Chart This!

And that's a fucked up link. (Still works, though.) (By the way, the parenthesis were supposed to contain the phrase, "In the US, that is.")

I was going to mention something about MTV's new show (Bangin' the Charts), and this supposed newfound awareness of sales & chart positions (since, y'know, if MTV is talking about it, the kids might be, too), maybe mention something snarky about how quoting sales stats & noting an artist's #1 status could become the anti-hipster hipster stance (where, you know, obscurity and poverty were once signs of integrity and coolness), but I've work to do.

I still don't think thay have matched the selling power of Richard Clayderman or Slim Whitman (If you believe what you see in late night commercials.)

dude mtv is just totally ripping off metal sludge.

I'd like to see Metal Sludge work the hot-stuff angle better than Gideon. Plus, with Iann Robinson in the house, they ARE Metal Sludge, so fnyeah.

I have a fantasy that there exists an alternative universe where smart people comment intelligently on the music of bands like Creed, same way many of the FT/ILM contingent comment on the more popish chart material of today. Is such a place possible? Maura's remarks on the metal bands of the 80s is the only thing that comes close.

I have a fantasy that involving whipped cream and police uniforms and certain cute blogging gentlemen. But I think ILX is not the place for my sexual whimsy.

Creed reminds me that I can't think of a single recentish chart- bustin' hard-rock (non-rap div.) band that doesn't owe a heavy stylistic debt to Pearl Jam. Isn't that nuts? Who'da thunk it ten years ago, when the choice between the junkie angels of Nirvana and the sell-out hacky-sack frauds seemed so obvious? The grunge sonorities, sludgy tempos, the shitload of singers who sing from their intestines...gawd, they're totally inescapable. (And yet we have to face the irony that Pearl Jam themselves now sell records in only modest quantities. Why the imbalance?)

I suspect Creed might wind up being influential themselves, bringing white Christer kids into the pop mainstream the way Jesus Christ Superstar did thirty years before.

Whoda thunk it? How about, uh, most people? I think Pearl Jam were more popular among a broader range of people. Probably because they were more palatable. Plus, people are always quick to point out how traditionalist and arena-rocky Pearl Jam were. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that we see a lot of later mainstream bands in the same mold - partly because of the way that traditionalism would just continue on (it is maintream rock, after all), and partly because Pearl Jam are easier for all these followers to copy.

I bet more people in my broad age range know Pearl Jam songs or listen to them still than Nirvana songs.

OK - Who'da thunk that the phrase "Pearl Jam" would become even an occasional part of middle class housewife conversation? (without blushing.) ..have to give 'em credit for that one.

And here's a half-assed theory for you: the imbalance is partly due to the fact that Pearl Jam did try to opt back out, to sell in, as it were, in some confused way. Besides all the obvious touring stuff, and anti-publicity kick, the band actually started trying to be good and stuff, no longer writing the kind of rock songs that appeal to the mainstream. Those like the ones on Ten were apparently all the mainstream cares to remember.

iann robinson's hyperbole, and the total lack of humor he has about anything he covers, epitomized by his whining about the lack of 'respect' slipknot and its ilk recieve, makes him pretty much the polar opposite of metal sludge's soundscan coverage, which is all about numbers.

if someone would give me albums (HINT HELLO) by the popular rock bands of today, i'd write about them seriously - not fawningly, but not just dismissive out of hand. isn't snark so 20th century anyway?

It does not surprise me if you put shit into a system, you will get shit out - tell me how the bulk of this sorry airplay chart is remotely alternative ! Gavin Alternative Charts this would have me hitting the switch button off !

Come you lot over the side of atlantic pond - American alternative/modern rock stations are culturally dead - how have they changed over the last 15 years? have they always been as bad !

In 2002 What is the worst alternative radio station in the US, and the best?

at least Woxy 97x - don't play the likes of Creed and Limp Bizkit - but still their playlists are way too rockist, conformist and limited.

Woxy 97X one of the few independent controlled alt radio stations left in the US - most of the rest belong to big media corporations that suck up to any old rubbish that major labels throw at them.

Does your local alt radio station - playlist Creed?

I haven't listened to BANG! the future of rock & roll in awhile - but last I did, it seemed like they were still playing the same music they did when I was in college (in Ox.) They had just switched to the modern rock format when I was a freshman - & travelling through western OH a few years back, they were still playing OMD, the Cure & New Order - but I missed Robin Plan. Still, WOXY is a prototype for what a good radio station should be. We have an unsuccessful ripoff in Columbus - CD101 (which is still better than a lot of stations, BTW.) - in both stations' cases, profit rules & it waters down their identities. Capitalism & art do not mix.

"how have they changed over the last 15 years? have they always been as bad !"

well, the irrelevance of 'modern rock,' which for my purposes is the format's lack of anything apart from house-ad bluster that's oppositional in sound/aesthetic to your mainstream rock stations is best epitomized by the plummet in female influence -- by which i mean both bands fronted by women and by men who aren't just snarling all testosterone-filled like about the bitches, ie the cure, the smiths, even nirvana.

pop quiz: does your modern rock station play eminem? doesn't that seem kind of racist, hm?

one of my favorite radio stations from my youth, wlir 92.7, is hanging onto its modern rock roots by a thread - they played the new cure single a lot, and they play hardly any angsty yelly white boy crap. they play lots of eurodance, and they are an affiliate of the 'vh1 radio network,' which i suppose is why i've switched the damn thing off when lifehouse has come on.

to be fair, they have the advantage of being in a 'shadow market' that's chiefly filled by stations bleeding in from new york city, something that, say, philadelphia's modern rock station - which specializes in the yelly, and features a playlist that's really no different than the station advertising itself as our city's home of opie and anthony - does not. i would hazard to guess that there isn't much tinkering with playlists, etc, in most major cities.

Creed's irrelevance in the UK = only thing left to be patriotic about

Lucky bastards.

scariest brit ad recently seen: in uncut, "creed: the biggest band in america."

gor, blimey, etc.

That's the scary thing - it's TRUE. Check the Billboard Pop Catalog charts - their previous 2 records have sold in excess of FIFTEEN million copies. And counting. And, as of yet, no mass exodus to the used CD stores for former Creed fans. Then again, it took a while for copies of Dookie & Monster to crop up like kudzu, so maybe it'll happen, eventually.

Let us now discuss the merits of Creed - I can sit here and bitch about how derivative & pseudo-ponderous and WRONG they are, but, damn it, their ability to take Pearl Jam and kick it up a notch on the Musical Redemption dial (you know, their lame claim to fame) is exactly the reason I CAN'T take them to task. My nostalgia for grunge (or, rather, the way albums like Ten & Dirt scoured the bathroom tile of my soul with their bubble action) is actually sated (& somewhat soothed) by these folks. Hell, if I weren't actively trying to loathe this shit, I'd probably join the TWENTY million folks that are rowing their boat ashore, hallejuliah.

I think "My Sacrifice" by Creed is pretty good. I was shocked to find out that the number one US single of 2001 was "Hanging by a Moment" by Lifehouse. AOR is certainly not dead -- it actually seems to be stealing back the some of the audience that fled for country music sometime in the early nineties.