commercially disappointing major label rock/alternative albums of 1996

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.

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"

^^^^this looks positively hellish to me tbh

Video didn't help

Was this the year alt-rock died? This is a pretty dire list. The only two I own are the REM and Soundgarden and I don't really like either. Think I'll pass...

I still play "Black Love," and would have no problem playing "New Adventures." "No Code" holds up well, for Pearl Jam. "Pinkerton" is pretty good, too. "Down on the Upside" features one of only a couple Soundgarden songs I really like.

Some of those above albums were so bad they were in cutout bins the day the album came out.

Don't think I've ever heard Neil Young's "Broken Arrow," which serves the same purpose for an act I otherwise adore as "Test for Echo" does for Rush.

"Only Wanna Be With You" is available, hootie-wise, thanks to a Rhino Hi-Five: Summer Hits comp. That and "I Go Blind" are it, though.

I definitely understand if someone thinks "El Scorcho" is the stand-out, either in a good or bad way.

"I'm The Ocean" is the only track on Mirror Ball that I think is a must-hear for Neil fans.

"I'm The Ocean" is his best post-SWA track period.

xp Re: the year alt-rock died, a similar thread could have easily been put together for 97 or 98. it was a totally different game by the start of 99.

eminem/blink/slipknot/etc

a similar thread could have easily been put together for 97 or 98.

samadhi, yo. samadhi.

this is Filth Pig btw

if some dude made similar lists for 1997 and 1998, i would certainly take kindly to them.

i think the roster of high profile failures was smaller for '97 or '98, but yeah it was an overall trend all through that period.

i checked Test For Echo when putting together the list but Rush held onto the same kind of sales figures as Counterparts

amazingly we haven't even gotten to how uniformly bad the cover art is for almost every single one of these, either.

was the cover art great for any of the big hit albums before these, though?

Not a fan of any of these but if I had to listen to any one of them right now it would be October Rust.

'99 was the year after the first huge major-label merge.. lots of rock bands were dropped from majors, and the ones who weren't received little to no push regarding radio spins.. bands like cardigans and local h and nada surf tried to follow-up on their initial success but no one was working to promote them, and the idea of maintaining career artists out of the 90's alt-rock bands seemed like a lost cause.

aka weezer chose a very good time to go on a batshit insane hiatus.

REM> Screaming Trees> Tori> pthrrrt

was the cover art great for any of the big hit albums before these, though?

― da croupier, Thursday, May 3, 2012 4:07 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

probably not, no, just saying

man, NO ONE likes that cure album..

because it's a bag of shit

it has 2 great songs ("Want", "The 13th"), 4 good/okay songs ("Jupiter Crash", "Trap", "Bare", "Treasure"), one song I like even though I think it's objectively terrible ("Gone!") and then everything else is horrible (I will grant them "Round and Round and Round" was great live but not so much on record)

this is Filth Pig btw

― suidavyvan eht nioj (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, May 3, 2012 2:05 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nuh-uh. "Reload" is the shit, tho.

i like mint car even though it's so stupid.

listening to it now!

CLOUDS DRIFT BY AND EVERYTHING IS LIKE A DREAM

what i don't get is that robert smith claims that he hated "friday i'm in love" and then "mint car" was obviously intended to be a follow-up to that song.

the fact that both "Mint Car" and "Return" are on that album hurts me deep in my heart

what i don't get is that robert smith claims that he hated "friday i'm in love" and then "mint car" was obviously intended to be a follow-up to that song.

Maybe he thought "Friday I'm In Love" was too charming? idk

"We hated our second highest charting single so much that we're going to hold our noses and record a soundalike."

is he actually saying anything during the guitar break just before the two minute point? "sinkin shacuzzy in a goomp"?

that part rules haha

Though I might dismiss it as hoary pseudo-psych if listening for the first time at 29, I loved "Dust" at the time. And I still play it, and I don't know anyone else who owns it - unlike about half the albums here, it really was a flop. So it gets my vote.

Smart poll. I would totally read a book on 1996: The Year Alternative Broke (But In a Bad Way)

"yeah, sink in...shark coozie in a hoo............................OW!"

lol this song is hiliarous, i don't think i'd heard "mint car" SINCE 96

I think it's code for "please please please kick me in the nuts as hard as you possibly can"

Dust got really strong reviews in the UK. I was under the impression it was big in the US until I was writing something about Lanegan and discovered how badly it bombed.

God all these songs got serious rotation on State College's The Revolution 101.1. I've said it elsewhere, but I didn't realize how privileged I was to have a local radio station that played all this shit as well as like, Chavez and Sebadoh in 1996.

the tragic thing is, no matter how bad I think "Mint Car" is, there are WAY WAY WAY worse songs on WMS

fucking "Club America" for example, I dare you guys to sit through that

haha been there did that in 1996

the only song I can recall from a mixtape i made off the radio around this time that isn't on the above album list is NIN's "The Perfect Drug"

do most cure fans hate mint car this much?

I had just become arts editor of my college paper after writing a couple of years and I had never seen so many promo CD's coming into the office; I saw every one of the albums here around the office at some point (I reviewed that Cure album) along with Imperial Teen, Jonny Polonsky, Jars of Clay, etc. Major labels were swimming in loot.

lol i heard the big Jars of Clay song on the radio the other day

produced by Adrian Belew!

xxxpost:

Nope. I like 'Mint Car', and I like 'Return' too.

pinkerton

wild mood swings was bought out of loyalty. The point where I ceased to look forward to new Cure albums (unimaginable to my teenaged self). They have done good stuff since tho.