commercially disappointing major label rock/alternative albums of 1996

see I just can't get my head around that at all. I pretty much stopped liking them after the first album.

i was a tween Seattle stan when Core dropped and wanted STP on the "death to false grunge" chopping block. imo Purple was a totally unanticipated turnaround to become a worthwhile distraction and Tiny Music was a lesser but respectable follow-up that was still miles ahead of Core or anything they've done since.

I never really listened to Tiny Music, but I thought Purple was streets ahead of Core (which was okay but never really did a whole lot for me).

hey remember when dave plugged speakers into his walkman and the whole back half of the band bus sang along to the acoustic version of plush on the way home after the game?

if that happened to you, i am sorry.

I remember singing the Fire Water Burn chorus (with hee-haws in place of expletives) on the bus on a band trip to Toronto

that story chilled me to the bone

1996 really does feel like the year the magic was gone from everything.

you could really smell the death of alt-rock in how hard critics tried to pretend to like Entroducing

i need to read this whole thread obviously, but the 1996 Pazz & results has stone classics in Fugees and Johnny Cash and maybe Maxwell then a whole bunch of "not-as-good-as" and LOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLL from the alt-rock class of 1989-1995

1. Beck: Odelay (DGC) 1134 (110)
2. Fugees: The Score (Ruffhouse/Columbia) 602 (58)
3. Sleater-Kinney: Call the Doctor (Chainsaw) 456 (35)
4. DJ Shadow: Endtroducing . . . DJ Shadow (Mo' Wax/FFRR) 404 (40)
5. Los Lobos: Colossal Head (Warner Bros.) 403 (37)
6. Steve Earle: I Feel Alright (Warner Bros.) 387 (37)
7. Stereolab: Emperor Tomato Ketchup (Elektra) 379 (35)
8. Amy Rigby: Diary of a Mod Housewife (Koch) 371 (34)
9. Tricky: Pre-Millennium Tension (Island) 355 (38)
10. Pulp: Different Class (Island) 351 (31)
11. R.E.M.: New Adventures in Hi-Fi (Warner Bros.) 348 (38)
12. Everything but the Girl: Walking Wounded (Atlantic) 340 (30)
13. Patti Smith: Gone Again (Arista) 330 (31)
14. Wilco: Being There (Reprise) 264 (26)
15. Cassandra Wilson: New Moon Daughter (Blue Note) 225 (19)
16. [File Under Prince]: Emancipation (NRG) 213 (21)
17. Iris DeMent: The Way I Should (Warner Bros.) 211 (18)
18. Me'Shell NdegéOcello: Peace Beyond Passion (Maverick/Reprise) 209 (21)
19. Nearly God: Nearly God (Island) 183 (17)
20. Maxwell: Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite (Columbia) 179 (17)
21. Johnny Cash: Unchained (American) 178 (18)
22. Ani DiFranco: Dilate (Righteous Babe) 167 (16)
23. Gillian Welch: Revival (Almo Sounds) 156 (16)
24. Imperial Teen: Seasick (Slash/London) 153 (13)
25. Soundgarden: Down on the Upside (A&M) 148 (15)
26. Sheryl Crow: Sheryl Crow (A&M) 146 (15)
27. Cibo Matto: Viva! La Woman (Warner Bros.) 143 (16)
28. Nirvana: From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah (DGC) 124 (16)
29. Rage Against the Machine: Evil Empire (Epic) 122 (13)
30. Toni Tony Toné: House of Music (Mercury) 117 (12)
31. Curtis Mayfield: New World Order (Warner Bros.) 113 (10)
32. Joe Henry: Trampoline (Mammoth) 112 (12)
33. The Roots: Illadelph Halflife (DGC) 112 (10)
34. Sublime: Sublime (Gasoline Alley/MCA) 111 (11)
35. Neutral Milk Hotel: On Avery Island (Merge) 111 (10)
36. Sebadoh: Harmacy (Sub Pop) 110 (11)
37. The Olivia Tremor Control: Dusk at Cubist Castle (Flydaddy) 108 (12)
38. Screaming Trees: Dust (Epic) 107 (09)
39. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: Now I Got Worry (Matador) 105 (11)
40. Richard Thompson: You? Me? Us? (Capitol) 103 (9)

As was noted earlier, when it was '96, Tricky had a very good year. He had a very good year when he issued two brand new LPs (both of which sounded great to me). Some would argue he reached his peak. He had a very good year.

Also, I didn't get into those Elephant 6 albums until the next year, and '97 feels like the strict demarcation of the point when I'd stopped listening to much radio/MTV "alternative" and was much more firmly on the indie train, so it breaks my brain a little to see that stuff show up in the '96 P&J poll. But those are both good albums (I might, controversially enough, slightly prefer On Avery Island to In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, partially because I felt it was a more successful distillation of their amazing live show).

Johnny Cash doing Real Music Karaoke versions of Beck and Soundgarden songs is as sad an alt-rock hangover as anything on this thread imo

I didn't hear those Elephant 6 acts – I didn't hear the moniker, period – on my college station. It took years.

I think I initially discovered them via Raygun, but seeing NMH open for Superchunk and then regularly shopping at Luna Music in Indianapolis (who put out E6 side projects and comps on their in-house label and sold pretty much every E6 thing ever made) was the one-two punch that sucked me in.

according to xgau's essay, the 41-50 of that years p'n'j went Lovett-Dr. Octagon-Reed-Chesnutt-Germano-Girls Against Boys-Tortoise-Metallica-Cardigans-Fluffy

I thought I remembered House of GVSB being much more highly-regarded that year.

The Tortoise album, too, for that matter.

lot of breakthrough albums that come to be regarded highly over time lose out to diminishing returns from established artists on P&J, just how it goes

As far as 1996 commercial alt-rock goes, the Fountains of Wayne s/t debut LP holds up better than almost anything on the Pazz and Jop list.

theres already a thread about what this thread is slowly turning into

defend 1996

xp When I was on the bus everyone sang "Don't Look Back In Anger." You decide which is worse.

P.S. I'm a USA resident.

my main memory of music on the school bus in 1996 is the vague background BLEH BLEH BLEH of what i later recognized as Ginuwine's "Pony"

and then in early '97 the ticketyticketyticketyTACK of "One In A Million."

96 is maybe my favorite year for music, but i was never part of the alternanation. that shit was just the stuff i'd politely sit through on mtv so i could hear "no diggity". i did actively like beck tho.

i remember the first time i heard Jay-Z was when MTV2 did a block of videos chosen by Moby and "Ain't No" was his token rap pick :/

the "singalong" stuff was mostly regarding "the band bus" and like "on the way back from camp"

whereas on the bus going to school it was pretty much yes yes yes re: "pony" "one in a million" "ain't no" add onto that list "fugeela" and "danger" (Blahzay blahzay)

"hot 97! R n B flayv!"

Fugees have def become one of my favorite things about 96

and "Un-break My Heart."

on perusal of my mp3s, my favorite things about 96 were

entroducing
emperor tomato ketchup
songs for a blue guitar
strand
horse stories
if you're feeling sinister
harmacy
exploded drawing
jawbox

God, what a fucking horrible year for music!

and black love

still enjoy that beck, love fugees, love s-k (though there's 4 s-k lps i'm more likely to listen to), listen to emperor tomato ketchup fairly often in warm weather months, the tricky and pulp are obv classics, haven't listened to the former in years, haven't needed to listen to the latter in years, the rem is my third or fourth fave album by them, i'd imagine i listen to walking wounded at least once every three months or so, even at the time i never quite understood why cassandra wilson, the maxwell is a classic, ugh those rubin johnny cash albums, how the fuck did that shitty soundgarden rank that high, that sheryl crow is decent, i always smile when cibo matto pops up on someone's ipod in the lab, that tony toni tone is fantastic, those e6 albums are classics, ye gods at that jon spencer album ranking maybe you dudes have a point, lotta overrated unexpected comeback albums that still have their moments

most days I like the Imperial Teen record best.

weird at dirty three not ranking up there (i mean i understand p&j had to recognize ratm and sublime and all), i remember them placing in the rolling stone poll that year so it wasn't exactly under the radar in hackville

glancing at acclaimed music if i was voting p&j that year i'd have emperor tomato ketchup, reasonable doubt, walking wounded, millions now living, new adventures in hi-fi, horse stories, pre-millenium tension, cubist castle, atliens, labradford in some order.

<3 that dirty three album so much

i didn't love the Jon Spencer joint...nothing like as good as Extra Width/Orange

i'm kind of fond of it, different energy than the earlier records but kind of cool and unhinged in the way it careens from one song to the next.

i think i was somewhat disappointed in it at the time and then that disappointment got retroactively compounded by acme

oh Acme is a total fall off

Horse Stories is one of my favorite albums. '96 was a pretty good year for stuff that flew slightly under the radar.

yeah Acme was no bueno. bleh

i always smile when cibo matto pops up on someone's ipod in the lab

wanna hear about balls' lab

we listened to tragic kingdom in the lab the other day, somehow it (or just no doubt in general i'd guess) came up so we decided to put it on. i know it's been noted but god cd glut is really the marker for that era, it was ridiculous how long that album was and unlike some cd glut era albums where the sprawl works for it (eg hi-fi for me at least) here it just became ridiculous. was shocked that there wasn't quite as skacore air to it as i remembered, 'sunday morning' and 'don't speak' still sounded great (as if 'don't speak' every really left radio anyway), 'excuse me mister' sounded alot weirder than i recalled, other than the minimum ska the rest was pretty much how i imagined, much better than its rep at the time (or even now probably right?) but still not so great that it didn't provide the baseline for both the subsequent albums to be better (well judging by the singles at least).

lol xpost

god i swear i'll look at a post i've just made and see grammar and spelling errors that just mystify me, i'll look at it and think 'o look, that's alzheimer's. there's alzheimer's creeping in. *adds piracetam to shopping cart*'.