Now That Was Totally On The Radio and Stuff! Vol. 2: Forgotten Singles of the Early 2000s

Picking up from 50 Memorable Songs Of The Late 1990s That Apparently Only You Remember, Even Though They Were Totally On The Radio And Stuff. This period is now further from us than the late 90s thread was when I started it in 2007, so we should have some certainty about what's really, permanently slipped through the cracks. To start us off:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu-fH2b7Pro#t=176

Elwood - Sundown (thanks to MarkoP on the old thread). Mellow rap-rock walk through Gordon Lightfoot's classic with a strong whiff of Sugar Ray. I remember my mom in the car going "Now why on earth would you do that?" I feel like there were a lot of songs in this sensitive skater-songwriter vein, but off the top of my head I'm just coming up with "Heaven Is A Halfpipe," which was big enough to have its own ILM thread. Sadly, Elwood seem to have been unable to capitalize on their first success; per Wiki: "Elwood's second record was released independently in 2005. Although not a lot is known about this record, it can be heard at Elwood's website."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJr2PhGgbKo

Keith Murray - Candi Bar - Just a huge time capsule to me in terms of the beat, the visuals of the video, everything. Also a great, stupid rapper-sample interchange: "How could I manifest her uniqueness in vernacular?" Like a chocolate candy bar... "Yeah, that describes her!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl3vGClF_hA

Jimmy Eat World - Bleed American - The revved-up "get rocked!" first single that led into massive crossover "The Middle." Always thought this could have or should have been bigger, amidst all the "return of rock" business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ao2u7F_Qzg

I'd probably have to know these first before I could forget them.

They were totally on the radio! And stuff! I don't remember "The Rasmus" at all though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQW5sf7zPxo

VAST - Free - Gothy dross with a hooky sort of chorus. Always thought the dude's super shiny jacket seemed sort of out of place, but the attack of giant CGI spiders is maybe the most 'period' touch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLftjtN9Hpk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6S9KTzXbEY

Busta Rhymes - "Fire" and "Get Out!!" - flop singles from his basically forgotten 2000 album Anarchy, which I think suffered from a bit of a Busta glut on the market. Neither of these quite smells like a smash hit to be honest but I've always been fond of both of them; "Get Out!!" is a post-"Hard Knock Life" kids' chorus song that just gives me a good-times vibe, and "Fire" really rides that super metallic, alien Diana Ross sample the whole way through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUTu_Ap6LB4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BXzphHiHD8

great thread already

Solitair - easy to slip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6VoygloCOo

non-backpacker canadian rap pre-Drake

I assume since it has a bunch of ILX posts Philly's Most Wanted or something like that is too well remembered.

But what about Philly rapper Mil, who had a record & video with the Hot Boyz:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ekfj_mil-ft-lil-wayne-b-g-ride-out_music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOPN24hyspU

loving the phrase "a bit of a Busta glut on the market"

Does Remy Shand count?
https://vimeo.com/70676073

I don't remember "The Rasmus" at all though.

Yeah, they only charted in Europe, and not for long. A few Finnish rock bands did well around then iirc. In Finland they all ended up being put on stamps.

Uh... there's a lot of suitable stuff from the May 14, 2000 UK chart, but none of it contains the line:

"This tune's gonna punish you."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-OKiKYdRJA

This one 'shockingly' stalled at #2, beaten by Spiller's "Groovejet".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7UvbwCjXUk

Sev - Huh. Never heard that. Sub-sub-Bizkit thing, kinda cool for a minute at the start when it seems like they're gonna make more out of the plainchant sample, but it never stands a chance against the shrill guitar onslaught. Actually even more than Bizkit it sounds like P.O.D., specifically "Boom" which I considered for this thread but rejected since I think I've at least heard it in a movie trailer or something since it faded away.

Bad Ronald - Oh woww.. this is right at that "have I heard this? I haven't heard this. wait, I've heard this" line. The band achieved little success in spite of their promotion with MTV. The group formed in 1999 after working shows in New York City. The group wanted "to form a band that combined rap, pop, rock, and sophomoric humor."

Rehab - Wow this is irritating. Oddly I would 100% believe you if you'd just posted it to the rolling worst songs of 2015 thread as some new garish band trying to be funny in their videos; except for the chorus which does sound very 99/00 to me (can't place what song in particular it's reminding me of).

Solitair maybe the most defensible thing on the thread so far, actually sounds like a reasonable song on first listen. I was digging Steriogram until the guy started singing, trying wayyyyy too hard there dude. Love the flagrant attempt at a "Fell In Love With A Girl" type gimmick three years late, though at least they committed to it and spent some time on the stop-motion and all that. Reminds me that I would like to post Kenna, "Hell Bent" (the "Controoooolin' meeeee" song with the gloomy stop motion video about little sad industrial arts-and-crafts people) but it seems that it's not on YouTube, perhaps due to rights problems with the animation (which I think was previously a separate short film of its own).

So instead:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lAxkNm2OBY

Grand Theft Audio - Stoopid Ass: The lead-off track to the Dude, Where's My Car? soundtrack!

Wheatus - Leroy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyJ9CblhZmg

The other song by that band that isn't Weezer.

And speaking of non packbacker pre-Drake Canadian rap:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rNBDQvQ-9c

I could really fill this thread up with lots of half forgotten Can-Con, but I'll refrain for now.

And in my first semester of university, where I had no tv and no internet, and thus relied on the radio for my entertainment, I remember this song by "Not John Mayer":
Josh Kelley - Amazing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R189rki4j9k

I'm also trying to remember a video from circa 2000-2002 that was by a pop punk group that was done in the style of an infomercial, which also may have been Canadian.

this is a whole new level of garbage compared to anything posted previously.

really good for a laugh though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ-QGLlniLM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbHfgXJKn1Y

Busta's "Fire is half epic half "can I only download this mp3 in 96k?"

I don't think I could ever forget about The Rasmus, that track seemed to be fucking everywhere in the UK at the time and still seems to be quite well remembered.

same here, and it's just the worst song - guess bcz I liked it at the time (I was very young!) it never really left me

I still hear that Fuel track at my gym...

Long Beach Dub All Stars - Sunny Hours
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSSVaW5fklc

Also in the category of Post-Sublime Rappish Rock:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR2a8mccuJY

The one song by this Australia band that made it's way to the North American rock charts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM_eb0vVo0k

Most of these deserve to be forgotten.

"Hemorrhage" was probably too big to ever really be forgotten, but a pretty amazing period piece regardless - dude's whole look with the bleached shaggy 'do and the necklace and the best scenery-chewing SERIOUS EMOTING this side of Eddie Vedder. It's a plausible contender for "last song of the 90s" in that sense, though sonically it is very close to other kinda watery-sounding overstuffed 2000-era cheeze (e.g. Vertical Horizon).

More crap:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88EW1HU3ci0

Angie Aparo - Spaceship - what I think of whenever I use the word "watery" to describe this period of radio rock - the flange effect or whatever on this guy's voice is just really shitty, plus all the noodley electronic stuff sprinkled around in the background. Yikes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9HBzXitoGc

Mest - What's The Dillio? - Catchy with a stupid hook and a gross aiming-for-rom-com teenage premise ("there's something special to her, she's / not just another whore"). See also Stop trying to make "What's the dillio?" happen: Songs that hitch their wagon to slang of the moment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAURo0rwt6g

Hot Action Cop - Fever For the Flava - A truly grotesque and awful video for a stupid and offensive song that has always occupied a weirdly fond place in my heart, mainly because the chorus, with different lyrics about a different subject entirely, really could have been a great little feel-good anthem.

Overall yeah, thread not exactly overflowing with lost classics as of yet. I confess to a longstanding fondness for "Heaven Is A Halfpipe" for some inexplicable reason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7DTG_O5zow

Busta Rhymes feat. Kelis - What It Is - more of the Busta glut, from the second Violator album, with the Neptunes presenting basically the Platonic template of Neptunes backing tracks. This did well on the US Rap chart but seems to have pretty much disappeared, perhaps owing to the sort of abstract and nonspecific hook from Kelis (though I do like the way it SOUNDS) - not much to relate to here, just, you know, a few minutes of Busta doing Busta stuff.

This song, along with Busta's "Get Out", kind of occupy the same space in my mind and will pop up randomly in my head from time to time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3laveWE68yA

this thread is a sausagefest

so, here, an entry in "female-fronted power-pop of the sort that would appear on '90s teen movie soundtracks" as well as "did nobody listen to these lyrics before placing it in this movie"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsFrly5XBAI

That last collection of rock songs is all new to me and absolutely horrible.

Well in an attempt to not make this a complete sausage fest:
Hoku - The Burrito Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMoVIuCnhho

this was on the radio quite often in its year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APz6cjxRcU4

Decent female pop punk, but cringe inducing video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO03oq2eQ7w

One more for the crap pile:
Nitty - Nasty Girl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zY9Oa5DZj4

man, that Jimmy Eat World song actually rules though.

it's like Fugazi and Def Leppard slugging it out in an alleyway

MarkoP, God bless you for reminding me "Heaven Is a Halfpipe" exists

How about "Do Right" by Jimmie's Chicken Shack? Technically late 1999, but I think it fits here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WR3gF9J0hQ

Kazzer - Pedal to The Metal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STy1UL49FZM

Might have been a bigger hit in Canada than the US, but I do remember this showing up in a bunch of movies and TV shows like Fast and the Furious and Malcolm in the Middle.

I was doing some research a while back and was surprised to find this r&b song had been a top ten pop hit even though I'd never heard of the artist. It turned out not only had I totally heard it, but it's also the source material for a Mac Dre classic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-4ifzbMqXM

Debelah Morgan - Dance With Me

neat

as we said back then (..maybe)

hey best buy pushed the hell out of her back then...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbR73AITYz0

ILX's last mention of him was 2008! again, a Best Buy sampler favorite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWwdh6FGL4M

holy fuck, is that Ashlee Simpson?

this sounds like Goo Goo Dolls if Metal Blade were the name of their cutlery sponsor instead of a punk label.

yep that's Ashlee Simpson. he was dating her at the time!

most Puddle of Mudd songs are still pretty well remembered but I'll be damned if I've heard anybody hum or sing this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyDykQWck74

I even remember singing this at a karaoke night once! now I barely remember its hook at all (mostly cos, like most Musiq songs of the time, it didn't really have one!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzBD8t0sB-4

like "Hemmorhage", this was a pretty big hit. but it's not like your gonna hear it anywhere unless you're wine drunk at a Sizzler on a Thursday evening or shopping for Hallmark cards. insanely forgotten band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac3HkriqdGQ

haha I forgot about their second "hit"

their first one was ubiquitous enough

I think that song is also played at my gym :(

sure sounds like it'd get you pumped up for your workout. i always think of this one time at the Y when "tears in heaven" came on, you could just see everybody in the whole room slow...ing.... down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwgqflNYFu0

Dexter Freebish - Leaving Town. Released late 2000, though apparently, it was in 1999 that "the band won the John Lennon Songwriting Contest Song of the Year for their song “Leaving Town," picked from approximately 27,000 entries." Call me a sap but I think this is actually kind of good? Suffers from all the production tics and visual doucheyness of a lot of Good Haircut Mall Rock of this period but that's a pretty good chorus there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF5O0qH4LLQ

Eve 6 - Promise. Lead single from the album that followed the big hit. This one got quickly forgotten once they scored a decent-sized hit with "Here's To The Night." It isn't exactly a rewrite of "Inside Out," although it may demonstrate some basic limitations on Eve-6's range. One of those songs where the chorus itself is less interesting than the pre-chorus ("Red as a newborn, white as a cooooorpse"). Still, I'm finding myself kinda liking it now that I'm not just completely burned out on this entire sound; there was a time when even just the guitar tone and compression here signified "sell-out radio rock" to me so hard that I just couldn't deal. It happens that all these mediocre post-alt-rock songs I've been posting pretty much date from this period: my freshman and sophomore years in college, getting more and more thoroughly into indie rock but still living in the dorms and vegging out to an alarming amount of MTV2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eebfMFzJHNs

Green Day - Warning. A genial little strummer, one of the least Green-Day-sounding Green Day singles. Along with "Waiting" and "Minority" from the same album, it got a little bit of play at the time but (like the late-90s cuts which appear on the other thread) they never grew into hits and obviously the next album was a gigantic comeback that sort of rewrote their whole narrative. Had American Idiot never happened these probably would just be the last trailing-off singles of a bad most people assume broke up years before. Thing is, I kinda like the sound of this thing, much more laid back and almost "roots rock" than the strained ballads and obnoxious curtain-raisers to come.

Speaking of these guys...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUW2Lkmskus

The Network - Joe Robot. "Don't tell anybody" side project teaming Green Day with members of Devo and maybe trying to sound like Gary Numan more than anything. A minor, one-riff little thingy, refreshingly odd IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd3Y4o95ObU

Big Dumb Face - Duke Lion. The much-hoped-for Wes Borland solo project, which was disappointingly not a bunch of effects-pedal noodley guitar layers, but rather a scratchily-recorded wacky number for the Zappa/Primus/Ween set. At least he followed his dreams.

Digging "Money Can't Buy Me Happiness," btw. Never heard that before!

am I going here? oh yes I am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDZxnawFph4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5tKILoxrQ4

dream and willa ford will never be forgotten in my heart <3

lol the jive jones thing was the first song that came to mind when i saw this thread

Heh, kept thinking about posting Eve 6's Promise.

I'd say the follow up single is even more forgotten than that one, which I remember getting radio play:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbvXG9tMyJk

I really should just look through my Mix CDs I made in high school for stuff for this thread, since there's already been quite a few posted here already that were on them.

love this thread! reminds me of bob stanley's idea that you become a pop fan when you're 10-12 years old and curious about/into everything on top40 radio.

"stuck" is a p good song imo, surprised it went til the 1:00 mark before chorus kicked in

"he loves you not" was all over back then! such an aguilera-ish jam

for those who don't click the halfpipe-video, here's the chorus:

If I die before I wake
At least in heaven I can skate
Cause right now on earth I can't do jack
Without the man up on my back

"Stuck" was cool but I preferred Stacey's follow-up single "(There's Gotta Be) More To Life":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUOcQnWbk_U

Mmh, that one resonated... Do remember a radio dj mocking the weltschmerz of teenage Orrico quite - to me - convincingly. Made it hard for teenage niels to admit to liking the song. Often on my mind though, good chorus.

Was trying to figure out why that Sev song seemed familiar, then I realized it's what Pepsi used in it's Pepsi Blue commercials.

And in the "Was a Big Hit in Canada One Summer (Especially in Quebec)" category:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpr6tii15Y8

probably the bgm for idk how many mtv segments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w869Avr_fXI

this thread is incomprehensible on zing or firefox

Dexter Freebish - Leaving Town. Released late 2000, though apparently, it was in 1999 that "the band won the John Lennon Songwriting Contest Song of the Year for their song “Leaving Town," picked from approximately 27,000 entries." Call me a sap but I think this is actually kind of good? Suffers from all the production tics and visual doucheyness of a lot of Good Haircut Mall Rock of this period but that's a pretty good chorus there.

You can see why it won a songwriting competition - pretty lame performance but a good backbone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNtN83-vQmw

Eeeeewwwww

lol i love that song/album

I jumped off the goo canoe around Dizzy up the girl...so I come in with baggage.

that song is shitty but i can actually appreciate the earlier Goo Goo Dolls hits in 2015. it's like some sub-Westerberg pining (which i'm a sucker for) with a lot of gloss and a lot of feelings, man.

which i guess is the same for most 90's alt hits that sounded corny upon arrival but are now tugging at your heartstrings when they come on the radio

"Name" especially

Hmm yea I was into A Boy Named Goo.

Lol I remember learning to play Name from some Internet tab site. Weird fucking tuning.

God I heard this daily on the hip hop station

https://youtu.be/GEeSSlIukng

^^ Case "I'm Missing You"

https://youtube/-qnSz6Lh5pY

Feckin phone. Was trying to share that dreadful Isley Bros/R Kelly joint..."Contagious"

"On The Roof Again" drawing a blank from me but I'm having fun imagining them being handed those awful programmed drums and saying "sure, okay" while their drummer glares at the whole room, unable to believe what's happening.

In general, I'm really struggling to think of genuinely good, not-just-mediocre picks for this thread. I'm wondering if part of it is the fact that this period brings us into the ILM era, and more generally a ramping-up of archived internet pop cultural knowledge of things, plus streaming etc., where like, I could bring up something like "Caught Out There" which most people in the (US) street probably do not remember (or haven't thought about since 2000, but which i cannot imagine is thought of as "forgotten" on ILM.

on the other hand, i've always liked outkast's ropey contribution to the scooby-doo soundtrack, "In the Land of a Million Drums," complete with a plethora of references to Scooby paraphernalia, though not having seen it, I can't say whether it rises to a Will Smith/ODB/LL level of detail about the actual plot. IIRC the stocking-stuffer post-Stankonia greatest hits came out right before this, leaving it especially stranded since they never had another comp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMED7GERpeQ

Andre's bridge is a real time-filler but I like the attempts to make a "spooky cartoon" sort of sound, really does kinda feel like a van rattling down the road with a busted axle. I've also rarely enjoyed Killer Mike as much as on his completely silly verse here:

Woke up from a long night of hanging out with Shaggy
Oh no, lost my last bagg-ie of Scooby Snackies
Shaggy wake up -- we've been had!
Our Scooby Snacks, they got the whole stash
He said, "Who? Who?" I don't have a clue
I suspect the thirteen ghosts of Scooby Doo
Call Vincent Price up, on the Nextel
Tell him send another package right through the mail
In the meantime, imma call Velma, and tell her,
To get the Mystery Machine ready
I'm two-wayin' Daphne and Freddy
Me and Shaggy dressed in all black, strapped
Dippin' through the flash, tryin' to get our stash back;
Roundin' up suspects, collection' clues!
I got a question, where the ---- is Scooby Doo, when you need 'em?
The hound's only found when you feed him
In fact, he probably got my sack... Tell 'im holla back!

for a while this was how every song sounded:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_pDcmDtnbM

OTM. lotta "Genie in a Bottle" wannabes in circulation, probably more than "Baby One More Time" wannabes.

also, is there a handy word for the guitar sound at the beginning of "leaving town," the bridge of "flavor of the weak," and the start of "she's so high"? it's this certain kind of processed prettiness that I think is supposed to add yearning-ness, maybe keep a guitar band closer to boy-band territory in terms of emotional accessibility/vulnerability. i'm imagining an effects pedal with a dial for "thoughtfulness and sensitivity," you stomp it when you're about to switch from the loud part to the quiet part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH8FctYMM80

Black Eyed Peas ft. Macy Gray - Request + Line. Pre-Fergie BEP, nonetheless shedding a bit of their conscious backpacker thing and stepping (especially in the visuals) towards the club-pop turf that made their fortunes. Still kind of an interesting/strange idea about a single; it's very laid-back, sounding almost like a remix of itself (especially in the most interesting touch, Gray coming in ghostily to quote "Last night a DJ saved my life"), but without any kind of urgent plot line or need to exist. I remember my roommate mishearing the chorus as "Tell me your secrets, mister radio man," which is already way more engaging. Gray's raspy voice is a good foil for the incipient techno-futurism of the rest of the proceedings, and overall I'd much rather hear this than either Madonna's "Music" or L-Lo's "Play," similarly devoted to music or the playing thereof but both much more obnoxious.

i don't think this ever got any significant radio play but it got played a lot on mtv (i apologize in advance for reminding you all of it b/c it's awful)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtcb4E0Ado0

Probably best remembered as "That group Nicole Scherzinger used to be in before the Pussycat Dolls":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHdCSLeS2rc

goddammit i had nearly forgotten about "shaniqua"

i'd post eamon but let's be real no one has forgotten eamon

fuck it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYwyaCd8MyI

wikipedia claims ellie greenwich co-wrote fuck it which seems questionable at best

although this is the guy who added that to the article so who knows https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Giovannii84&offset=&limit=500&target=Giovannii84

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0DK-z5EXzw

Danish example. These guys were everywhere in the media at the beginning of 01, claimed they were going to 'revolutionize Danish rock', part of a wave of young bands, who were all going to modernize Danish rock out of the grunge-years, basically by copying Coldplay or Kent. Nearly everyone of them had nonsensical two-part names (Racetrack Babies, Carpark North, Moon Gringo, Racing Ape, stuff like that. Moon Gringo were awesome, though.) A few months later Is This It hit, nobody thought Coldplay-copying was actually cool anymore. Jupiter Day broke up before releasing a second album.

Swedish version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rayIckOBmo

lol nope this guy either vandalized or fucked up bad

I'm way too prepared for this.

Samantha Mumba "Gotta Tell You" is possibly my personal ultimate one of these.
Dream "He Loves You Not"
Korn "Word Up"
Iio "Rapture"
Afroman "Because I Got High"
Bloodhound Gang "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo"
Peter Searcy "Losing Light Fast"
Velvet Revolver "Fall To Pieces"

Are these songs too unforgotten though? I'm not sure how to tell whether they fit the question.

I guess these too:

D12 "Purple Pills" & "My Band"
Elton John "I Want Love"
LFO "Every Other Time"
Sugar Ray "When It's Over"
Kenna "Freetime"
The Darkness "Growing On Me"
Young Gunz "Can't Stop Won't Stop"
Diplomats "I Really Mean It"
G-Unit "Stunt 101" & "I Wanna Get To Know You"
Lillix "It's About Time"
Liam Lynch "United States of Whatever"
Sleepy Brown "I Can't Wait"
Cam'Ron "Down and Out"
Fabolous "Breathe"
Good Charlotte "I Just Wanna Live"

Disregard if any of these don't quite fit for whatever reason.

I promise this was on the radio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKsT7msbuBY

One of the alltime creepiest things ever on the radio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml7C-WfL8f8

expected this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfo0ORyqryo

I was gonna put SoulDecision, but it was on a Now comp. But come to think of it, I guess those are actually good resources for this.

"I Want Love" is a good one because it was really popular for a short while for being a more understated late-era Elton track and yet, I haven't heard it ANYWHERE in over a decade.

I will mention "Because I Got High" still has some popularity - people still doing it at karaoke, etc.

lol , yes definitely LIam Lynch - I was tempted to nominate that one. God I hate that song, but itw as definitely 'of the moment'.

I suppose this might be a whole 'nother category, but Darude "Sandstorm," Ian Van Dahl "Castles In The Sky," that "ohohohoh" zombie 5000 whatever it was called...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn-qE-h7s84

OH I GOT ONE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz23S9_AV4M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udmTfK6_aM8

Good companion piece to "Land of a Million Drums"

I still do that one at karaoke night! love Mike's verse on that.

but yeah it always gets the reaction of "oh wow yeah this was a song once"....

i'd post eamon but let's be real no one has forgotten eamon

or the response Frankie "Fuck You Right Back"

I think some have forgotten the response track!

your local *chan poster has not forgotten sandstorm

(n.b. "your local poster" =/= "me")

I heard "Gotta Tell You" as muzak a few months ago

Blaque - "Bring It All To Me"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4mjAOgHLvU

if someone already posted this i'm sorry i'm not going to click on every unlabeled youtube video in this thread

ah i love that blaque song

Brian McKnight "Back At One," lol

ONE, YR LIKE A DREAM COME TRUEEEE

City High - What Would You Do?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LahcSFleKm8

haha I couldn't decide between that one or their other hit yesterday.

I always hated this song, not just because of the cheesy melody to go with the really dramatic subject matter, but how the 'narrator' of the song is all like "man just snap out of your shitty life"!

the standards for "forgotten" are slipping more and more

this song was mentioned in the princess diaries series and everything!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfoUSZ8suAM

idk their second hit is a lot better remembered than What Would You Do....

"back at one" maybe not so forgotten but i stand by the other two as long-forgotten (source: me)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeJ9Nvzp8VY

I hear that Blaque song on the rhythmic AC station here about once a month (in a JC & Lance-free version?!)

I feel like optimally for this thread they should be songs no one really took that much note of at the time.

billstevejim - It's a big-tent kind of thread! The only ones I'd personally wonder about would be "When It's Over" which was a pretty big hit and can't have really gone away too much, and Afroman, which (IMHO) has vanished only in the way that most novelty/comedy songs do - the joke ran its course, people collectively agreed not to tell it again for a while. But I'd 100% expect it to appear on a K-Tel or Time-Life comp of the era, if such things were to come back into fashion. I also wonder about the D-12 ones but those might be right at the border. If any of theirs sank without a trace it was probably the "we're tough" number, "Fight Music."

Those aside, your other picks are like exactly what I'm thinking of with these threads! .. like, god, that Bloodhound Gang song was such a non-starter. Amazing how unfunny (and just generally kind of... weird in tone) the video is, given their bread and butter.

And yeah, the back ends of Now! comps are actually pretty rich veins - under the big big hits they had to pad them out with something.

I considered "The Whole World," then ruled it out.... but now that I see it here I think it fits totally. New song added to a greatest-hits record to try and lure people who already had Stankonia but weren't familiar enough with the earlier stuff to be sold already. Got a lot of play at the time but maybe because it was ideally timed to catch the momentum from the hugeness of "Ms. Jackson." I feel like if you asked non-fans to name an Outkast song, or pick one to add to a playlist, they might eventually get there but not for a good long while.

I knew of the existence of this song but apparently not what the verses sounded like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnm53N_nCJA

this wasn't even on the radio but fuck it

to a certain contingent of kids born in the 90's, you might remember the movie Snow Day, and on the soundtrack was this pretty little strummer. kinda like Juliana Hatfield or something.

the year two thousand was fifteen years ago....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohgUxSVuQ00

early-'00s teen movie soundtracks are a fucking goldmine for this stuff. (also, the greatest genre of music. add late-'90s teen movie soundtracks and their power-pop and you could never listen to anything else in your life.)

here, Darkchild trying his hardest to be Max Martin, aka "what happened to the 'Baby One More Time' rips?":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpx24jSOmtI

a single by one Greg Kurstin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVN2DOChfDM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrCsubL_OSQ

I'm so glad Ashanti's been forgotten. Ech.

That song doesn't belong in this thread & Ashanti hasn't been forgotten at all

blaque & city high aren't forgotten either imo but ymmv

My sister and I used to/still laugh about how dated that Ashanti song sounded when it came out.

Was going to post "There She Goes" by Babyface but I saw that it peaked at #31 on the Hot 100.

Screw it - it's "forgotten" compared to the other just-as-good Neptunes hits from the time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7dBKezTShE

made it to #45 on Billboard but only has 22k YouTube views in 6 years and the album tanked
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu_ru7dNyYQ

this one counts for the U.S. because it basically ended his career there

Craig David - What's Your Flava?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XouvzxGfsbc

Skrape - Waste
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LiUDu809cs

Oh God, labels promoted the hell out of that Skrape album.

Collective Soul - Why pt. 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4dgUY6lsU4

Switchfoot - Dare you to move
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOTcr9wKC-o

I don't know if this one has been forgotten but it was pretty big at the time and it's been years since I've oveheard it:

Orson - no tomorrow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUmH4rr8vq0

Skye Sweetnam - Billy S
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-Mm4flx81E

I remember that Skye Sweetnam song, unfortunately.

Basically everything Vitamin C did besides the graduation song is forgotten now, though I guess now that I think about it "Smile" was big enough to probably not count. Feels like it was in some ads, too, or if it wasn't, it was REALLY begging for it.

Collective Soul had to be one of the biggest losers in the total collapse of the alt-rock market. I mean the were never very good (and often actively bad), and "Why" isn't a very interesting song, but y'know, the last couple albums had each mustered a couple of good-sized airplay hits. It probably didn't help that the cover seemed designed to trick people into thinking they were a boy band.

did enough people forget about nikka costa's "like a feather"?

also [posts any anastacia single]

Both Nikka and Anastacia had health problems but I don't know how that affected their careers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysGtBZX32I0

The Hives - Walk Idiot Walk - Maybe borderline on the forgotten front, as the parent album went gold and this was the only single that went anywhere. But my sense at the time was that they had somehow missed the boat and failed to capitalize on "Hate To Say I Told You So" landing well in the US. Actually I feel like I read they had some label or management problems involved... anyone remember anything about that? Wikipedia is unavailing, though we do learn that The main riff is similar to that of The Who's "I Can't Explain", and even more similar to Sonic 2's Metropolis Zone. Anyway, it's an energetic, hooky rocker, undone only by length - clearly wants to be a good forty seconds to a minute shorter. Small quibble though, it's good.

I thought about posting that one -- I attributed its flopping to audience/radio bafflement at its AC/DC-meets-Wire sound.

Anastacia...i remember "Not That Kind"

Re: Hives - This was also around the time (2004) when MTV would relegate critical singles for alt bands to MTV2 rotation

Hives mention reminds me of this other forgotten 'hit':

Hot Hot Heat - Bandages

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_K36y-iLUk

Having flashbacks of early 00's bands like Starsailor, Keane, Stereophonics and have decided some things are best forgotten.

My regular internet's been wonky these past few days, so I having been able to partake of the festivities thus far, but expect some pithy comments from me on some of the included stuff thus far soon.

Anyways, that Fu Manchu cut their hair, dropped a disco beat, and actually got some Album Rock action with a little ditty called "Squash That Fly"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTqhLPE3G1w

...and then there's the truly forgotten ones-

Thirteen senses - into the fire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFroDCsVCeY

XP "I haven't been able to partake" & "Would you believe that...?" even...

Having flashbacks of early 00's bands like Starsailor, Keane, Stereophonics and have decided some things are best forgotten.

They (labels) tried to break Travis, Supergrass and Ash in America, in that order if I recall... Busted and The Streets too

For the past several years he's been a sideman to the stars (and as of late, the boyfriend of Renee Zellweger), but back in 2001 RCA tried to pitch Doyle Bramhall II as the white Lenny Kravitz in the video for "Green Light Girl", a song initially featured on the soundtrack to the forgotten Sly Stallone/Burt Reynolds racing epic Driven. I still hear this occasionally on a local community college's FM rock station.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZYppH82U4U

More Trivia: The backing singer in the clip was Bramhall's then-wife Susannah Melvoin, former Prince girlfriend, daughter of session legend Mike Melvoin, and sister of Wendy (of "...and Lisa" fame) and the late Jonathan (who O.D'ed and died in the presence of Jimmy Chamberlin in '96).

XP Supergrass actually got a decent push as early as '97, with "Cheapskate" getting minor Modern Rock play.

"Do Right" was on the other thread, and rightly so because it was a 90s song. This was totally on the radio in the 2000s (in the southeast US, anyway) and begs the question of why you'd wanna do a duet with a dude who sounds just like you anyway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzf9-HkpKMQ

xp You're probably right about "Bandages" being forgotten for most people, although I still pump that song and "No Not Now" because they're both awesome.

xp That one Keane song ("Somewhere Only We Know") is way better than anything else those 6-7 bands released in the 2000s, and I still hear it on muzak frequently.

Although I also heard that "Brighter Than Sunshine" song at Walgreens the other day which I definitely had not heard in 10+ years. Google tells me the band was called Aqualung.

anyone who has been in any megachurch over the past decade has not forgotten "dare you to move"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZHMOZT9xYU

"Bandages" was big enough that I remember at least one band doing a kind-of-mocking partial cover of it, like a "ha ha this sellout rock song that's rocketing up the charts" kind of thing. But it turned out that it was basically already at the end of its lifespan.

"Falling Out" sounding REALLY familiar. Must have heard it in some context in Georgia but not regularly. I wasn't really listening to rock radio by that point though. I'm disappointed to realize they swung hard for this sludgey nu-metal-ish sound, going as far as recruiting the dude from Staind. I never actually liked the band but they were harmless enough as a dumbass ska-flavored party-rock outfit.

The only Stereophonics I remember seeing was the dour, plodding "Mr. Writer," which sounded like you'd taken an already-boring song and slowed down the tape. Guh.

omg i totally forgot about "supergirl"

the mention of "brighter than sunshine" made me think of posting an augustana single ("stars and boulevards") but i'm wary bc i don't think "boston" is very forgotten at all

Canadian Robyn knock-off:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEMAwNM3mAg

A few lead/early singles that were forgotten after the "Big Hit" was released:

Uncle Kracker, when he was modelling himself after Kid Rock's rap-rock side as opposed to his southern rock/country side:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsOXkkhkOyI

The lead single from Counting Crows' Hard Candy, the album which featured their hit cover of "Big Yellow Taxi" initally as a bonus track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsOXkkhkOyI

Whoops, messed up that second link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ_MUfryl-w

And speaking of Kid Rock:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFT0JqOL58A

I'm still refraining from posting a bunch of Can-Con few care about, but decided to post this one as one of those early 2000s examples of group writing a song about that new fangled thing called "The Internet":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIZFS3SC_UE

Also, Prozzak's existence was mostly forgotten a year or two later when Gorillaz came along.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3YmPNcxhZ0

Jurassic 5 - The Influence. Did not chart, but I always liked it a lot more than "Quality Control." Cool sample, great forward momentum, and I like how they keep handing the mic around, but the title doesn't show up til the very last couplet.

Oh man, I didn't recognize the title to "Forever" but oh man, the stupid chorus, that stupid, stupid chorus. I take SOME-THING! and mix it with SOME-THING! It's basically an inferior "American Bad-Ass"... not a good place to be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LofXZ0j3XtI

Andrew WK - We Want Fun. An I Get Wet castoff picked up for the Jackass: The Movie soundtrack. In the context of AWK's career, it felt like a misstep, pinning down his broad, exciting vision of "the party" to something banal and fratty. His subsequent releases would swerve into a self-help vision in which partying is more like a metaphor for the path to enlightenment, so this really doesn't fit in. That only leaves the delightfully dumb title and the joyous trucker key change at the end.

Don't remember that Uncle Kracker song at all, but OTM about Kid Rock - I would have totally believed that was a Kid Rock song with a guest vocalist singing the hook.

a couple others that were on the radio and are not remembered by many nowadays

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rvf4ctqTrro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYQt11Mfb4w

I remember when Lady Gaga released "Edge of Glory", I kept thinking it reminded me of this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3qyTaLe5BE

That is impressive recall - and pretty accurate

I'm not sure if this song is quite forgotten since I remember still hearing this song at my local supermarket in 2005/2006, but that was also close to ten years ago (yikes!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhjHICy5tW0

I like that one :)

Oh my forgot about Sarina Paris such an annoying but catchy song.

i always thought 'we want fun' was great

/fratty

Wow, totally forgot about "You're An Ocean," and not sure I even knew it was Fastball at the time. Came and went very quickly. I guess it's okay? I have no real beef with Fastball but they don't do enough with the lift from "Rock The Boat" to make it much other than a lift. Kind of a weird arrangement/tempo; it definitely doesn't sound like much on the radio at that time so I'll give them that.

At last, a Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/doctorcasino/playlist/682AFwRyNlwUxoGEZYiEGH

(Late '90s one is still here: https://open.spotify.com/user/doctorcasino/playlist/2taIeJ0IhYbdEJWgGXJBsK)

Not on Spotify:

Mil - Ride Out
True Steppers - Out Of Your Mind
Jelleestone - Money Can't Buy Me Happiness
Jive Jones - Me Myself and I
Moxy - Mz. Popularity
One Ton - Supersex World
Outkast - Land of a Million Drums
Little T etc. - Shaniqua
Eden's Crush - Get Over Yourself
Jupiter Day - Empty Space
Eskobar - Someone New
D-12 - Purple Pills
D-12 - Fight music
Custom - Hey Mister (pretty okay with not having to hear this btw)
Schuyler Fisk - It's Not Her
Jimmie's Chicken Shack - Falling Out
Krystal Harris - Supergirl
Prozzak - www.nevergetoveryou

I think some of these get burned by being on movie soundtracks with presumably thorny rights arrangements... "Land of a Million Drums," by the way, is available on a horrrrrrrible Outkast "tribute" album by someone called the Urban Underground Society, worth skimming through because their spree of soundalikes features a number of completely flubbed lyrics apparently derived from a quick quasi-phonetic transcription of the song. "Ms. Jackson, my intentions were good, I wish I could / become a magician to abracadabra off the Seder."

I left in most contested entries, though they may be a bit jarring - Fuel in particular are a couple leagues above the rest of these in terms of Spotify plays with 8 mil versus 300K for something like Rehab, even less for Busta's duds. Stacie Orrico, who I've never heard of before, might be the other breakout star here with nigh 3 million plays. Oh, and Green Day is right around that point too. I went ahead and threw in their "Waiting" since it's got less plays than "Warning" and is plausibly more forgotten. However, I made a special exception for Eamon - at 18 million Spotify plays, that's verifiably an enduringly remembered, perhaps even popular song. Korn's "Word Up!" is even higher at 20 mil. Obviously some of this could just be an artist's cult spinning their lesser-known tracks ad infinitum, which is the only explanation I can see for 13 million plays on "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo" (which I did include after realizing it wasn't even the song I was thinking of upthread with the bad video - that was their curious cover of "Along Comes Mary"). I left in Ashanti, Blaque and City High all - considerably less-played than Fuel. But this is an inexact science. If anyone wants to make a case for re-including anything I cut, I'm open!

Not identified: that "ohohohoh" zombie 5000 whatever it was called... Is this a Powerman 5000 reference?

Meanwhile, finally checking out some of the songs I passed over as Youtube embeds. Hoku - "How Do I Feel" has a certain low-budget "off-brand recording studio trying for the big sound" feel but I can imagine it being a bigger hit with more money in it, it's not totally generic, and the burrito line is smartly placed for adding a memorable quirk early in the song. God the production just piles up silly things as it goes though. They were tryin'!

Peter Searcy meanwhile is kind of amazing for how much he wants the first two seconds to sound like "Semi-Charmed Life."

that "ohohohoh" zombie 5000 whatever it was called..

Zombie Nation - Kernkraft 400
And I would definitely not consider that one forgotten.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byoCjcJwoO0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ2t4jfVTiU

Alien Ant Farm - Movies - the followup to "Smooth Criminal," with an inevitable "they get dressed up like it's different movies" video, though somebody clearly forgot to order enough costumes for a three-minute song (or they spent the money on Pat Morita's appearance). Amazingly, this had three videos, tracking the band's rising stardom (?).

The chorus is fine but you can see why someone figured the most commercial thing on this album was the obligatory gag "we cover a pop song" track. If it wasn't for the lead guy's dumb face I'd probably regard this band more fondly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34u_3Z9_LUw

Ben Folds - Rockin' The Suburbs - his first "solo" outing from his first "solo" record, of the same title. A pleasantly insubstantial ditty wasted on a string of mostly-unfunny jokes. Weird Al directs, amidst a late-career slump pre-White & Nerdy, which he seems to have spent learning how to use blue screens and a video toaster. Nobody's best work but it used to get stuck in my head a lot, with different rockers inserted in the chorus ("Just like Calvin Johnson did..."). Meanwhile: A remake of the title track featuring William Shatner appeared in the soundtrack for the 2006 film Over the Hedge, which stars Shatner as an opossum named Ozzie.

That Ben Folds song for sure qualifies as a forgotten single for the public at large, but I gotta say his first solo album was really beloved among a certain set of the collegiate crowd. FWIW that record is probably responsible for him not being forgotten after his success in the 90s.

Wow, really? That kinda shocks me; I would have believed that Reinhold Messner and Fear of Pop were cred-enhancing with the cult (I still like "Army," or most of it) but "Rockin' The Suburbs" seems so... lame and dorky. I guess that's not necessarily a negative with certain sets of the collegiate crowd but I'll take anything on Whatever and Ever, Amen first. Or Moxy Fruvous.

I absolutely loved the song Rockin' the Suburbs when it came out, but that was mostly due to me being a dorky high school kid that disliked most of the Nu-metal and rap-rock of the time.

xp I mean, it may depend the college, but I heard it a lot on my campus. I was a sophomore when it came out, and the coworkers at my school job played the hell out of it. It was popular enough that he released a live record a year later, which I also got to hear regularly.

He also toured the hell out of it, then grabbed steady soundtrack work afterward. And his next two records debuted in the top 15, at which point he was the type of established "cult" artist who could make a record with Nick Hornby. Not exactly a superstar, but also not suffering the fate of the guys from Eve6 or Alien Ant Farm.

As far as "certain sets of the collegiate crowd", I'll say that I think his was a pretty canny move to align himself with college a cappella groups later that decade.

I love that Ben Folds album, the title track is the worst thing on it by some distance though, the nadir of his tendency for grating clever-clever smugness

it feels kinds of lyrically lazy, like he doesn't really make any attempt to get inside the head of this character he's portraying in the way that Randy Newman or someone might (I would have liked to hear a Randy Newman song from the pov of a teenage nu-metal fan on Badlove, thinking about it) - which isn't to say that it needs to be a *sympathetic* portrayal, just something more than 'get a load of this idiot'

xp I mean, it may depend the college, but I heard it a lot on my campus. I was a sophomore when it came out, and the coworkers at my school job played the hell out of it.

Naw, it makes sense, just didn't occur to me. The kids I knew were much more Radiohead or Captain Beefheart types and we were all well into our indie rock plunges by that point also. I'd have probably been much more interested in Folds a couple years earlier; I was a nerdy high school kid who did own Whatever and Ever (more for "Battle of Who Could Care Less" and "Song For the Dumped" than "Brick").

but i agree with soref, "Rockin' The Suburbs" would be better and funnier if more specific. Doesn't even have to be that he 'gets' his character more, just like, work some more detail into your nu-metal comedy routine. The involvement of Weird Al is interesting in that it really does feel like one of his lesser efforts (or those of his imitators), where the concept is there but the jokes are generally first-draft.

yeah, the little details are what make something like 'Battle of Who Could Care Less' work, like the Rockford Files reference or the old ID when they were in their goth phase. (I was working on the assumption that the Rockford Files thing is just on the basis that it's the kind of slightly kitschy old TV show that the slacker protagonist might be into in a quasi-ironic/poseurish was, unless it's something more specific than that?)

(and that it's the kind of undemanding thing that would be repeated on daytime tv as well, obv)

haha, for years, because of that lyric, i assumed Rockford Files had to be a Quantum-Leap-like gimmicky show about a guy who could go back and change some things about his past.

in reality i think the lyric works better on the second use ("watch the Rockford Files, call to see if Paul can score some weed"). the first part almost sounds like he's talking (this is an anachronism of course) about somebody's online dating profile or something. i guess maybe it could be about someone defining themselves very sketchily by a set of vague but kinda cool/slacker 'interests,' even while they know their life is kind of schlubby and going nowhere ("but there are some things...").

Above posts otm. "Battle of Who Could Care Less" is an actual character sketch with some funny details, not a Weird Al song minus jokes like Folds' other zany tracks. I bought Whatever and Ever Amen in HS on the strength of it, and still have a warm place in my heart for the track. That song also doesn't contain Folds' favorite crutch: the self-evident hilarity of cursing.

Don't think it's been been mentioned yet, but by far the worst part of "Rocking the Suburbs" is the bridge where he starts singing about slavery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv4NBOWhw9A

I imagine she would prefer that one stay forgotten - those synths...

What's up with her attitude in the vid compared to the lyrics - is she being funny or melancholy?

This is one of those Canadian songs that seems instantly recognizable to me, as if I've heard it a ton of times, but I'm not sure if it's because it got a lot radio play here in Canada, or if it's a shameless knockoff of a more popular song that I just can't quite identify:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVVrwGw4fOo

But I'm pretty sure I don't remember seeing the video for it very often, because that thing is terrible.

I love how the video stuck with the singer's-image-projected-onto-a-female-torso premise for the entire 3.5 mins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYmkJXIdLvg

Pearl Jam - Nothing As It Seems. Got to #3 on Modern rock, and Wikipedia boldly asserts "It is often said that this song is one of the best ever," but I've been mocked on ILX for rating it as high as "decent," and I'd argue that "forgotten" is a fair description of its airplay status today. As a 5:22 exercise in acoustic strumming and atmospheric guitar washes it was probably never going to be a smash, but by spring of 2000, up against Blink-182 and Limp Bizkit, this couldn't have been less in step with the direction of rock radio. The song itself probably doesn't have quite enough meat to justify its big inchoate ~moods~ but, only not quite enough. I rate it... decent.

"BareNaked" has an okay chorus, but overall a very blah song, nothing really coming alive in the mix, and at 3:42 a bit long for this kind of slight nugget of a song. Basically sounds exactly like what you'd expect - studio people hammering a track together and the star coming in to sing over top of it. The video really cements that by having her performing with the "band" somehow looking as much as possible like karaoke, with the band members generally motionless and profoundly out of focus.

The D-Cru cut has shades of "Truly Madly Deeply" in the verse and the chorus sounds like, kind of a million things I think. lol at the torso video. It really just... keeps going with that. Makes "Fever For The Flava's" body-projection gimmick look downright sophisticated.

btw in case you missed the video above, i refer to this delightful character

http://images2.mtv.com/uri/mgid:uma:video:mtv.com:20348?width=657&height=370&crop=true&quality=0.85

i hear that pearl jam pretty often on any non classic rock station i'm likely to hear pearl jam on

yeah i don't think anything in pearl jam discography has been forgotten.

i've tried

mm y'all may be right... i was going to say "well sure but if any pearl jam DOES qualify as forgotten, it's that, right? but they DO have more forgotten songs... nonetheless i think it's in the lower tier of their 2000s output.. just going on spotify plays ("nothing as it seems" sits at 1.133 mil), the following 2000s singles beat it: "the fixer" (6.54 mil), "amongst the waves" (2.92) "i am mine" (2.6), "man of the hour" (2.06), "life wasted" (1.60), "world wide suicide" (1.55), and "light years" (barely, with 1.25). oh and something called "just breathe" at 24 million - beating "jeremy" (22) to come in third in their catalog after "even flow" (28.5) and "alive" (34.2). even allowing for maybe some gaps in time for adding stuff to spotify that seems bonkers to me.

anyway so those all beat "nothing as it seems" and i couldn't sing most of them with a gun to my head. ("the fixer" is a jam though.) that still leaves more-forgotten tunes like the laughably-titled "love boat captain" and "bu$hleaguer" though.

I think "Just Breathe" wasn't released until the Ten reissue. That's a lot of spins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnClm_LZ0D4

Method Man & Busta Rhymes - What's Happenin' - A fine little two-man cut, suggestive of the energy of Meth's earlier collabos with Redman, kept going by very thorough sampling from Asha Bhosle (!)'s "Dum Maro Dum." Heard the original at the bar the other night and was immediately struck by that nagging "wait, where...." feeling. Very certain Method Man has more obscure singles, but I always thought this could have been bigger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPN88D_HjMU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2GEoTO0igI

Probably not the right place for this, but - "Ich Kenne Nichts" by Xavier Naidoo feat. the RZA, a #1 hit in Germany for the schmaltzy, spiritual balladeer, utterly unknown in the US for pretty obvious reasons. I really like the dinkiness of RZA's production, which highlights that super-fakey Yamaha keyboard "distortion guitar" sound to good effect on the chorus; reminds me somehow of Alicia Keys's later "No One."

The top video is the German hit version; the second is the English-language one, which I don't think was a hit anywhere. It's notable for RZA's endearingly goofy verse (which the video actually depicts him phoning in):

Ayo shorty, I never met someone so beautiful
From your hair follicle to your fingernail cuticle
Struck by the arrow of Cupid, this love is deep-rooted
Like someone took my heart, sampled it and looped it

German soul. Never heard a track like that before.

I am now reminded of the time when Icelandic Rap Rock group Quarashi tried to make it in America:
[YouTube monN9Ok0El8]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=monN9Ok0El8

Also would Glenn Lewis count as "Forgotten"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc4mRi7W2Ls

he told me not to, but i did

Forgotten all-female group Dream's "He Loves U Not". Amazing production (that drum sound!) and sass

quarashi is a good call.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A12-KN5UijA

The Crystal Method - The Name of the Game. The "calling all freaks" song with Tom Morello guitar work and the creepy guy with a nose for a head. Heavily MTV2'ed in my memory, and heavily used in soundtracks and search according to Wiki. But it's built out of a bunch of fragmentary hooks, almost waiting to be re-excerpted for little momentary interstitial blurts of sound, leaving it feeling less like a song than, say, "Trip Like I Do."

Not sure if this is quite "forgotten" or just one of those songs that people forget the artist's name:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZkM_nOJ3d4

Also tends to occupy the same space in my mind as BBMak's Back Here, which I do still here from time to time in supermarkets.

Before I even heard the song, or knew who Avril Lavigne was, I remember seeing mentions that there was this new "Complicated" song that was enterring the charts, and I thought they were talking about this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl8CVYeV1Fk

aw, that Evan and Jaron song is (and they are) adorable...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3LE6_y8J0s

Soulfly - Back to the Primitive. Much-mocked around my dorm room (similar to Mudvayne's "Dig" and that Slipknot video where a kid has only rusty, dirty water to pour in his Froot Loops). No idea what just knocked it loose from my memory. Horrendous nu-metal injected with exoticizing hippie bullshit and a video rendered virtually unwatchable through amateurish knob-twiddling re: contrast and saturation. Essentially, "What if Disturbed were more brightly lit?"

my pick for rolling worst songs of 2000 btw

hey i'm a huge fan of "dig" and have never knowingly listened to soulfly so here goes

ok yeah that's rough and i think roots is kind of a masterpiece

I now just remembered the existence of Kottonmouth Kings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba1H-0nNTT8

[ "I Will Be Waiting" by D-Cru/Craig Smart ] - This is one of those Canadian songs that seems instantly recognizable to me, as if I've heard it a ton of times, but I'm not sure if it's because it got a lot radio play here in Canada, or if it's a shameless knockoff of a more popular song that I just can't quite identify

The D-Cru cut has shades of "Truly Madly Deeply" in the verse and the chorus sounds like, kind of a million things I think. lol at the torso video.

At first I heard it as "Backstreet meets Uncle Kraker"... (um... "Krackstreet"?). It might be one of the most shamelessly derivative songs in history! Too much well-known stuff to list. (The chorus alone is Richard Marx's 'Right Here Waiting' plus maybe a bit of "Like A Prayer"... plus, well, that's enough).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDDh93CSRqE

Matt Darey's Mash Up feat. Marcella Woods – "Beautiful"

Speaking of things that sound like things :-) Around the millennium, a lot of UK radio sounded like this. What I'd tentatively call, um, "trance"? "Summery Euro vibes?" "This [track] cannot be classed as Trance it is more like old skool garage music i would say if you count the beats in the record". Well, whatever it's called, dance music was huge then. It made up 37% of UK singles sales in 2000.

(Probably a lot of generic/uninteresting stuff among it, but maybe some hidden gems too. I'm not qualified to judge, evidently!)

I heard that Evan & Jaron song at Wal Mart the other night.

Also: My local Waffle House had a double-sided "Crazy For This Girl" single in it's jukebox for about as long as they had a singles jukebox (8-9 years).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AsLRPzqdpc

Ozzy Osbourne - Gets Me Through (2001). Lead single from his first album in six years (and his last pre-Osbournes). Lyrically tied up in a not-very-interesting meta-commentary on Ozzy's career and his relationship with his fans, but some okay riffing and stuff.

I remember that video, but not the song.

The follow-up single, Dreamer, I remember quite well.

Black Crowes - Lickin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arU46YyLSP0

Mostly I just remember hating the song because I found it obnoxious and annoying, and thought the video was boring.

I wonder if I know the Ozzy more from commercials for it, featuring clips of the video, than of the whole video? Most of it didn't really seem all that familiar, just mainly the "I'm not the Antichrist or / the Iron Man."

The Crystal Method - The Name of the Game. The "calling all freaks" song with Tom Morello guitar work and the creepy guy with a nose for a head. Heavily MTV2'ed in my memory, and heavily used in soundtracks and search according to Wiki. But it's built out of a bunch of fragmentary hooks, almost waiting to be re-excerpted for little momentary interstitial blurts of sound, leaving it feeling less like a song than, say, "Trip Like I Do."

Not to mention that this was used in SO MANY COMMERCIALS, it was totally unavoidable that year

Love that Bad Ronald was mentioned upthread. I heard the song once on MTV and liked it but never heard of them again. "I've been waitin' all day for that Bad Ronald, man!" - one of the alltime greatest song intros, if you ask me

that crystal method was kinda sneakily unavoidable, didn't actually crossover to become a radio hit but managed to be everywhere in some capacity. the last big beat track to manage that kind of profile iirc.

THE BRAVERY - HONEST MISTAKE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8vzbezVru4

Kinda exploiting a New Order vibe.

yeah i suspect "name of the game" was heard way more than much of the stuff in this thread, but without it leading to people knowing it as a piece of music in its own right, even as a thing with no name or artist (the way "rock n roll pt. 2" is) - just some sounds you heard a lot one particular year.

yeah i'm not sure i ever heard it on the radio (i would imagine it got a little airplay on eg 99x but by that point altrock radio was starting to die out and really diminished in terms of having an impact on the larger culture), it never got a high profile film/tv appearance like fatboy slim or lofi allstars and unlike 'days go by' or 'remind me' it use in ads wasn't so prominent and the tune itself wasn't so distinct or songlike as w/ 'days go by' and 'remind me' that it could create a groundswell of interest, it was just generic doritos music.

it's interesting cuz its mainstream profile was probably slightly higher than 'one more time's at the time ('one more time' managed some video airplay but that was it) but 'one more time' had this immediate afterlife as a jock jam and then daft punk become embraced in this profound way in 97 w/ the tour and kanye and bloghouse in general being tied to them so that by the time their effective followup (in that they let everyone know that hey, they're making an effort this time) they'd be well known enough in the mainstream they could get hyped pre-release on kelly ripa and michael strahan.

ha, "doritos music." yeah. i definitely saw that awful nose guy a lot on MTV2 in the dorms, but that pretty much says it all. ha, i was just going to bring up lo-fidelity all-stars - do people know "battleflag" as a song? i was watching coyote ugly with some friends the other night and somehow that was the most jarring and embarrassing musical cue in the whole thing.

"one more time" was off their 2001 album btw; dunno that they ever were well-known in the mainstream til "get lucky" but they went from something that dance people and avid watchers of mtv's electronica programming knew about to something that radiohead/flaming lips people knew about (and liked), and having both in your pocket is probably very helpful for building hype and connections with your kanyes and your blogs and such. i do remember a girl i had a crush on in high school, who was generally not into outlandish or weird music, talking to me in english class about catching this crazy "around the world" video on TV and being really interested in it. so who knows.

"battleflag" got a good bit of radio airplay and was featured very very prominently in a very very big episode of e.r.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAJR8EX40is

Moony - Acrobats (Looking For Balance)

I'm sure I remember this being played on the radio? it was the follow up to Point Of View and Dove (I'll Be Loving You), both of which were huge hits, but this one only reached #64 in the UK charts. apparently Moony released another album in Japan and Brazil in 2009 but I can't find any information on what she's been up to since then.

is Point of View remembered in the US? wikipedia says that it was a 'U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Music Club Play number-one single', but I don't really understand how the US charts work, is that a big deal? did you see a lot of the video with the cardboard woman?

billboard dance music chart is imo the weirdest and most mysterious chart in terms of methodology and what it signifies

iirc they poll a hundred british twentysomethings at random and more or less go with that, but i am not really a regular attendee at Hot Dance Music Clubs. have never heard, or heard of, "moony" before, anyway.

no that chart decidedly doesn't have an anglophile tilt

never seen any tom petty on it either fwiw

hardy har har

Many XPs..."Battleflag" was a Top 10 Modern Rock hit, and was sufficiently recognizable that my local station had a station id tag based on it's chorus for awile in the early '00s.

I think it may have varied a bit regionally? I remember my buddy in Auburn railing against it, like it was this major sensation that they were playing every hour, and me being like "huh, I don't even know what that is." I'd heard it but it wasn't as big of a deal.

it's def '99. from same spring as "praise you" and "let forever be."

oh yeah, wasn't submitting it as "forgotten" here, just following up balls on it being a point of comparison

in retrospect spring 99 peak big beat in america, "rockafeller skank" also peaked here then thx to she's all that - http://youtu.be/r4mQmoD72tc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7iY2pE0mpo

Scent - "Up & Down"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6m7Ga1uRjQ

Bubba Sparxxx - "Lovely" (2001). Probably not so forgotten on websites that host Timbaland track polls (it didn't place). The followup and, I guess, conceptual twin, to "Ugly," but not burdened by trying to offer up a theme song intro number to this new countrified rapper. (The video in particular sheds all the pig-ridin', road-house folks stuff from its predecessor.) The hook is decent and there are some memorable rhymes in there though I can certainly see why it didn't take off. Suspect for most folks his discography has effectively contracted to "Ms. New Booty" and, for the hep cats, "Deliverance."

I liked Deliverance at the time. Were any of the singles from that album on the radio n stuff?

I think I heard/saw "Deliverance" at least a little, but I might be mixing it up with it getting really good reviews and me checking it out? In my mind this was a Pitchfork-hyped album but now I can't find anything about it there. Anyway it made #9 on the US Rap chart so it must have gotten at least a decent amount of airplay for a minute. "Jimmy Mathis" and "Back in the Mud" otoh went absolutely nowhere.

Another pick:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKEWdRPRf3I

Fatboy Slim - Bird of Prey. This was big in the UK, but in the US it was a career-suicide single that I remember getting played on MTV2 for maybe a week or so. It sounds better to me now than it did then, when I was mostly just baffled - this trippy, dreamy little meditation on Jim Morrison (and, apparently, atomic-war pilots on acid) is how he's going to follow up the wacky good times party jams of his smash album? Oookay....!

'lovely' was so dope, to me better than 'ugly'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgBYdsKqCsM

Scapegoat Wax - Aisle 10 (Hello Allison)

Had this brought to my attention tonight. Don't remember it whatsoever but several other people seemed to know it well. Kinda in the interzone between Elwood and "Shaniqua."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMOZRk74QrY

Jin (with some Wyclef interjections) - Learn Chinese

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7F3vWGQsVI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR4WrdUyf7Y

The Breeders - "Huffer" and "Son Of Three." Neither is probably much forgotten by ILX alt-rock types but they're both great songs which were kinda out of time in the radio rock landscape of 2002 (the year of Linkin Park, POD and Chad Kroeger - though "You Know You're Right" did very very well).

The latter's single version is a completely different recording from the album - faster, generally more energetic. Gets stuck in my head all the time. If I find the door... I am the son of Go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB2_MmtMoIc

DMX - Who We Be. Top ten US Rap and had a good stretch of video airplay for a minute but this kind of relentless BA-DUM! BA-DUM! BA-DUM! BA-DUM! had a pretty limited shelf life I think. At the time we reacted to it with easy take-offs, since at first blush he seems to just be listing things and we couldn't make out a lot of the words, so: point at random objects in the room and blurt out their names to the rhythm of the song. Actually reading the lyrics it seems much more pointed and, potentially, powerful than I'd thought. Still can't really get past the sound, personally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILCNAln_7Z4

Trick Daddy - I'm A Thug. #16 on US Rap, following the lower-charting but, I think, much bigger "Take It To Da House." The production on both audio and video could really not be from any moment other than the 99-01 pop interzone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTlKFbZBynE

The Offspring - Original Prankster. Also very much of that period (I think the video, which I can't find, would bear that out) and easily one of the shittiest songs of its entire genre. I've definitely bitched about it on ILX before - a garbage rewrite of the already godawful "Pretty Fly For A White Guy," with a pointless guest turn by Redman, and painstakingly-enunciated first-draft lyrics that bend and contort to try and fit the rhythm without making any real sense. It hit #2 on U.S. Alternative, but if you asked somebody to name a dozen Offspring hits I doubt they'd get to this one.

"Who We Be" is a great song!

Feel like there's a pretty deep well of sunny, club-oriented NOW! pop from this period that's sort of, not forgotten, but probably at a low ebb. Like, JoJo's "Leave (Get Out)" was 2 big a hit 2 be 4gotten... but is there any venue/outlet where it would be heard today? Maybe CVS I guess?

The SiriusXM station Pop2K is all about these.

As for FM, some Top 40 stations have lately been throwing in occasional Pop2K hits from lower in their respective "Hot 100 of the year" lists.

wow, willa ford "i wanna be bad" is a pretty naked rewrite of "sock it 2 me," huh

also at the risk of offending ilx's new wave contingent, adding New Order's "Crystal" to the playlist

"Crystal" is a good choice. This thread goes deep in the MTV2-core.

What was the name of the show on MTV2 where people would vote online for 1 of 3 videos and the voting percentages would update on the screen in real time?

i recently heard iio's club-to-radio crossover "rapture" and honestly am not entirely sure if i heard it back when it was out! it sounds very familiar but is also just slight enough that my mind could have easily forgotten it unless it had been ubiquitous, which it wasn't (in the u.s. -- apparently overseas it was quite a big hit). nice tune either way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wThg2FgIKuI

Deftones - Back to School

Apparently that song was a sop to the label who wanted a lead single for the album, and the band always hated it. But I admit, I like it, late-90s rap-metal corniness and all. The beginning of it is thrilling.

I thought it was cool that they were doing a smash up the school jam seemingly so soon after Columbine & upgraded zero-tolerance policies in schools. Genuinely felt rebellious given that most other Rap Metal was about general angst, swearing, and 5-string bass/7-string guitar.

It was also funny that the label made them cut it for a first single, and then it (relatively) flopped and "Change (In The House of Flys)"--which was about as out-there as one could get in early Clear Channel Rock Radio--blew up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1f4SVqnbKg

Wyclef Jean ft. The Rock, Melky & Sedek - "It Doesn't Matter"

have never stopped loving that one

who could ever forget

IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU NEVER FORGOT

(xp: even if whoever runs Wyclef's youtube channel forgot that his brother and sister were a group)

tbh I hadn't thought of it since Tuesday night, when I saw 2manji

and imagined The Rock still having hair

I think Wyclef "911" fits for this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghGgycFEg64

Tori Amos - Strange Little Girl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7D27mL2JkI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4VpE-0zitU

Cypress Hill - "(Rap) Superstar" and "(Rock) Superstar." Saw "Josie & the Pussycats" the other night and was startled into memory of this dual-marketed track by the odd decision to have Alan Cumming quote the chorus at one point. Feel like I heard these about thirteen times each back in 2000, and then never again since. The "rock" one is really just a rock remix of the same song, similar to "All About the Benjamins" but with more limited meddling.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=97CtEReZEaQ

Cannot fathom this being released in 2003

jesus christ at those tans. early undocumented teal-and-orange color timing job? what a weird video premise btw. jurassic five obviously one-upped them tremendously on the viewmaster gimmick with "quality control."

it was a very saturated era for pop video colors. i just started watching the "who let the dogs out" video on mute while this one still was playing and it was syncing up eerily well.

Cannot fathom this being released in 2003

That's because it was released in 2000.
Or do you mean you couldn't fathom something like this being released anytime later than 2002?

Recently identified this video that I had vague memories of. Mostly remember it for the video, since the song isn't very good:
Handsome Devil - Makin Money
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nRieAoGTW0

Not exactly forgotten but curiously far from every day consciousness.

The video isn't even on YouTube, although that's possibly for NSFW reasons.

Add N to (X) - Plug Me In

https://vimeo.com/88573125

yikes, NSFW indeed.

no memory of that one at all - a UK thing maybe?

I guess mileage does vary with this kind of stuff, but a lot of what's in this thread I never even heard of. Granted some of these that I've googled were VERY minor hits, if that, (ie. never charted at all or hit like #67 on the rap single sales chart for a single week or received airplay in certain markets but didn't really impact elsewhere or w/e)

Either way still cool to be exposed to these songs - some which reveal quite clearly why they never really "made it".

Anyway, my contribution for "once a hit, now totally forgotten" would be Guster's "Satellite" and their lesser hit "Amsterdam"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekt6PELAcEg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0TQVbiWeEs

Once recurrent on Triple A / Adult Top 40 stations (my local "Dave Matthews and friends" AAA certainly did anyway) circa the mid-late 00s, I don't recall having heard these played anywhere this decade whether on terrestrial radio, satellite radio, grocery store/mall PAs. In fact, I totally forgot they existed until some music journo types brought them up on twitter.

saw a promo 12-inch for this one in the racks at a record store recently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBe1ybJarMo

don't ask me how, but i recognized it as one of a number of tunes pushed to top 40 radio from new/unestablished artists in 2001 that ended up going basically nowhere.

a few others fitting the same description:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLdvMQgltTE

this one i remember hearing, but very little. it might have gotten voted off the new music battle that my local station would air on weekday evenings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAo7TTM81gU

like "hottie," another example of the sort of youthful 'rhythmic'/dance hybrid sound that was being somewhat more successfully taken to airwaves via artists like jessica simpson ("irresistible") and christina milian ("am to pm")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maROJsdJNCA

i definitely heard this, but i'm not sure if it was on the radio or on tv?

Oh yeah, “Miss California”, massive hit in Europe (number 1-ish in these parts) - but true, I had completely forgotten about it, even though I quite liked it at the time.

Also in People who have obviously written their own Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Thomas

oh i had no idea "miss california" was a big hit internationally. makes sense tho, pretty catchy tune even if the artist is not an especially distinctive presence on it... lol that wiki page is really something

listening to the lindsay pagano song again and tbh the chorus melody is kinda great, too bad the verses are horrible/clunky/aimless and sound like they're part of an entirely different song

you're good, dyl! these threads inherently involve subjective experience and the vagaries of memory. i mainly just want to shake out things a step or two above "effectively unreleased and unheard," but below stuff that nobody on ILM needs reminding of even if it's faded away a little.

the production on that ashley ballard one is a real time capsule of like, two years before it came out, and amanda's "everybody doesn't" isn't much more a creature of 2001.... or did this stuff hang around longer than my brain is remembering? the hooks just all sounds like rewrites of "sock it 2 me" and "genie in a bottle" to my ears.

huh wow i've definitely heard that Satellite song plenty of times but never knew it was Guster, who i figured must have broken up after their contributions to the late 90s equivalent of this thread. it's from 2008 though - is it time to establish a late-2000s edition?

just updated the spotify playlist with various recent additions. "Miss California" isn't available but that's no mark of shame - to this day, "Land of a Million Drums" languishes off the grid. sigh!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVYSW8swX5I

Rage Against the Machine - Renegades of Funk