commercially disappointing major label rock/alternative albums of 1996

Afghan Whigs were a band i always assumed i'd really dig but never got around to their albums until Spotify made it super convenient and uh...nah, don't really like them nearly as much as i thought i would.

― Neil Young’s social media channels (some dude), Thursday, May 3, 2012 11:57 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^this

― O_o-O_0-o_O (jjjusten), Thursday, May 3, 2012 11:57 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

afghan whigs are just horrible. so bellowy and gross. like being beaten with a sweaty brick.

Weezer were never good for more than four singles.

i listened to Pinkerton again today trying to figure out if i'm being stubborn and contrarian about it but no, it's just terrible.

it's not a great album, overall, but it does have some great songs on it. suppose a lot of these are half-defensible by that standard...

Weezer were never good for more than four singles.

i like the debut pretty much all the way through.

No Sammy, Tales Of Great Neck Glory, no credibility.

I must have listened to that PUSA album 50+ times back in those days. Mostly because it was the only tape I owned and I didn't always have access to a CD player. I actually got the first PUSA disc taken away from me (I was blasting it in my room w/ the window open and my parents came home right as "Fuck you kitty" came on). Dunno if I could stomach II today - I remember "Lunatic to Love" and "Volcano" and maybe "Mach 5" well but the rest was full of so much generic rock riffing and genuinely unclever lyrics, though I remember a few funny moments in retrospect.

I voted Factory Showroom - I remember such a huge backlash at the time since it had things that resembled *real* three-verses-and-a-bridge songs and had ONLY 13 songs on it, but in retrospect it was a pretty tight album. "Spiralling Shape" was my favorite song ever for a while.

some major sophomore slumps on this list!

underperforming major label debuts are a different category re: Sammy

whigs

Bush - Razorblade Suitcase
Counting Crows - Recovering The Sattelites
Gin Blossoms - Congratulations I'm Sorry
Hootie & The Blowfish - Fairweather Johnson
Metallica - Load
Pearl Jam - No Code
Soundgarden - Down On The Upside
Stone Temple Pilots - Tiny Music... Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop

All of these had songs that were on the radio a lot.. some had #1 modern rock singles, and a few of these were #1 on Billboard albums. And except for Pearl Jam, they all had decently huge MTV videos.

http://emptyv.multimedia.cx/eMpTyV/index-1996.html - they all have videos featured in this list which was shown on MTV several times and whose results were partially based around album sales.

i remember secretly thinking 'razorblade suitcase' at least sounded awesome (not knowing anything about albini at the time) and also liking (gulp) ministry's dylan cover

feel like there's a whole paper to be written about just the titles of these records.

I used to be crazy about Black Love, but the only one of these that I think is classic now is Pinkerton.

If Exit The Dragon had been 1996 I might have voted for it just to keep it from getting a goose egg, though.

Fuckin... this list makes me feel like I'm lying on my back in a used bin, in a state of sleep paralysis.

wow awesome link billstevejim

Vatican gift shop, Ioved it. Also the art.

real talk, i heard "Old Man & Me" on the radio recently and kinda jammed to it

I don't get why Pinkerton sounds bad to some people.. "Falling For You" and "Across The Sea" are the exact opposite of "terrible"

boys for pele i guess

really im not voting because ive only heard four of these records

this is not what the 90s was like in my head

STP's transition from grunge cavemen to pop art aesthetes was very abrupt and difficult for people to accept

oh c'mon lamp just vote for tori

Pinkerton and STP are both solid. I'm gonna vote for Tiny Music because Pinkerton will receive votes no matter what.

take "Big Bang Baby" off Tiny and I think its value drops estimably

very abrupt and difficult for people to accept

haha you got that right

"Tumble in the rough" -> "big bang baby" - > "lady picture show" is a pretty awesome 3 in a row.. "Ride the Cliche" is great also.

Poor Scotty dubs

I'm lying on my back in a used bin, in a state of sleep paralysis

Primitive Radio Gods title

even if you're a fan of pinkerton it's not hard to see why it wouldn't be your first choice to license singles to rockband.

the '99 list from billstevejim's link could be from '89:

Blink 182 – All the Small Things
Bush – The Chemicals Between Us
Eve – Gotta Man
Warren G. f/Mack-10 – I Want It All
Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey – When You Believe
Jay-Z – Girl’s Best Friend
Moby – Bodyrock
Offspring – She’s Got Issues
Powerman 5000 – When Worlds Collide
Sting – Brand New Day

CLASSIC VIDEOS
Billy Joel – We Didn’t Start the Fire (1989)
Sir Mix-a-Lot – Baby Got Back (1992)

imo top 20 best singles from these albums:

Soundgarden - "Burden In My Hand"
Counting Crows - "Angels Of The Silences"
Pearl Jam - "Who You Are"
Stone Temple Pilots - "Big Bang Baby"
Tori Amos - "Caught A Lite Sneeze"
Metallica - "Hero Of The Day"
Better Than Ezra - "Desperately Wanting"
The Cranberries - "Salvation"
Weezer - "El Scorcho"
R.E.M. - "Bittersweet Me"
Hootie & The Blowfish - "Old Man & Me (When I Get To Heaven)"
Screaming Trees - "All I Know"
Elvis Costello - "It's Time"
The Presidents of the United States of America - "Volcano"
The Posies - "Ontario"
Afghan Whigs - "Honky's Ladder"
Bush - "Greedy Fly"
Weezer - "The Good Life"
Tori Amos - "Professional Widow"
Porno For Pyros - "Tahitian Moon"

spotify playlist I'm considering making for myself that reveals which albums I've heard deep cuts from and which ones I've never heard:

"My Enemy"/"A Walk"/"Desperately Wanting"/"Swallowed"/ "Angels Of The Silences"/ "Salvation"/ "Mint Car"/ "Follow You Down"/ "Hero Of The Day"/ "I'm The Ocean"/ "Mankind"/ "Mach 5"/ "Tahitian Moon"/ "Departure"/ "Sworn And Broken"/ "Pretty Noose"/ "Wax Ecstatic"/ "Big Bang Baby"/ "I Can Hear You"/ "Hey Jupiter"/ "El Scorcho"

lol xpost swear to god

man, NO ONE likes that cure album..

"Want," "The 13th" and "Mint Car" I'll rep for, though it's def the end of the road for me

don't know if i heard more than 2 or 3 of these in their entirity. love Tahitian Moon and the STP singles. don't recognize the names of any of the soundgarden singles from this album.

I've always liked "Smile" by Pearl Jam and was unsure why it wasn't a huge radio hit..

The Presidents of the United States of America - "Volcano"

Yeah, Wild Mood Swings is far from one of my favourite Cure releases. I'd definitely keep the three songs da croupier listed above, and maybe 'Return' at a push, but that's about it.

man i love pinkerton but i don't really get "el scorcho" at all, it's a terrible and embarrassing song

Hongro is the board's Wild Mood Swings champion iirc

1996 was not the right year to release a single like "The 13th."

"eclectic" and "bright" were the college radio charts in 1990

I've always liked "Smile" by Pearl Jam and was unsure why it wasn't a huge radio hit..

― billstevejim, Thursday, May 3, 2012 3:48 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

for a while PJ had worked out a nice scam of letting their not making videos translate to radio playing whatever catchy songs were on the album whether or not they had videos. by No Code that had started to slow down and "Red Mosquito" was the only non-single that charted. "Smile" is pretty good but i dunno if it really was an obvious hit.

down on the upside, easy

xp "smile" stood out for me the first time i heard it because i could remember the words very quickly..

damn you metallica, for being powerful enough to keep spotify from cutting into your cd sales. everyone else on my list is willing to be exploited however.

well I loved that Bad Religion album but they were also my favorite band at that point.

spotify has no hootie. DOWN WITH HOOTIE

1996 was not the right year to release a single like "The 13th."

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 3, 2012 7:52 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I totally agree. I can't speak for the US, but in the UK it felt very much out-of-step with what was going on at the time. I like 'The 13th' a lot, but 'Mint Car' was definitely a more obvious single.

'i don't really get "el scorcho" at all, it's a terrible and embarrassing song'

it's a little goofy, but no more embarrassing than a few of the other tracks on that album -- the other tracks are so earnest, they're actually a little more embarrassing, to be honest. (I guess it's the difference between camp and kitsch?) i'd definitely monetize "el scorcho" over the others.