#3 Modern Rock Hits: The mid-90's heyday

What's amazing is that (to the extent that I can recall) none of them self-consciously reinvented themselves to try and stay on the radio in the nu-metal/Creed/pop-punk epochs, which I would not have put past people like Live guy. I guess Creed wasn't a big reach for him anyway, and "The Dolphin's Cry" did okay.

I guess we'll get a better sense of this in the next polls - I feel like third-tier bands actually weathered the changes better. Or look at Citizen King in this poll - no-name act, moderate hit, faceless slacker song with a few contemporary production touches but not a Godsmack song by any stretch of the imagination. Modern rock radio in the late 90s was full of these flash in the pan alt-rock groups and it might have been easy to think that nothing had changed. The Flys! Pushmonkey! Memory Dean!

The great unwritten story of this era is actually that of the 311/Sublime/late RHCP vaguely funky alterna-metal axis.

i will admit i've watched an everclear video in the past five years cuz a young christina hendricks was in it. but only once cuz the sidebar had clips from the late great undressed w/ a young christina hendricks.

in retrospect rhcp kinda almost sitting out a chunk of the 90s was fortuitous, by the time they came back they got to be 'survivors' and the were actually one of the more melodic acts on altrock radio

96 being the year ALL those bands' sales were cut in half from previous records and the year of Sublime and DMB and Beck's best-selling albums = your sea change right there

― some dude, Monday, January 6, 2014 11:35 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha maybe it's too personal but for me '98 was when alt rock radio started becoming unlistenable so i count it from then

i don't remember Everclear being particularly respected, certainly not by any of the alt kids i ran with, but i can see Art A getting credit from some people for being so much more aggressively topical than any other rock star of the era -- here's the song about having a black girlfriend, here's the song about having a junkie girlfriend, here's the song about being abandoned by my father, lord he was a wizened dad rocker with a dye job

i have friends who were super psyched abt art a solo shows well into the 2000s. i found his topicality to be grunge via jerry springer--so gross.

1998 was when clear channel bought live 105 in San Francisco (I think) and I remember an instant change for the worse -- fewer songs but played more often, no indie/popish bands, Korn-type music nonstop.

o yeah nobody i actually knew irl respected everclear one bit, just some of the crits. i think xhuxk was one of them, maybe they had some puns he ate up.

Everclear seemed tailor-made to headline radio station music festivals in an era when the real heavy hitters were nowhere to be found. balls, have you read this long blog by Sean Demery detailing the rise and fall of 99X from his perspective? He's a little vague in key places but it's got some telling moments.

As stated earlier in this rant, in the mid 90’s, upwards of 50% of the music 99X played was new based. This meant that every other song was new or no older than 3 months old. Recently 99X has been operating with a max of 19% new music. That means that you get 3 new songs an hour, and many of those were ill focused for the 99X music community. In the end, it seems that Cumulus was in fact programming 99X like an AC station with alternative rock hits, in the hopes of securing a 25 – 54 year old add buys. (...)

Looking from a music stand point it seems like Cumulus couldn’t understand the fact that Bush, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and their ilk were the bands of yester year, and were not the building blocks for the current music generation. It felt like that they were trying to recreate the 90’s. The 90’s are gone. They couldn’t understand what bands like the Shins, Silversun Pickups, Band of Horses, Arcade Fire, The Bravery, Interpol, Spoon, Against Me, Rise Against, etc had to do with 99X. These are bands that sell out medium sized venues in Atlanta with little or no airplay; they have massive internet and magazine prominence. These are the same types of building blocks we used in 1992; these are today’s building blocks for this music generation.

As we get close to the end it didn’t really matter. Bert from the Bert show (on Q100) needed to be on a better city grade signal, which 99X had.

sometime maybe three years ago i ran across the most amazing review of an everclear show, author totally genuflecting before his bleached late-40s rock god, but i can't find it now

"look at your bleached rock god now"

http://image.motortrend.com/f/features/consumer/112_1002_everclear_art_alexakis_celebrity_drive/32418657+w799+h499+cr1+ar0/art-alexakis-in-car.jpg

mookieproof, that sounds really familiar, must be on ILX somewhere I think! I'm hearing it in my head like "He has the crowd. The crowd loves him. ART ALEXAKIS IS IN THE HOUSE!"

hmm, did find xhuxk linking to his SPIN review though, which may address balls's speculations above

98 is probably where it's really starting to be evident (i think more 99 though) but seeds are sown w/ that 96 lollapalooza and the huge success of 311 and sublime. really as these charts have kinda shown the pre-nirvana was kinda primary succession species but post-nevermind the more plausibly headbangers ball acts are driving them out and by the late 90s they've established near total dominance, and gotten more suburban metal. the early hard acts had some hard rock in there (generally more so than they had new wave or college rock) but there was still some adherence to some idea of angst and cool - they were actually alternative maaan. this gets kinda worn out or passed over due to certain anti-market tendencies in those acts aesthetics ("cool") and by 2000 you have fred durst as the predominant altrock star, someone no more alt than sebastian bach in persona (not the case even w/ adam duritz, nevermind vedder/corgan/reznor/cobain/stipe).

found it, on this thread: 90s rock bands no one cares about; pick one - - - http://connected-i.com/2011/07/02/art-alexakis-canyon-music-review/

that demery quote is interesting, that the big indie acts haven't been able to really break thru on radio has been kinda interesting to me - modern rock radio format arose cuz acts like the cure and depeche mode (and pre-87 u2 and rem) were selling albums in numbers that couldn't be ignored, there was a market there and a station looking for a niche (at a time when the radio market was more naturally competitive, obligatory shaking of fist at telecommunications act of 1996) could tap into a market that was being ignored and was attractive to advertisers. the gap between arcade fire and justin timberlake's sales is nothing compared to the gap that existed between the cure and michael jackson's sales and yet those acts (that fill much much larger venues and sell more albums than 90s indie acts, nevermind yr husker dus and replacements, did)(one reason i don't really sympathize w/ the nitsuh nymag grizzly bear argument) can't really catch a break on altrock radio (even if arcade fire knockoffs like 'hey ho' can). i've heard arguments also that altradio doesn't go after that market cuz that market doesn't listen to radio they just listen to spotify or mp3s, and lack of promotional muscle is a factor i'm sure - merge ain't got the budget that elektra did in 1987. also frankly i think alot of it is the music, whatever the most radio friendly spoon or arcade fire track is it doesn't approach 'just like heaven'.

omg thank u

When wired Alexakis controls stadiums of people with a simple look.

http://www.glguitars.com/featured_artists/everclear/artguitarmag.jpg

btw have we really never done "Worst Everclear Single" or am I just not searching right?

"The History of Glam -- before Velvet Goldmine"

man I've no trouble with Everclear. Old-ish dude moderates his guitar attack ever so slightly and scores some convincing hits.

It was kind of funny watching radio jump on each successive single like "oh, THIS one will..." Like, I remember "In Hiding" getting a real buildup.

Here it was "Faithfull."

"In Hiding" was actually the last gasp of the "random Pearl Jam album cut that gets so much radio airplay it charts" phenomenon, although i somehow forgot to make it a poll option here: Pearl Jam songs that charted without being officially released as A-sides

That Guitar Magazine cover is one for the 'men who look like old lesbians' thread.

Everclear also noteworthy for their recent records consisting mostly of re-recorded versions of their older, more popular songs.

wikipedia also telling me that Alexakis put together an alt-rock oldies-circuit tour with Sugar Ray, Lit, Marcy Playground, and the Gin Blossoms

I have no use for Everclear after Sparkle & Fade. Everything after that was so repetitive and dull, cynically mining his dysfunctional family life for a buck. It probably was from the start, but "Santa Monica" and "Summerland" were the right songs at the right time for me, and they're too wrapped up in nostalgia for me to look at them critically.

Voted "Malibu" because that was the song Courtney Love was basically born to sing. Well, that and "Celebrity Skin."

this list of songs made me shudder

watch the world die

It was a huge revelation to see Beck doing "New Pollution" on SNL with his Devo/Kraftwerk-aping keyboard player. Everything else was pretty much miserable.

it would be hard for me to defend "wonderful" but i would try

Did I tell you I didn't cry? Well I lied. I lie-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie lied

''Wonderful'' was just such a dramatic ''well, these guys are straight up out of material'' moment for me. And then they followed up with ''AM Radio,'' which...christ.

lol i forgot about that one

If you squint at the video you can see the other bandmates repeating to themselves that the paycheck is worth it, the paycheck is worth it.

Everclear also noteworthy for their recent records consisting mostly of re-recorded versions of their older, more popular songs.

― intheblanks, Tuesday, January 7, 2014 10:13 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bahahahahahaha

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Xt0QnQ3-L._SY300_.jpg

I wish I could forget "AM Radio."

so much for the afterglow has one of my favorite guitar tones of all time, sounds like fifteen guitars piled on each other all of the time. lots of weird threads of ambition anchored into three-minute three chord songs on that record.

HAHAHA

Track Listing:
1. Santa Monica
2. Wonderful
3. Father Of Mine
4. I Will Buy You A New Life
5. Everything To Everyone
6. I Won t Back Down
7. Unemployed Boyfriend
8. The Joker
9. I Will Follow You Into The Dark
10. Every Breath You Take
11. AM Radio
12. Brown Eyed Girl

well of course i have to listen to this now

also lol/wtf at "Wonderful" actually being their highest-charting Hot 100 single, surely this is just an artifact of "Santa Monica" et al not benefiting from airplay under Billboard rules at the time?

sounds like fifteen guitars piled on each other all of the time.

it's the post-Vig nineties sound. Celebrity Skin too.

surely this is just an artifact of "Santa Monica" et al not benefiting from airplay under Billboard rules at the time?

Non-sales singles couldn't chart on the Hot 100 until 1998 (wow, coincidence??).

Anyone else have a sweet spot for "You Make Me Feel Like a Whore"?

wow, surprise surprise, this album sucks, total contract-filling crap. Was hoping Art would have tried to show his reflective thoughtful side by redoing "Santa Monica" as a slow acoustic ballad, or with a guest rapper or something. They even fake the Jean Knight sample for "AM Radio"!

"Santa Monica" actually did have a physical single though, and it did chart (#29 on the Hot 100)...

oops, wait, my bad - not released in the US, I guess that would kill it, huh?

it's the post-Vig nineties sound. Celebrity Skin too.

yep, but i also like how well it applied to everclear songs. gave it a punchier, brighter feel

Check that Wikipedia footnite:

A ^ "Santa Monica" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 29 on the Hot 100 Airplay chart.

ahhhh, got it got it. My bad. Man, what a rip. It doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, but I hate the way it totally distorts band's picture/narrative/legacy. Also, picturing upstart "Wonderful" fans trying to lord its "biggest hit" status over the historical record.

I still think "Awful" is the best thing to come out of Celebrity Skin but it always seems to get overlooked...

"Wonderful" was by far their biggest adult contempo crossover hit, though, so for a lot of people it is their biggest song

I wonder why Capitol approved Alexakis' idea to do a Use Your Illusion-style double record, but with the second entry released four months later.

re: "Wonderful" as the "these guys are straight up out of material" moment, I think most people who liked or kind of liked Everclear probably felt the same way. The second "Songs From an American Movie" record debuted at #66 and has sold 100K, after the first one hit #9 and is platinum.