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

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

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