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

I got So Much For The Afterglow, Celebrity Skin, and The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1998 from cdnow for $1 each, new. those were the days

Songs From an American Movie, Vol. 1: Learning How to Smile [Capitol, 2000]

All doubts as to Art Alexakis's punk bona fides are hereby laid to rest--he doesn't have any. Instead he chooses to whup Dave Grohl, the jerk from the Verve Pipe, and if there's any justice Rob Thomas in postgrunge's Bryan Adams sweepstakes. The corn he indulges on this fondly detailed end-of-a-marriage song cycle has nothing to do with abstracted teen agony and everything with classic Garth Brooks, except that Garth never waxed nostalgic for the days he and his honey whiled away watching porn and eating Chinese. Laying on strings, horns, synths, and backup vocals to a fare-thee-well, it makes honest peace with a pop moment when honest pop is the toughest artistic challenge there is. Volume two will supposedly return to the guitar-o-rama of his roots--without any loss of principle, one trusts. A-

*rubs temples*

anyway harvey danger no contest

it's very tempting to vote for either of the Jack Irons-era Pearl Jam tracks or the Counting Crows rocker that was better than it had a right to be, but i can't bring myself to vote for anything other than "Everlong," legit song of the decade contender.

― some dude, Monday, January 6, 2014 9:46 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

song of the bizarro decade maybe, the mirror universe 90s where the world was so hellish that it could only be represented by a foo fighters song

'98 was def the beginning of the sea change--i think follow the leader coming out that year and getting radio play told me everything i needed to know

― call all destroyer, Monday, January 6, 2014 11:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

yeah, it told u that the dark ages of rock were over and the combination renaissance & enlightenment (99-02) had begun http://i.imgur.com/l65mwLC.gif

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.

― Doctor Casino, Monday, January 6, 2014 11:47 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

thanks for this btw, how'd u find it

i need to not be the only person listening to the weird spoken bits in this everclear cover of "the joker" right now

H4A, found it by accident trying to find a list of all the Big Day Out festivals. Did not find.

I moved to Atlanta in '97 at age 14 and remember thinking 99X was at least a semi-OK replacement for KROQ for about a year. Fits in pretty well with the above. I used to think it was just that my own tastes were changing, but in retrospect it's clear that there was other, bigger stuff going on.

KROQ's Top 20 of the year 1998:

1. Beastie Boys - Intergalactic
2. Harvey Danger - Flagpole Sitta
3. blink-182 - Dammit
4. Sublime - Bad Fish
5. Green Day - Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
6. Everclear - I Will Buy You a New Life
7. Marcy Playground - Sex and Candy
8. Hole - Celebrity Skin
9. Goo Goo Dolls - Iris
10. Garbage - I Think I'm Paranoid
11. The Smashing Pumpkins - Perfect
12. Save Ferris - Goodbye
13. Everclear - Father of Mine
14. The Offspring - Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)
15. 311 - Beautiful Disaster
16. Fastball - The Way
17. Beastie Boys - Body Movin'
18. Korn - Got the Life
19. Eve 6 - Inside Out
20. Everlast - What It's Like

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

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, January 7, 2014 3:05 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"Awful" has always been my favorite song from that album!

4. Sublime - Bad Fish
12. Save Ferris - Goodbye
15. 311 - Beautiful Disaster

^^^ the hell? I heard "Beautiful Disaster" a few times, but there were bigger songs on that album, and I don't think I ever heard those other two. I guess KROQ is kind of its own thing.

Heard "Father of Mine" in the coffee shop yesterday. Still hits pretty hard IMO, I think it's his most successful attempt to do that kind of therapy grunge rock catharsis thing.

Reception

Consequence of Sound commented that "Beautiful Disaster" may be 311's greatest hit and states that it has one of most recognizable intro in any song.[2]

Nah I live on the east coast and hear "Beautiful Disaster" weekly, it's kinda gradually become one of their biggest songs, whereas I haven't heard "Transistor" or "Come Original" or any of their other late 90s singles in years.

I ... hear "Beautiful Disaster" weekly

I feel bad for you...

I got 311 problems

I should clarify, I hear its Most Recognizable Intro and then change the station weekly. I try to be not like that, some songs really suck.

I was a sophomore in high school when "Beautiful Disaster" came out, and IIRC it had a slow-build into its (very relative) success. Granted none of the singles off "Transistor" were anywhere near as successful or ubiquitous as the big two from the previous 311 album. "Beautiful Disaster" was third single, and it just kind of stuck around, got played a lot on 120 Minutes, got covered by at least two high school bands in my hometown in rural Illinois.

Obviously small town Illinois high school cover bands is a pretty crucial litmus test

I got 311 problems

lol

Huh, never really noticed "Beautiful Disaster" having an afterlife. Always thought "Prisoner" should have been a little bigger, but then I also kinda liked "Transistor" which is sort of measurably stupid and lousy.

latter day 311 is lol, real heads step for "Freak Out"

Live 105 in San Francisco (where I grew up) played "Beautiful Disaster" much more than the other Transistor singles. Months and months on end.

There is nothing on this list I like and a lot I actively dislike.

how sad is it that "Beautiful Disaster" may be the closest thing 90s radio rock got to a Thin Lizzy-style twin lead guitar line

OK so this is the first time I hear "Flagpole Sitta." So this is how "A Horse with No Name" was translated for the Fastball era.

no idea how you can go the last 15 years without hearing that song, or what that comparison means

Didn't listen to modern rock radio in '99 or watch the shows in which the song appeared, and the song has an impressive lift from that America song.

*is

Hear the plants and rocks and things
I swear to god it sounds like they're snoring

I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee goddamn you

flagpole sitta owns

In the desert, you cannot publish a zine
Cause there ain't no one raging a-gainst machines

I don't get Flagpole Sitta either, but Sad Sweetheart of the Radio is one of my favorite songs of all time.

So what exactly is the distinguishing feature of Modern Rock that makes it 'modern'? Like, what exactly makes Matchbox 20 more modern than the non-modern ('mainstream' in Billboard parlance) rock acts of its era?

Singing that sounds like you are on a toilet having a difficult time.

For better or worse Billboard scrapped the term "modern rock" a few years ago in favor of calling the chart "alternative songs"

My top songs from this selection: "Fade Into You", "Geek Stink Breath", "Brain Stew", "If You Could Only See", "Santeria", "Everlong", and "Flagpole Sitta". Torn between Mazzy or the Foos for my vote.

Looking at the list of modern rock #2 hits for this era I kinda wish they'd also been given their own poll, lots of gems there as well

I think I read somewhere that '97-'98 was right around the time when radio completely changed the rules on how songs became hits and as a result you got these incredibly generic shitsongs like "3 A.M." and that Everclear crap, neither of which would have ever gotten big in the early 90s.

For better or worse Billboard scrapped the term "modern rock" a few years ago in favor of calling the chart "alternative songs"

― some dude, Sunday, January 12, 2014 11:33 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

These songs are even less "alternative" than they're "modern"....

Voted for "I Got Id"

Pretty sure it charted higher than #3 on hot 100

it got to #7 on the Hot 100, mainly because the Merkin Ball EP was essentially a surprise non-album single by the biggest band in the world and went gold.

Pearl Jam's biggest Hot 100 hit: "Last Kiss" at #2 in 1999.

and those are their only two top 10 hits. the only Ten single that scraped the Hot 100 was "Jeremy" at #79, which gives you an idea of how little the chart reflected the popularity of rock bands in the '90s.

That's insane.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

iirc "jeremy" charted a few years after Ten when a bunch of the maxisingle imports were reissued stateside... prolly around the same time as Merkin Ball.

I recall getting a little frustrated because I spent $9.99 on the import Jeremy single to hear "Footsteps" ... I didn't know "Yellow Ledbetter" before buying it. And then a year or 2 later it wasn't very difficult to find for $4.99 at Circuit City.

yeah the '90s was a painful time to be obsessed with bands and look for rarities on absurdly overpriced import singles and bootlegs. one of the things i'm most happy that file-sharing killed off.

yeah but it built character

Mazzy Star by a country mile.

"Worst 90s import/rare/ripoff maxi-single buying experience" might be a good thread.