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

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."