Proto-Post Grunge

pearl jam?

^otm

and then creed.

Where did post-punk come from?

STILTSKIN

Post-grunge, ie Nickelback, 3 Doors Down, Daughtry, Fuel etc, dominates mainstream rock formats.

Is this as true today as it was even a year ago?

Just the other day I remember thinking "shit I haven't heard a new 3 Doors Down song in a while"

Clearly you've missed out on the tour news of tour news.

Staind is currently working on a follow-up to 2005's platinum-selling "Chapter V."

This baffles me. Who were these people?

hard working, white americans ned

it might be slightly less true than a year ago, but right now the Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts are full of songs by Seether, Theory Of A Dead Man, 3 Doors Down, Puddle of Mudd, Three Days Grace, Alter Bridge, Shinedown, Finger Eleven, etc. Nickelback is between albums and Daughtry's crossed over completely to adult contempo, but other than that the gang's all here. (xpost)

oh, and Gavin Rossdale has gone solo.

The world was waiting for that moment.

hard working, white americans ned

...like a rock.

Who invented it?
Jane's Addiction and Bad Company

Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts are full of songs by ... 3 Doors Down ...Three Days Grace... Finger Eleven, etc.

Why do so many crap radio rock bands have numbers in their name? This seems to have started with Blink 182, so they must have something to do with it.

David Cook seems poised to join these ranks soon.

Gavin Rossdale has gone solo.

I hear that album was recorded a year or two ago, and keeps getting pushed back. Haven't heard why though.

The world isn't ready.

This seems to have started with Blink 182

hmm, when did Tabitha's Secret become Matchbox 20, though?

good point, their first hit was at least a year or so before "Dammit."

pearl jam?

The problem with Pearl Jam is, while their music is obviously an influence on post grunge, they have a famous, charismatic lead singer. And in post grunge, you can't have that.

I think the correct answer is Candlebox.

I think these days Pearl Jam isn't even necessarily the dominant influence on nu-grunge anymore, now they're more on equal footing with Nirvana (Seether, Puddle of Mudd), Soundgarden (Shinedown) and Alice In Chains (a whole shitload of other radio bands).

"Staind, 3 Doors Down, Hinder to co-headline summer trek"

I think this foreshadows the coming of the apocalypse.

Correct answer: Seven Mary Three

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J54D8tQbsjk

it's totally candlebox

there's a case for alice in chains. at least in terms of who a lot of these types of bands feel they identify with the strongest. but musically it's often not very evident to me...

well, with AiC, their influence is more prominent w/ hard rock bands like Godsmack who mostly wouldn't get lumped in with the post grunge stuff.

you know, for all the bands that rip off alice in chains, none of them have that creepy zombie death vibe that always came from that band.

agreed, latebloomer.

alex, i sort of remember fuel being thrown in with the AiC thing at some point. though in fairness, fuel is a name to conjure with and i haven't thought about them in years :)

tool

stp

helmet

stone temple piots is a good one
fuel's 'jesus or a gun' could have been directly ripped from core. even seems uncannily similar on a lyrical level

It's Candlebox. They had the anonymous lead singer, the polished production, big choruses, etc.

For proof, check out Far Behind, their Stairway To Heaven. From 1993. This could be on the radio today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSp-cSJNGdQ

stone temple piots is a good one

Do any of these newer bands have any of STP's glammy hard-pop sense, though? If any of them have done anything comparable hookwise to, say, "Vasoline" or "Big Bang Baby" or "Sour Girl" or "Tumble in the Rough" or "Unglued," I haven't heard it, though I'd like to. Those weren't dreary songs at all...

tool

-- andrew m., Tuesday, May 20, 2008 4:52 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

helmet

-- gff, Tuesday, May 20, 2008 4:54 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

wha? no. influences on nu-metal, yeah, but that's a different thing.

and yeah stp at least had memorable hooks

for squirrels

You can't have a charismatic traditional frontman in post grunge. It is a steadfast rule that they have to be anonymous like Nickelback or 3 Doors Down.

Hence Stone Temple Pilots don't really qualify.

i dunno that jesus-on-roids guy from nickelback isn't exactly anonymous

initially i was going to comment on the fact that candlebox have surely influenced next to nobody, then i realised the question is asking who actually started the genre and that i've been misinterpreting it this whole time. so candlebox becomes a pretty good call :)

chuck, i agree that certain songs, particularly many featured on purple and tiny music don't really sound much like anything a lot of this newer breed are tapping into. a lot of those songs have a really instant pop-hook appeal that represent a remarkable growth in maturity from the ponderous and over-solemn musings on core. perhaps the general hollowness and one-dimensional quality of this new incarnation of grunge restricts the ability of these groups to channel any of the pop-smarts and glamminess of those better STP tracks.

Collective Soul?

bob mould/sugar via the goo goo dolls?

This thread makes me feel like I live in a different dimension. I don't think I've ever heard anything by most of the bands mentioned.

well bully for you!

if we turned this topic into a poll, I'd probably vote for Candlebox.

that'd be one hot topic.

It's not a boast, latebloomer. Makes me feel kinda old and out-of-touch. Which I guess I am, so no surprise...

we need someone to make a giant post grunge influences diagram like the emo one

hur hur collective soul is a good one - seven number ones apparently and I can't name any of them.

Live. Dishwalla. Everclear.

woah ohhh
heaven letchyer light shine down

Makes me feel kinda old and out-of-touch.

If you were old, you'd remember the heyday of Candlebox & Collective Soul.

Collective Soul?

-- Euler, Tuesday, May 20, 2008 1:23 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

omg yes^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP3yeqkkYBE 1995 beat that

also does anyone actually call this music post-grunge

Makes me feel kinda old and out-of-touch.

If you were old, you'd remember the heyday of Candlebox & Collective Soul.

-- kornrulez6969, Tuesday, May 20, 2008 7:14 PM (11 minutes ago)

Yup. The fact that I know every single group and song referenced in this thread so far actually makes me feel really old. Because they all seem a part of some distant past. I might be able to dig up my old Maxell that had the Candlebox album on one side and the Sponge album (the one with "Molly") on the other. But god I hated Collective Soul.

If you were old, you'd remember the heyday of Candlebox & Collective Soul.

It's the "Seether" and "Three Doors Down", "Dautry" and "Fuel" type bands that seem to come from another dimension. And are Nickelback and Puddle of Mudd still making records? I somehow figured they died out years ago.

the Sponge album (the one with "Molly")

The two Sponge singles were awesome.

Ploughed is the big Sponge song, right? "A world of human wreckage"? That one still sounds great.

I remember that Candlebox existed - always figured they'd sound something like Queensryche?

haha I think that's probably closer than anyone would admit -- I remember seeing Candlebox's first video (the one before "You" or "Far Behind") on Headbanger's Ball, and then 6 months later their label realized that they were from Seattle and switched up their marketing and they were all over Alternative Nation and 120 Minutes.

Candlebox opened for Rush right when they broke. So that was their original base.

I kinda find the crossover between 90s Headbanger's Ball and Alternative Nation stuff fascinating---I remember seeing Smashing Pumpkins circa Gish all over Headbanger's Ball, and it seemed right. I think marketers had a hard time figuring out what went where for a while.

Yeah, certain bands, Soundgarden and Alice In Chains especially, got to play both sides almost their whole careers. There was just a lot less of a difference between alt-rock, hard rock, and metal back then compared to now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDt4eBVF8B0

Candlebox is perfect for this. I remember the name but couldn't tell you the songs. Just like the new guys. If you play me the songs I bet I'd know them but couldn't tell you who did what.

There was just a lot less of a difference between alt-rock, hard rock, and metal back then compared to now

Really? Well, I can see metal standing apart from the rest now, most of the time, I guess. But aren't most of today's post-post-grunge bands played on same "modern rock" stations as, say, the Raconteurs? In fact, Billboard's current modern rock Top 25 has songs by Seether, Atreyu, Puddle of Mudd, Linkin Park, 3 Doors Down, Three Days Grace, Saving Abel, and Disturbed (a metal band, to my ears) but also songs by Weezer, Flobots, Death Cab For Cutie, Coldplay, the Bravery (!?), MGMT, and Pennywise (not to mention some bands I've never heard of). I have less idea than ever where people draw the line these days. Unless "modern rock" is really two different formats, depending on where you live. (Finger Eleven, who got mentioned upthread, are dance-rock, or at least their hit is -- closer to INXS or Franz Ferdinand or the Bravery, to my ears, than grunge.)

But maybe they're dance-rock with post-grunge vocals (at least when the singer tries to sound intense)?

(Also, those post-grunge bands seem to be what the record companies refer to as "hard rock" nowadays.)

I get what you're saying and more or less agree, but I don't think your point is really contradicting mine. I mean, yeah, all those bands are generally played on the same stations, I just think there's a more palpable sense now of what a commercial rock band's niche in the marketplace is. But it might be a generation gap or my particular perspective: I remember being a nascent rock kid in the early 90's and knowing the difference between Nirvana and Metallica and Aerosmith, but holding them all in roughly equal esteem as cool bands that I liked. I don't get the sense that there's nearly as many kids today who could look at (to pick 3 random and admittedly shaky parallels) the White Stripes and System Of A Down and Nickelback in the same way. And I think that's because back then, even the more hip/alternative mainstream bands were pretty much loud guitar music, where now it's probably easy to figure out at a young age if you want to go all the way down the path of metal, or bedwetter indie, or whatever.

i think chuck ended this all with seven mary three

The correct answer to this question (although I'm not sure I completely understand, is Live.

The correct answer to this question (although I'm not sure I completely understand, is Live.

too much R.E.M. influence, but this is a good one-- they definitely had grunge's dynamics, and they had Creed's religiosity

hard to imagine a real post-grunge band being preachy about Eastern philosophy rather than Jeebus, though

oh how i despise live and collective soul these days

you really got some 'splainin' to do about that "these days" qualifier.

are Live still around? I remember not hating their first album with "I Alone" on it.

they apparently released an album less than 2 years ago that sold less than 100k.

haha well i recall owning a couple of their cds each and i'm pretty sure i actually listened to and (gasp!) liked them. that's going right back to 1995 though - the era when this stuff was supposedly creating new genres. so "these day" has been a constant for about 10 years at least.

'i alone' was on the second cd. the first one was mental jewelry. surely i never actually liked that one? might have convinced myself that i did though

you really got some 'splainin' to do about that "these days" qualifier.

i bought the Four Songs EP, Mental Jewelry, Throwing Copper, and Secret Samadhi in junior high and high school. so?

Seven Mary Three sounds very distinctly '90s and more like STP than Nickelback

they did 'cumbersome', right? they couldn't have summed up the feel of the song any better than that title

where does jars of clay fit in?

despite close family ties to nu-metal (e.g. similar fanbase, Fred Durst's endorsement of Staind), this type of music is really significantly less heavy than grunge & I think there's some other formative genre to be looked at here. 3 Doors Down are a heavier Matchbox 20 who were a heavier Sister Hazel, who aren't very grunge at all

remember that shitty unreleased Nirvana song they remastered to sound like Puddle of Mudd? That's probably the answer here

nixons

One not very profound way to look at the "invention" of the Nickelback sound is as a veering down one of the forks in the road in alternative rock in about 1994-5, basically between the gothier and frattier sides. Until then, the gothier, Jane's Addiction and Smashing Pumpkins related stuff, was existing more or less side by side with the frattier things, like Green Day and Pearl Jam, on alternative radio. Then The Downward Spiral and especially Marilyn Manson hit big, and I think that broke the coalition apart. The gothier side followed NIN and Manson and soon turned to nu-metal, and the frattier side followed Pearl Jam and turned to the Nickelback sound.

A few bands have continued to split the difference and thrive, like Weezer.

...who aimed straight for the suck market -- and scored!

Foo Fighters also deserve some praise/blame here.

i think we can leave it at blame

have the frat boys moved on to something else? emo has kind of claimed nu-metal's post-goth throne

Around here the Nickelback sound is still big among the fratty types, as is Jack Johnson.

In my frat in the mid 90s the Beastie Boys were huge too, and I'm guessing that was generally true.

One problem is that calling it frattier makes it sounds like it's just dudes who are into this stuff. But for a lot of dudes, what women like is partly determining what they like.

my first gf was a big nickelback fan :<

that jesus/cowardly lion frontman is a winner with the ladies i hear

Do any of these newer bands have any of STP's glammy hard-pop sense, though?

STP really didn't start exhibiting that side of themselves until their second album, though, by which point they were admittedly in the process of transcending their proto-post-grunge status. Rather, it was their first album, and especially the songs "Sex Type Thing" and "Plush" that reinforced dynamics lifted from Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam and Nirvana (particularly the ever-enduring "mule vocal") and hardened said dynamics into bankable cliches, thus making STP the definitive proto-post-grunge band.

Euler super OTM WRT goth/frat split in the late 90s. A lot of frat types were heavy into nu-metal, but that's certianly the point at which the 90s "alternative nation" broke apart.

Following in STP's wake, though, I think it was Collective Soul who really sealed the deal.

i don't necessarily think people who were following pearl jam suddenly found it necessary to start listening to nickelback though. i'm not vocal in my defense of pearl jam, but surely their correlation to nickelback is only a comparative one. it is fairer to think of nickelback as a skewered extension of pearl jam rather than a sincere, natural one.

...nickelback as a skewered extension drooling mockery of pearl jam

better said