commercially disappointing major label rock/alternative albums of 1996

I know it's not quite "modern rock," but Sheryl Crow's eponymous follow up definitely fits in this category. Better than the first album, IMO, but definitely a big dip sales wise (I think Entertainment Weekly even wrote an article about all of these at the time).

Alt radio definitely played "If It Makes You Happy" and "Everyday is a Winding Road" -- which should've been the leading single.

Is it viewed as a disappointment though? I don't think so. It's still her most critically beloved album (self-production, etc), and those singles got as much airplay as the TNMC stuff.

It went triple platinum and stayed in the charts for more than a year.

man I know I'm a sap, but I love If It Makes You Happy.

"Sheryl Crow" sold less than half what "Tuesdsay Night Music Club" sold so by my measuring stick of what constitutes thread inclusion, i'll allow it

Yeah -- I was unaware that it had actually sold 3 million copies. I just remember the opinion at the time was that it was a letdown from TNMC, and "If It Makes You Happy" slid down the charts quicker than "All I Wanna Do." (Artistic merit notwithstanding -- great album, great singles, esp. when you include "A Change Would Do You Good" and "Home.")

Sheryl Crow sold more copies than Tuesday Night Music Club here in the UK, and I remember several songs from it were hits here. Only 'All I Wanna Do' from Tuesday Night Music Club had much impact.

Yeah, that one's tricky - definitely a sophomore slump but maybe one that could have been comfortably predicted by the execs? Feel like the singles from it were generally bigger and longer-lived than those from a lot of these other records - or maybe just had a slightly greater degree of crossover/VH1 play...

yeah it seemed like "Every Day is a Winding Road" and "If It Makes You Happy" never went away between 1996-1997.

never forgave her for using "everyday" incorrectly

Thats prob the weakest of the singles from the album tbh. You can almost hear Soak Up the Sun start to take shape...

yeah it sold less but it also proved she wasn't a fluke one album act, which was a real risk for those kind of big hit having vaguely boho female acts. it wasn't fairweather johnson or anything. pretty fond of that album and the next one tbh.

Yeah balls otm. I'd prob taking the singles from this album and the Globe Sessions (+ Difficult Kind which I can't believe wasn't one) over a comparable string from any pop or country singer that ILX has been enamored with in the past couple years

(xp to myself actually its A Change Would Do You Good that resembles Soak Up the Sun. But Change is great, go figure)

OMG what an appalling shitshow of a list.

No kidding!

idk i feel like i like a majority of these

Everyone wrong about Sheryl Crow.

Lotta good albums in this list.

II by The Presidents was the first time I'd ever been disappointed in a CD I'd bought. I think I was 11 and it was probably my 5th or 6th CD. I remember thinking, "it sounds like they made half of these songs up in an afternoon"

I also recall Factory Showroom being a huge disappointment, like it was almost a betrayal that TMBG had made such a "normal" rock album. It's still pretty weird of course. In retrospect its probably one of their finest albums, I remember putting it on recently and thinking it made a case for TMBG as part of the same power pop lineage as Costello & Squeeze. It does have that really awful "XTC vs. Adam Ant" song on it though

i've warmed on factory showroom thanks to the TMBG poll thread discussions. even at the time it felt to me like a helpful course correction *away* from John Henry's generic rock band move. i just wish it had felt more overstuffed with ideas and songs, like their older albums.

Hey Look: https://www.spin.com/2021/09/1996-alternative-bubble-burst/

from ILM poll to SPIN article in 9 years

well done, some dude

i dunno if it'll do as well as some of my earlier works, but i think it'll attain a cult following over time

― Neil Young’s social media channels (some dude), Thursday, May 3, 2012 12:55 PM (nine years ago) bookmarkflaglink

In the UK '96 was ofc alt rock - or rather, Britpop - saturation year but I think if we have a "commercially disappointing major label rock/alternative album of 1996" then it's C'mon Kids. Not sure framing this around its relative uncommercial nature can go too far either - Mansun never saw Six bomb like the Radleys did Kids.

Duritz cut his hair not long ago.

And Satellites is a great fuckin' album.

Man, I love New Adventures. I actually think it's a great album, the last one R.E.M. made (although I think Up is a pretty good album too).

Wait a minute, I interpreted the poll backwards (i.e. vote for the worst), hah.

Bad Religion's "Grey Race" was the right amount of bleak cynicism for a new college liberal like me when I first got it.

I still love the album and most of the songs.

"Cease" is the one on my mind lately

Wait a minute, I interpreted the poll backwards (i.e. vote for the worst), hah.

That's how I read it!

worst album in that list has to be Bush - Razorblade Suitcase

I bought Razorblade Suitcase in a charity shop for pennies last week. Why is it so long :(

this was very definitely a "best" poll, fwiw, and a very good some dude thread!

I miss the dude in class who used to mimic Gavin Rossdale's voice

"THAT'S JUST FOINE
THAT'S JUST ONE OF MY NAIMZ"

and the girl in typing class I think I mentioned upthread who at random times of class would just sing (loudly) SWALLLOWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED

DO YOU KNOW THE WORDS?
SING ALONG WITH ME
AND PUT ON YOUR ROSE FUR COAT, BABY
CAUSE IT'S 1973

this was the best year for selling promo CDs for decent money when your lack of financial compensation was "made up for" in promo CDs ... like there was still enough suspension of disbelief in the likelihood of major label mediocrity for record stores to pay well.

In the UK '96 was ofc alt rock - or rather, Britpop - saturation year but I think if we have a "commercially disappointing major label rock/alternative album of 1996" then it's C'mon Kids. Not sure framing this around its relative uncommercial nature can go too far either - Mansun never saw Six bomb like the Radleys did Kids.

― you can see me from westbury white horse, Monday, July 11, 2022 7:05 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I have a 33 1/3 book idea floating round my head about this album, essentially how you can almost hear when Alan McGee comes into the Studio to check its going to be another smash hit, and all their attempts to sabotage this, without letting him know till its too late.

I remember that Tricky's Nearly God (technically "Nearly God's Nearly God") and Pre-Millennium Tension didn't sell all that well compared to Maxinquaye. And yet according to Wikipedia Tension did in fact sell almost as well as Maxinquaye, so what do I know. His commercial appeal dropped off after that.

As Mr Horse points out 1996 was completely different in the UK. It was the peak year of Britpop (and also "intelligent drum and bass" and to a lesser extent trip-hop and big beat), and also towards the end of the year the Spice Girls became a thing. Record sales were buoyant. It was a golden period for the record industry. The record labels had money to burn. MP3s were not yet a thing. There was also a sharp dividing line between pre-Britpop and Britpop acts. Only a few pre-Britpop acts remained relevant, e.g. Primal Scream, Suede etc.

I have the impression that behind the scenes a lot of Britpop albums were commercially disappointing for the record labels, in the same way that a lot of 1977 punk albums had been commercially disappointing - they charted well and sold well briefly, but the labels put a tonne of money into promotion and didn't make a huge profit - which explains why so many Britpop acts made a second album that didn't sell well and were then dropped by the label. The same thing happened to the girl groups and boy bands that followed, e.g. B*Witched, who were dropped after one of their singles didn't get into the top ten. But you'd need to know what was going on behind the scenes to evaluate that.

I love many of these albums unreservedly because 1996 was the year I became a full-on music obsessive as a wide-eyed and ignorant fourth grader. Lots of formative memories: being simultaneously creeped out and intrigued by the video for Metallica's "Until It Sleeps"; Filth Pig and Wild Mood Swings being heavily promoted in Columbia House ads; Bush's "Swallowed", Better Than Ezra "Desperately Wanting" and the Cranberries' "Free To Decide" on heavy alt-rock radio rotation, etc, etc.

Of course it was lost on me at the time that lots of these were critical and/or commercial flops except for Fairweather Johnson, which was treated as a major cultural event when it dropped but failed to make much of an impact after a couple weeks. Actually New Adventures In Hi-Fi too--it dropped on the heels of their unprecedented $80 million 5-record deal, so the fact that it didn't blow up like their last few was considered a big deal.

Would have voted for New Adventures, with Boys For Pele and Pinkerton as close runners-up.

I was a big Ministry fan between 1988-1992 but I never listened to Filth Pig until a couple of years ago. It's actually a pretty solid record — kind of a Jourgensen take on Amphetamine Reptile/Touch & Go-style noise rock. It's even got Rey Washam of Scratch Acid, Rapeman, etc. on drums!

Good God’s Urge is a fun, tight little album. “Freeway” is silly, but I really like most of it. Perry Farrell’s last listenable work, frankly. Peter DiStefano has a really unique and beautiful guitar tone; little wonder that he plays on many film scores

"I have the impression that behind the scenes a lot of Britpop albums were commercially disappointing for the record labels"

UK edition: commercially disappointing major label rock/alternative albums of 1999

That Cast one with Beat Mama
The second Kula Shaker
The Reef one
Gene
Ocean Colour Scene One from the Modern

I'm way too easily cherrypicking but only the really hated second wave Britpop bands seemed to suffer (Supergrass braved the weather, Ash (98 actually) were doomed at first but got it together again etc. Also how easily Travis could have died their death with The Man Who if WDIAROM was never the third single).

In the poll I'd have voted New Adventures easily

Also "Salvation" is my favourite Cranberries song. Crap lyrics but good/funny idea to fuse Cali punk/horns/speed with Joy Division-ish sullenness. The video makes it even better - all this money, how to spend it?

Actually how many of these albums have music videos do that really mid-90s alt-rock thing of v. saturated/exposed colours and white flashes? I'd be sad if it isn't most of them.

This is the thread I come back to the most after New Jersey

it's so good!

between _Spike_ and the Bacharach collab EC inhabited a strange interzone. I'm not sure who was buying his records besides me.

C'Mon Kids is still the best example of this, in theory anyway, but it was in the UK not the US and in the UK 1996 was alt rock (read: britpop)'s 1994 moment

this is almost exactly the year I noped out of radio-based alternative music and started digging more into 'indie' music. I'm surprised All this Useless Beauty may have sold poorly though, they certainly poured a lot of promotion into it

EC was scoring Alternative Radio hits in America up through Brutal Youth, and then immediately dropped off the radar except for his core audience like so many other still-active '80s College Rock faves (Moz, Westerberg, Siouxsie, Peter Murphy etc.).

...and then he embraced Elder Statesman status with the Bacharach album, awards show appearances, famous new wife, more reissue campaigns etc.