizarre to me. a year of declining fortunes for major label "alternative rock", maybe, but that's something for marketing execs to worry about.

Much as it pains me to admit it, I love this thread idea because it solidifies the context for one of the greatest singles of the 1990s: Local H's "All the Kids are Right."

Never heard of St. Johnny until today. Not bad. Kotton kandy Sonic Youth with an endearingly bad singer who could still use more feedback around him. But check these titles from Speed Is Dreaming which epitomize alt's short shelf life:

A Car Or A Boy?
I Hate Rock And Roll
Down The Drain
I Give Up
What Was I Supposed To See?
The Devil's Last Stand
You're Not My Friend
You Can't Win
Gran Mal
Everything Is Beautiful
Black Eye
Turbine
Stupid

Fact: The greatest and third greatest albums of the 1990s were released this year (Endtroducing... and Call the Doctor).

Fact!

Their reunion show last year sent me diving back into Superunknown, which I thought I didn't like...turns out I was RONG
Like a Suicide, Day I Tried To Live, Head Down...holy shit

yeah, love soundgarden to death up through superunknown ("the day i tried to live" <-- holy shit). it's only with down on the upside that i start to have doubts. though the avengers track kind of sucks, i still have my fingers crossed for the new one.

oh how could the new one not suck.

chris cornell has been a shit farmer for way too long now

xxpost Down on the Upside is not great. Ty Cobb is okay, and Blow Up The Outside World. But def pale compared to Superunknown...you could kinda tell they were pretty much done

and yeah, Cornell's kinda burned his bridges with me as far as new stuff goes

that Billie Jean cover, I mean

RAGE

and that horrible Timbaland solo album was just...whut

Chris Cornell is as cheesy as Dave Navarro, I keep expecting them to end up with their own Bravo show. xp

i live for disappointment

Cornell was always like a hair away from becoming David Coverdale even when Kim Thayil and Susan Silver were around to ground him

omg Navarro Cornell reality show would be tragic and amazing

xpost LOOOOL

don't get disliking "black hole sun" though

droning, annoying

overplayed. hate it now. I prefer listening to the albums/ep before Superunknown anyway.

holy shit nicole

bhs overplayed to irritation threshhold was breached

got cable tv in our area the year that black hole sun vid was never off mtv. That killed the song for me. Thankfully on the down on the upside tour cornell played it solo acoustic so it wasnt as annoying.

Would recommend Tori Amos to fill out the Cornell/Navarro judging panel

Down on the Upside is not great. Ty Cobb is okay, and Blow Up The Outside World. But def pale compared to Superunknown...you could kinda tell they were pretty much done

― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, May 4, 2012 4:16 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes, and 'Pretty Noose', 'Rhinosaur', 'Burden In My Hand', 'Never Named', 'Never The Machine Forever', 'Switch Opens', 'Overfloater' and 'An Unkind'.

yeah, befitting the era it's too long but there are still a lot of good songs

bhs overplayed to irritation threshhold was breached

that was true for me at the time, but 16 years down the road, it's gone back to just being a song i like

i swear to god there were two versions of the BHS video that played -- the first didn't have nearly as much cgi, maybe none at all? back me up here somebody

don't remember a version w/out heavy cgi. there is this though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar0SK2fDCxQ

yeah the video was super-annoying too

http://cltampa.com/binary/6aa3/black_hole_sun.jpg

love the video

the

worst

btw i just put on black love on spotify. my reaction to the whigs was the exact opposite of some of you, i first heard gentlemen like three years ago and my thought was god damn if i heard this record when i was 17 it would be one of my 10 favorite records ever. i'm not really in a place now where i connect with it 100% emotionally but it's pretty amazing music.

i swear to god there were two versions of the BHS video that played -- the first didn't have nearly as much cgi, maybe none at all? back me up here somebody

i remember this!

Thankfully on the down on the upside tour cornell played it solo acoustic so it wasnt as annoying

Oh yeah, that would totally make that song MUCH less annoying.

I give up on Soundgarden after Badmotorfinger. And really after the first half of that album. Everything up to and including "Jesus Christ Pose" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> everything after.

wiki to the rescue

The video was released in June 1994.[25] After several weeks of airplay on MTV, a second version of the video was substituted containing more elaborate visual effects than the original, including the addition of a computer-generated black hole.

i'm still def an early-screamo Soundgarden stan -- but in the last year or two I've come around on Superunknown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHfhNvsYlgc

love the toys in the attic vocal rasp on "do it riiiiiiiight"

Yeah, totally remember that earlier "Black Hole Sun" video.

because this still makes me lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni632sTHZWU

after an hour I am still finding it increasingly hilarious, given all the Pumpkins articles I read creepily obsessing over D'arcy and given how strikingly cheekboned James Iha is/was, imagining pouty Baldy Corgan stood at the back of a photoshoot thinking "does this mean... they don't think I'm the cute one?!"

thank you thread

I mean...

http://www.spin.com/sites/all/files/120313-billy-corgan.png

ack

hit every branch on the way down

humpty dumpty lol

He is awesome as Varys on Game of Thrones though.

Corgan's like seven feet tall--that's why he was put in the back.

hahaha nicole

he was also good in the Addams Family movies

http://i.imm.io/odjY.png

voted for 'new adventures...' without that much doubt, even tho i listened a lot to 'tiny music...' when it came out - and have fond memories of it.

also, 'no code' is prob my fav pearl jam album - not that it matters that much since i was never never a huge fan to begin with - but i don't listen to 'vitalogy' in a very long time...

Philip wins the thread. It's all about Thayil's "Whatfuckingever, man."

Down on the Upside is not great. Ty Cobb is okay, and Blow Up The Outside World. But def pale compared to Superunknown...you could kinda tell they were pretty much done

― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, May 4, 2012 4:16 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes, and 'Pretty Noose', 'Rhinosaur', 'Burden In My Hand', 'Never Named', 'Never The Machine Forever', 'Switch Opens', 'Overfloater' and 'An Unkind'.

― The Jupiter 8 (Turrican), Friday, May 4, 2012 12:27 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

and "Dusty" and "Zero Chance" and "No Attention"!

btw guys i finally thought of a major label follow-up with a serious sales dropoff from '96 that i totally overlooked for the thread options:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7a/CrackerTheGoldenAge.jpg

I actually just listened to "I'm A Little Rocket Ship" the other day

i hate my generation!!

fight this generation

Philip wins the thread.

I always thought Cracker was pretty lame and trying way too hard.

oh god yes

lol anthony when you added that song to your spotify 'used bins' playlist at first i thought the playlist was called "I'm A Little Rocket Ship to Used Bins"

which is p otm when you think about it

Voted "Amazing Disgrace" in spite of it probably being The Posies' weakest album.

lol i'm glad that even you didn't want to vote for Wild Mood Swings

Amazing Disgrace is definitely better than Success, Every Kind of Light and Blood/Candy, though, even if you prefer the earlier stuff.

Oops. Didn't see that one. Would have went for "Wild Mood Swings" instead, but thought this was all American alternative and didn't notice it.

bullet = dodged

although I'm surprised you didn't give any consideration to the esteemed America musical acts Bush, The Cranberries or Elvis Costello

Dan so funny.

Though really, Bush is more an American act than British. By like eleventy jillion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gfey7YwuqQ

POLL it to hell and gone: DOWN ON THE UPSIDE

Though really, Bush is more an American act than British. By like eleventy jillion.

OTM!

As for Elvis Costello, "All This Useless Beauty" was maybe his last album worthy of much attention at all, and all the same sooo much less worthy of attention than the one before it.

This thread seems like it was MADE for me, because 95/96 is when I started listening to the radio and catching up on all the stuff, so my musical world was really heavily flooded with these albums and their rather long runs of singles. The soundtrack to countless hours spent designing Duke Nukem levels after school!

Better Than Ezra - Friction, Baby - Only know the singles ("King of New Orleans," "Desperately Wanting") - those are pretty solid though

Bush - Razorblade Suitcase - Owned this. It's horrible.

Counting Crows - Recovering The Sattelites - Again, decent singles - I have no beef whatsoever with "Long December" although a coworker of mine once declared "Trying to sing like that guy just makes me feel... dumpy."

The Cranberries - To The Faithful Departed - Shark-jumping moment IMO.

Hootie & The Blowfish - Fairweather Johnson - Did anyone buy this? I always had the sense they had this ENORMOUS hit record and then this one barely made any impact at all, to the point where I don't recall it even getting a second single pushed after "Old Man & Me." Which is a perfectly good Hootie song, really. You wonder if everyone who bought the first one spent the following couple of years listening to it exclusively and just got sick of their whole thing. I actually put it on recently and it's not a bad album really - but moronically sequenced with all the singles up front and the filler in the back.

Metallica - Load - I have a fondness for all the singles off this. Again, Duke Nukem time. I think "Until It Sleeps" is the first video that I remember just seeing on CONSTANTLY and wishing they would play something else.

Pearl Jam - No Code - This is a good record. It's not as good as its champions want to make out - I find a lot of it just a little TOO jammy and open-ended - but the strong songs are really strong and it has a great sound overall.

The Presidents of the United States of America - II - This is also okay! Consistent, anyway. "Ladies and Gentlemen" I like, also "Tiki God." Did what they do pretty competently. Hard to say it's somehow measurably worse than the first one.

R.E.M. - New Adventures In Hi-Fi - My vote for best here, easily. It's another overlong late-90s CD, but there's no out-and-out duds (the instrumental could go, okay) and it has a wonderfully earthy, recorded-live quality that totally fits where the band was and the kind of songs they were writing and themes they were addressing. Would have been their perfect final album had they quit at this point, and I think there's a substantial REM fan contingent that would rate this their career best. Basically this was killed by a) terrible choice of lead single and b) their fanbase had always been too big for the kind of band they were and it was sort of inevitable that that bubble would burst. I think I got that take from someone on ILX though...

Soundgarden - Down On The Upside - This is also very good, also terribly over-long and badly in need of an edit. Did we do a thread about this one? I like it a lot but there's easily four or five songs you could chop and not miss. But great material - and "commercially disappointing" only relative to the previous record going 5x platinum, right?

Stone Temple Pilots - Tiny Music... Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop - Great glammy singles and lazy, "creative" filler. "Art School Girlfriend"? Jesus Christ.

They Might Be Giants - Factory Showroom - A weird record for them, honestly - clearly an attempt to step back a little from John Henry and get back some of the quirk to their sound after being so excited about sounding like a "real band," ie, a boring alt-rock band. Oddly enough, this one always felt too short to me and this is where I got off the TMBG bus (well, I did buy the live album after this). Some great songs on it though - "Spiraling Shape," "Your Own Worst Enemy," "Til My Head Falls Off"... Anyway, while I'm not sure this belongs here (how well did John Henry sell exactly? Surely Flood has to be their highest-profile record?), it still belongs among this company because it easily has THE worst cover art of any of these records.

Weezer - Pinkerton - It's okay. I tried hard to like it more than I did, because of all the cult praise - that would have been a few years later I think. Just a kind of dreary, unexciting record, and I don't think that's because of its "serious themes" or "darkness," or whatever, because in fact the songwriting is still generally pretty solid - it's just that the hooks sort of sit there on the disc instead of leaping out the speaker, seems like a production issue or maybe just not spending enough time adding the special little touches. This might be the biggest creative drop of any of these IMO - the best stuff here still doesn't measure up to the pure brilliance of the album cuts on the blue one.

Did we do a thread about this one?

Linked two posts up: POLL it to hell and gone: DOWN ON THE UPSIDE

The Cranberries - To The Faithful Departed - Shark-jumping moment IMO.

the Cranberries were born on the wrong side of the shark

i don't think this album was ever looked at as a "big flop"

I think that perception comes from received wisdom that '96 was the year of big rock "flops" (Load, New Adventures In Hi-Fi, No Code etc)* which paved the way for the late 90s rapcore/techno/ska movement.

*All of which sold in #s labels would kill for today.

― The Wild Shirtless Lyrics of Mark Farner (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, March 24, 2009 3:31 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark

ha prescient post on that DOTU thread

my friend Joel always sings "Asshole Son" for "Black Hole Sun" - try it, it's really much funnier

unless he's your dad

Casino otm about New Adventures in Hi-Fi, particularly wrt the lead single. I always suspected they led off with "E-Bow" with the intention of deflating the very bubble you speak of.

E-Bow is easily favorite REM single and one of the main reasons why I would vote for it

Would have been their perfect final album had they quit at this point, and I think there's a substantial REM fan contingent that would rate this their career best.

for a while Brit critics DID consider it REM's best album.

Anyway, while I'm not sure this belongs here (how well did John Henry sell exactly? Surely Flood has to be their highest-profile record?)

well, the idea isn't that these albums all necessarily followed the band's biggest album (about a third of them didn't). but yeah i may be exaggerating the dropoff just because Factory Showroom's Billboard peak was lower, it didn't even have a moderate hit on the level of "Snail Shell," and they got dropped by Elektra immediately afterwards.

I don't dislike "E-Bow", it's just an objectively insane lead single for a mainstream, major label album.

In this context, "insane" = "expected to entice anyone but fans to buy the album".

r.e.m. and PJ are my faves here. i sort of like the neil young one in parts. 'big time' is a jam, 'scattered' and 'music arcade' are pretty excellent, the rest seems sloppy even by neil standards of slop.

it's funny because compare that to "What's The Frequency, Kenneth" doing such a great job of tricking millions into thinking Monster would be awesome (xpost)

'monster' is pretty awesome imo!

my friend Joel always sings "Asshole Son" for "Black Hole Sun" - try it, it's really much funnier

― cosi fan whitford (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, May 4, 2012 8:26 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was a "thing" actually, or at least I remember hearing a radio DJ type parody with this. "Asshole son, mow the lawn.." etc. Not exactly Yankovic level.

Yeah, I stan for Monster too, see for example You Wore Your ExPOLLtations Like An Armored Suit: REM's "Monster"

well, the idea isn't that these albums all necessarily followed the band's biggest album (about a third of them didn't). but yeah i may be exaggerating the dropoff just because Factory Showroom's Billboard peak was lower, it didn't even have a moderate hit on the level of "Snail Shell," and they got dropped by Elektra immediately afterwards.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I think i had my wires crossed with the "career-killing followups" thread!

In hindsight some of this is just radio listeners and record companies shedding themselves of acts that were ill-conceivedly signed in a rush of post-Nevermind and Ten enthusiasm, right? Like in what universe did REM's bazillon-dollar contract ever look like a long-term Good Idea? Or the idea that They Might Be Giants were the kind of band that clearly was going to just knock out hit record after hit record? Of course they put out a trio of moderate and/or lukewarm-selling things and went back to a cult.

What it meant though is that, as much as some of these records are indeed bloated crap, it was a really fun time to listen to the radio because everything seemed really in flux and you could get exposed to MUCH weirder music than you'd expect for mainstream rock radio. Not just "alternative breaking through" but the idea that some of these records got even a halfhearted push by major labels is pretty cool to me. And the fallout from this is the really vibrant radio landscape of 96-98 when seemingly just any damn thing would be played on the alternative station. It was a lot of fun and made a good gateway drug for getting into indie rock once I hit college.

none of these records sounds particularly weird to me, Doctor

now if you argue that Kurt Cobain referring to the Raincoats and such, then, yeah

to my ears the mid nineties college radio charts really sucked compared to the diverse programming of the 1988-1991 period.

i dunno, i don't think REM's popularity was on such shaky ground. i mean, it makes sense in retrospect that they went back to being a cult band while U2 stayed in stadiums, but they were neck-and-neck for years and years, i can easily picture an alternate reality in which REM held onto much more of their peak era audience for much longer.

but yeah obviously this whole list is just a testament to the hubris of the majors at that point and the inevitable bubble burst of that 91-95 signing frenzy.

xpost

i dunno it was pretty weird that anyone thought cowboy-hats-and-megaphones ers ministry might be a commercial proposition

xp to alfred there

yeah this is the period when U2 (according to the definitive Bill Flanagan book) and R.E.M. were not quiet about praising each other as the only competition for Biggest Band in the World.

yeah i mean, at the point that REM signed that ridiculous deal, they were in the artists who had a long streak of every album selling more than the last club for 9 albums straight, they were kind of unstoppable.

nothing on this list was as disappointing to me as 'freak*on*ica' was several years later

haha i have a friend who was a huge GVSB stan and he was so excited and then disappointed about that album

weren't we all

Oh jesus fuck no Freak*On*Ica no no no.

Even after that travesty, I regrettably went back to the well not once but twice (if you count the Session 7 soundtrack. Such a dummy.

In retrospect, we all shoulda given that title a nice long ponder while we were in line at the music shop.

Keep expecting to find Silverchair's Freakshow in this poll, but, of course, '97.

97 Would be a good poll too--, Pop, Ultra, Freakshow, er, uh, maybe not

omg i haven't thought about that record in years

i convinced myself i liked it for a pretty long time

er xp, freakonica i mean

1st track was great iirc

Would have been their perfect final album had they quit at this point,

Absolutely. They very nearly redeemed themselves with this, having rediscovered the joy of playing live/as a unit. Guess that pesky $80 million Warners contract wouldn't allow them to bow out so easily, though.

Freak*On*Ica - Let's just pretend it didn't happen. GvB broke up after House of GvsB.

Guess that pesky $80 million Warners contract wouldn't allow them to bow out so easily, though.

Absolutely no reason to make any insinuation about this.

Just sayin', if they thought at that time "Yep, we're done," their contract wouldn't allow them to stop (at least, not without paying back the advance).

lol you have no idea what you're talking about

So after signing an $80 million contract, they could've just walked away? Interesting. I'd love to hear about how that would work. (I'm being sincere, by the way; how would they have gone about that?)

Freak*On*Ica - Let's just pretend it didn't happen. GvB broke up after House of GvsB.

man has there ever been a band that dropped the ball harder than GvsB

So after signing an $80 million contract, they could've just walked away? Interesting. I'd love to hear about how that would work. (I'm being sincere, by the way; how would they have gone about that?)

the first thing you wanna remember about contracts like that by the way is here's how they don't work: you sign a contract and then they send you a check for the full amount. most such contracts stipulate the number of releases the figure in question buys, with dates and amounts of dollar distribution linked to delivery of albums, and probably, with a contract that big, certain amounts of touring stipulated, promotional assistance, etc. A recording is not "here's a bunch of money, enjoy," they're really baroque arrangements. However, when a band is as big as REM, the contract almost doubtless includes "in the event of" clauses that include "in case the band no longer wants to make records" thing that sunset the future $ distributions w/o penalty to the band, and that's the sort of lawyerly strongarming that labels just have to eat if they want the marquee act

you or I would not have the luxury of get-out-of-jail-free clauses but REM almost surely does

Thanks for the explanation, aero. Some of that I knew (artists don't get the full amount up front), some of it I didn't ("in case shit" clauses). Most of the situations I'm familiar with involved lower- or mid-level bands, but I do know of at least one instance where a band had to pay back their advance (or whatever portion of it they'd just received) when they broke up (the Who with Warners).

Apologies for the thread derail. Carry on.

i'm gonna listen to as much of wax ecstatic as i can until i have to pick my gf up

this may not have been a great idea

2 minutes too long.

i still like the little squealy riff from the song wax ecstatic, but my good everything else. the rhythm section of this band is a bunch of fucking stiffs

Originally intended to be a concept album revolving around the death of a Memphis drag queen, that idea was aborted, though many of the tracks that ended up making the cut originated from this idea.

this makes track 4, the drag queens of memphis, slightly less inexplicable but it's a horrible woozy genre exercise. you're supposed to save those for the second half of the album guys!

i'm gonna listen to as much of wax ecstatic as i can until i have to pick my gf up

― call all destroyer, Saturday, May 5, 2012 1:21 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this may not have been a great idea

― call all destroyer, Saturday, May 5, 2012 1:25 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

man you can't listen to the actual recording of "molly" on spotify which is their only ok song.

actually i'm listening to it on youtube and it's better than ok.

amped-up jangle rock shouldve been more of a thing

"Plowed" is a pretty decent song.

yeah i'm always on the fence about plowed.

listening to it now, the chord progression thru the verse is nice

jesus, youtube really wants me to watch the video for "in the meantime"

fine youtube, happy now?

''Mungo City'' would sit well on this thread.

otm. does that album have a cult following or am i making that up?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

bump

Tiny Music... Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop

really debating which one of these album titles makes the best euphemism for alienating a fanbase. "oh yeah, they Razorblade Suitcased that shit up on that one." "jesus, they dropped a Fairweather Johnson on that second abum." "you think they went Tiny Music last time? this one is straight up Friction, Baby."

fyi i still probably listen to no code ~10 times per year.

I never really got that into No Code, not like I did the previous three. That was where I got off the PJ train, in fact. Aside from "Hail, Hail", which is pretty killer, I remember more about the packaging gimmicks than I do about the music. And that was during a summer when it was rattling around in my backpack with about 15 other tapes that were on near-constant Walkman rotation. It wasn't bad, but it just wasn't my thing (anymore).

And I have a deep emotional connection to most of those other albums (New Adventures In Hi-Fi, Sebadoh's Harmacy, Cibo Matto's Viva La Woman, and the Kids soundtrack, among others) as a result of the trials of that summer that's strangely absent wrt No Code.

Sebadoh's Harmacy, Cibo Matto's Viva La Woman, and the Kids soundtrack

what a time to be alive

Missing Poll Choice:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_afSZ14Vjy8U/SmaqqvPW-aI/AAAAAAAAAsQ/ot9054Pz4nU/s320/shes_the_one.jpg

When I was 16 IIRC my top 5 albums of 1996 went something like 1. Tiny music 2. odelay 3. she's the one 4. evil empire 5. sublime s/t

yeah i loved tiny music when i was 12 or 13. thank god i got into indie rock.

Dust vs. Black Love vs New Adventures for me. I'm going to plump for New Adventures but it's very close. Probably sold more than anything except the Metallica album now I come to think of it.

I never realised so many people liked No Code... I remember in the late '90s I couldn't find a single person who had anything good to say about the record!

Are we supposed to choose the one we like or the most disappointing one?

that petty soundtrack is kind of great -- if only it weren't saddled to that horrible horrible movie.

Voting for best/favorite/etc.

I love that She's The One soundtrack, despite association with Ed Burns bleeeeegggggggghh

"Walls (Circus)" is still one of my favorite later-Petty songs

"Walls" is rull good. I used to listen to She's The One while playing PC games. Also I didn't realize "Asshole" was a Beck cover until I bought One Foot In The Grave a year or 2 later.

Considering the success of Wallflowers and "Mary Jane's Last Dance," I'd say She's The One would've fit into this poll perfectly.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

otoh

did markers vote twice?

Porno For Pyros - Good God's Urge 4

wau

Stone Temple Pilots 6

It appears I don't understand a lot more things in this world than I thought

The Cranberries - To The Faithful Departed 0

DAMN RIGHT! :D

heavens to murgatroyd, this thing got nearly 150 responses! some kind of record?

heavens!

gracious!

The Cranberries - To The Faithful Departed 0

This one really deserves its last place.

It's a topic near and dear to everyone's heart.

its the last decade before most ilxors got jaded

now I wish She's The One had been a part of this

yeah Petty along w/ Cracker definitely shoulda been options but tbf they probably both would've been down in the 2 vote ghetto with Type O Negative.

i kinda figured this would have a good turnout and wide distribution of votes, but i really didn't think all but 3 albums would get votes!! also v happy that Hi-Fi beat Pinkerton.

Kinda sorta feel like Blow It Out Your Ass, It's Veruca Salt fits the bill here? Except for the pesky fact of it being an EP.

my favorite under-the-radar follow-up EP of 1996 is Ruth Ruth's The Little Death, which is fucking incredible and better than maybe 2 or 3 of the albums on this list

better than ALL BUT maybe 2 or 3 etc.

sd how old are u?

30, was 14 in '96

Porno For Pyros - Good God's Urge 4

wau

― mookieproof, Thursday, May 10, 2012 8:17 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

that really is bewildering -- i liked it ok at the time (mike watt!) but god has the production aged badly even in the context of this lot

ha man i remember 'october rust' getting a 5-star review in ALTERNATIVE PRESS

ha i think i read reviews of AT LEAST half of these in Alternative Press

i had a sub to that in hs :/

idk when i became the emo us weekly but it was after i was reading it

great stealth typo right there

ohhhh

some dude if you were 14 in '96 (and thirty now) do you think about these records as you heard them then or as you hear them now or some mix of the two?

(i'm not trying to shit on your ability/authority to criticize them at all, but i am curious)

a mix of the two, but it really depends because some of them i really HAVEN'T listened to in full in years and years, some i just revisited recently, some never left rotation.

but pretty much all of the ones i love or that have songs i love, i acknowledge that the albums have flaws or that the production hasn't dated well, etc.

Stone Temple Pilots 6
It appears I don't understand a lot more things in this world than I thought
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, May 10, 2012 8:25 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

It's really not that bad...

I think the huge response is that the overground notoriety of these albums intersects perfectly with the median ilxor age? I.E. Everyone has an opinion on this...

xpost yes, yes it is. My memory isn't that bad.

No. 4 was a p good album, but I remember Tiny Music had decent singles and a horrendous trumpet solo

I hope we can at least all agree that Tiny Music was certainly no Talk Show or 12 Bar Blues.

homie just threw down the lol 90s gauntlet

Hey, sd, thanks for reminding me of Ruth Ruth's existence. I obsessively cobbled together a playlist of alt rock radio "hits" from the '92-'96 era a while back and somehow totally overlooked "Uninvited". Good tune. I'll check out that EP.

uninvited is a great song that no one remembers

Alanis?

i actually was not that into "Uninvited," i just got into Ruth Ruth when i had a (ding ding) Alternative Press subscription and one issue came with a cassette of 2 songs from the aforementioned Epitaph EP, and i got heavy into that and later retroactively appreciated their major label album and came around on "Uninvited"

great, i've got to listen to friction, baby again now.

I think pre-emo era AP was just a little after my time. My continuum was RS > Spin > Raygun > CMJ, so I was taking a lot of cues from CMJ samplers around then. No love for Ruth Ruth that I recall, but, hey, I got to be one of the first to hear Jimmie Ray!

Fucking Jimmie Ray.

hahaha i too subscribed to CMJ during the DJ Rap era. this is like Cros OST levels of legendarily awful:

http://www.legalsounds.com/download-mp3/jimmy-ray/cmj-new-music-monthly-volume-56-april-1998/are-you-jimmy-ray/song_5327646

haha even the cover of the issue is a perfect storm of lol 90s:

http://991.com/newGallery/Pearl-Jam-CMJ-New-Music---A-552958.jpg

Vic Chesnutt, John Doe, and Nuge!

I just ripped all of those old samplers (the ones that weren't cracked to shit, anyway). Total time capsule, for good and ill.

i can't knock you for that but there is a disturbing number of people who have seemed to dedicate themselves to the cause of collecting and preserving CMJ comps

I discovered a lot of ace stuff from those comps, but they really are, like, 90% chaff/shit.

Like, I ripped 2-3 years worth and culled maybe 20-30 decent songs from the lot.

i should actually be mining those tracklists for nominees for the commercially disappointing major label rock/alternative albums of 1994/5/7/8

I probably discovered three times as much awesome stuff from their reviews as I did from their samplers, honestly. And then there were Douglas Wolk's non-music reviews, which were hugely influential.

xpost

Yes. Yes, you should.

they really are, like, 90% chaff/shit.

read this as "like, 90% catshit."

holy fuck the BOGMEN

horrendous trumpet solo

hahah i like "Adhesive" but yeah the trumpet solo is a bumout

lol i never minded the trumpet solo but i'm not going to defend it.

12 Bar Blues vs Talk Show would be a great way to test just how deeply runs the median-age ILX altrock giving-a-shit index. Would rather hear ''Hello Hello'' than ''Barbarella'' any day of the week, myself.

I remember "Hello Hello" being an alright single, and that the singer's old band was called 'Ten-Inch Men'.

barbarella is cool, hello hello is ok. the rest of the wieland album is a disaster, and i refuse to believe anyone has heard the rest of the talk show album

the Talk Show album should've been called No Head Just Talking

omg i just realized The Heads' album was released in 1996 too, what a year for failure

omg hahahaha

lol

I liked this single, but didn't know who it was till way later:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62Mye3v3_KQ

xp I didn't mind the other STP side-project that lasted for 2 songs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtOjON_n4Vw

oh shit yeah that was good!

i don't rc ever hearing that before. and it's pretty bad.

it was a #12 Modern Rock hit off of the Tank Girl soundtrack, i shit you not.

listening to it now, not as good as i remember.

that was one of those grunge side projects that confused me because i thought it was a whole new band with a soundalike singer rather than the actual Weiland (see also: Layne Staley's Mad Season, and tbh i even thought maybe that wasn't Vedder on "Hunger Strike" at first)

btw it occurred to me that a good number of these albums (No Code, Hi-Fi, Black Love, Tiny Music, Recovering the Sattelites) follow the 'mellow/offbeat opening track, big anthemic uptempo 2nd track' formula that's kind of a hallmark of bands at their commercial peak trying to throw a curveball at their fanbase.

holy shit I've totally forgotten about "Mockingbird Girl." I liked it a lot at the time.

relistening to Tiny Music...i think i like pretty much every song on this besides "Lady Picture Show," which is just pure garbage

see I just can't get my head around that at all. I pretty much stopped liking them after the first album.

i was a tween Seattle stan when Core dropped and wanted STP on the "death to false grunge" chopping block. imo Purple was a totally unanticipated turnaround to become a worthwhile distraction and Tiny Music was a lesser but respectable follow-up that was still miles ahead of Core or anything they've done since.

I never really listened to Tiny Music, but I thought Purple was streets ahead of Core (which was okay but never really did a whole lot for me).

hey remember when dave plugged speakers into his walkman and the whole back half of the band bus sang along to the acoustic version of plush on the way home after the game?

if that happened to you, i am sorry.

I remember singing the Fire Water Burn chorus (with hee-haws in place of expletives) on the bus on a band trip to Toronto

that story chilled me to the bone

1996 really does feel like the year the magic was gone from everything.

you could really smell the death of alt-rock in how hard critics tried to pretend to like Entroducing