commercially disappointing major label rock/alternative albums of 1996

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

13 steps lead down was considered a "return to form"

by then I was way into Aphex Twin and Warp records stuff so it did not revive ym interest in contemporary EC

R.E.M. was my favourite at the time and still is, but the Pixies record is solid throughout and maybe their best, they are less in thrall to their guitar sounds than they were on Frosting on the Beater.

Don't know whether the Soundgarden or the STP records better illustrate a band falling apart in 90s style. I like five songs on each. At least Tiny Music is 24 minutes shorter; the last half of Down on the Upside is a wasteland.

I like five songs on each.

...including all the singles on each except for "Ty Cobb". I am obviously the sort of fairweather fan who stifled these bands' creativity by disdaining such bold strokes as "Overfloater" and "Art School Girl".

Listening to Tiny Music right now. The '90s were so full of these minute-long instrumental album openers.

I loved Ty Cobb at the time for the banjo.

OK, the singles are seriously really good! And I do like the mellow jams a bit ("Daisy" is beautiful!), but the rockers are a bit shit. And "I got a girlfriend, she goes to art school. I got an art school girlfriend" strong contender for worst lyric of all-time. Aha! "Referencing the Tiny Music... album in his memoir, Not Dead and Not For Sale, Stone Temple Pilots lead singer Scott Weiland wrote: "We wanted to make a statement. We wanted to deconstruct, go low-tech, get to the dark heart of the matter. I was happy to write Bowie-esque stream-of-consciousness lyrics that didn't need to make sense. Example: 'Big Bang Baby.'" You call it stream-of-consciousness, I call it lazy.

I listened to Tiny Music earlier too. And it's pretty Britpop?? In a way not unlike Monster, although the production is decidedly different. I guess this is just what happens when you're a 90s alt rock band going glam.

I though tit was a pretty good album but I was maybe expecting a bit more eclecticism, given its reputation as a quasi-art-pop curveball. Isn't No Code meant to be one too? I haven't heard it in about 12 years and remember nothing of it.

No Code is more of a shaggy contemplative and atypically acoustic curveball. a few missteps but a good album, and probably did the most of any of these to help the band move forward or find their long-term footing.

(well, Load too, but not in a good way)

I enjoy Who You Are (the only song off it I know) because great drums and fun as a deliberately fanbase-slimming choice of lead single a la The 13th and E-Bow the Letter.

the Pixies record is solid throughout and maybe their best

Posies record, obviously. I was distracted thinking about K. S.