commercially disappointing major label rock/alternative albums of 1996

Everyone wrong about Sheryl Crow.

Lotta good albums in this list.

II by The Presidents was the first time I'd ever been disappointed in a CD I'd bought. I think I was 11 and it was probably my 5th or 6th CD. I remember thinking, "it sounds like they made half of these songs up in an afternoon"

I also recall Factory Showroom being a huge disappointment, like it was almost a betrayal that TMBG had made such a "normal" rock album. It's still pretty weird of course. In retrospect its probably one of their finest albums, I remember putting it on recently and thinking it made a case for TMBG as part of the same power pop lineage as Costello & Squeeze. It does have that really awful "XTC vs. Adam Ant" song on it though

i've warmed on factory showroom thanks to the TMBG poll thread discussions. even at the time it felt to me like a helpful course correction *away* from John Henry's generic rock band move. i just wish it had felt more overstuffed with ideas and songs, like their older albums.

Hey Look: https://www.spin.com/2021/09/1996-alternative-bubble-burst/

from ILM poll to SPIN article in 9 years

well done, some dude

i dunno if it'll do as well as some of my earlier works, but i think it'll attain a cult following over time

― Neil Young’s social media channels (some dude), Thursday, May 3, 2012 12:55 PM (nine years ago) bookmarkflaglink

In the UK '96 was ofc alt rock - or rather, Britpop - saturation year but I think if we have a "commercially disappointing major label rock/alternative album of 1996" then it's C'mon Kids. Not sure framing this around its relative uncommercial nature can go too far either - Mansun never saw Six bomb like the Radleys did Kids.

Duritz cut his hair not long ago.

And Satellites is a great fuckin' album.

Man, I love New Adventures. I actually think it's a great album, the last one R.E.M. made (although I think Up is a pretty good album too).

Wait a minute, I interpreted the poll backwards (i.e. vote for the worst), hah.

Bad Religion's "Grey Race" was the right amount of bleak cynicism for a new college liberal like me when I first got it.

I still love the album and most of the songs.

"Cease" is the one on my mind lately

Wait a minute, I interpreted the poll backwards (i.e. vote for the worst), hah.

That's how I read it!

worst album in that list has to be Bush - Razorblade Suitcase

I bought Razorblade Suitcase in a charity shop for pennies last week. Why is it so long :(

this was very definitely a "best" poll, fwiw, and a very good some dude thread!

I miss the dude in class who used to mimic Gavin Rossdale's voice

"THAT'S JUST FOINE
THAT'S JUST ONE OF MY NAIMZ"

and the girl in typing class I think I mentioned upthread who at random times of class would just sing (loudly) SWALLLOWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED

DO YOU KNOW THE WORDS?
SING ALONG WITH ME
AND PUT ON YOUR ROSE FUR COAT, BABY
CAUSE IT'S 1973

this was the best year for selling promo CDs for decent money when your lack of financial compensation was "made up for" in promo CDs ... like there was still enough suspension of disbelief in the likelihood of major label mediocrity for record stores to pay well.

In the UK '96 was ofc alt rock - or rather, Britpop - saturation year but I think if we have a "commercially disappointing major label rock/alternative album of 1996" then it's C'mon Kids. Not sure framing this around its relative uncommercial nature can go too far either - Mansun never saw Six bomb like the Radleys did Kids.

― you can see me from westbury white horse, Monday, July 11, 2022 7:05 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I have a 33 1/3 book idea floating round my head about this album, essentially how you can almost hear when Alan McGee comes into the Studio to check its going to be another smash hit, and all their attempts to sabotage this, without letting him know till its too late.

I remember that Tricky's Nearly God (technically "Nearly God's Nearly God") and Pre-Millennium Tension didn't sell all that well compared to Maxinquaye. And yet according to Wikipedia Tension did in fact sell almost as well as Maxinquaye, so what do I know. His commercial appeal dropped off after that.

As Mr Horse points out 1996 was completely different in the UK. It was the peak year of Britpop (and also "intelligent drum and bass" and to a lesser extent trip-hop and big beat), and also towards the end of the year the Spice Girls became a thing. Record sales were buoyant. It was a golden period for the record industry. The record labels had money to burn. MP3s were not yet a thing. There was also a sharp dividing line between pre-Britpop and Britpop acts. Only a few pre-Britpop acts remained relevant, e.g. Primal Scream, Suede etc.

I have the impression that behind the scenes a lot of Britpop albums were commercially disappointing for the record labels, in the same way that a lot of 1977 punk albums had been commercially disappointing - they charted well and sold well briefly, but the labels put a tonne of money into promotion and didn't make a huge profit - which explains why so many Britpop acts made a second album that didn't sell well and were then dropped by the label. The same thing happened to the girl groups and boy bands that followed, e.g. B*Witched, who were dropped after one of their singles didn't get into the top ten. But you'd need to know what was going on behind the scenes to evaluate that.

I love many of these albums unreservedly because 1996 was the year I became a full-on music obsessive as a wide-eyed and ignorant fourth grader. Lots of formative memories: being simultaneously creeped out and intrigued by the video for Metallica's "Until It Sleeps"; Filth Pig and Wild Mood Swings being heavily promoted in Columbia House ads; Bush's "Swallowed", Better Than Ezra "Desperately Wanting" and the Cranberries' "Free To Decide" on heavy alt-rock radio rotation, etc, etc.

Of course it was lost on me at the time that lots of these were critical and/or commercial flops except for Fairweather Johnson, which was treated as a major cultural event when it dropped but failed to make much of an impact after a couple weeks. Actually New Adventures In Hi-Fi too--it dropped on the heels of their unprecedented $80 million 5-record deal, so the fact that it didn't blow up like their last few was considered a big deal.

Would have voted for New Adventures, with Boys For Pele and Pinkerton as close runners-up.

I was a big Ministry fan between 1988-1992 but I never listened to Filth Pig until a couple of years ago. It's actually a pretty solid record — kind of a Jourgensen take on Amphetamine Reptile/Touch & Go-style noise rock. It's even got Rey Washam of Scratch Acid, Rapeman, etc. on drums!

Good God’s Urge is a fun, tight little album. “Freeway” is silly, but I really like most of it. Perry Farrell’s last listenable work, frankly. Peter DiStefano has a really unique and beautiful guitar tone; little wonder that he plays on many film scores

"I have the impression that behind the scenes a lot of Britpop albums were commercially disappointing for the record labels"

UK edition: commercially disappointing major label rock/alternative albums of 1999

That Cast one with Beat Mama
The second Kula Shaker
The Reef one
Gene
Ocean Colour Scene One from the Modern

I'm way too easily cherrypicking but only the really hated second wave Britpop bands seemed to suffer (Supergrass braved the weather, Ash (98 actually) were doomed at first but got it together again etc. Also how easily Travis could have died their death with The Man Who if WDIAROM was never the third single).

In the poll I'd have voted New Adventures easily

Also "Salvation" is my favourite Cranberries song. Crap lyrics but good/funny idea to fuse Cali punk/horns/speed with Joy Division-ish sullenness. The video makes it even better - all this money, how to spend it?

Actually how many of these albums have music videos do that really mid-90s alt-rock thing of v. saturated/exposed colours and white flashes? I'd be sad if it isn't most of them.

This is the thread I come back to the most after New Jersey

it's so good!

between _Spike_ and the Bacharach collab EC inhabited a strange interzone. I'm not sure who was buying his records besides me.

C'Mon Kids is still the best example of this, in theory anyway, but it was in the UK not the US and in the UK 1996 was alt rock (read: britpop)'s 1994 moment

this is almost exactly the year I noped out of radio-based alternative music and started digging more into 'indie' music. I'm surprised All this Useless Beauty may have sold poorly though, they certainly poured a lot of promotion into it

EC was scoring Alternative Radio hits in America up through Brutal Youth, and then immediately dropped off the radar except for his core audience like so many other still-active '80s College Rock faves (Moz, Westerberg, Siouxsie, Peter Murphy etc.).

...and then he embraced Elder Statesman status with the Bacharach album, awards show appearances, famous new wife, more reissue campaigns etc.

brutal youth is his best album

Brutal Youth was almost a UK No. 1 album. Got him on the same TOTP episode as Moz and Mark E Smith. Can only imagine what it was like backstage.

funny thing about EC is that he's successful all the way from the 70s through to the 90s, but I'd be surprised if many people would know any of his songs post 1983.

yes I've noticed his UK chart positions

EC was scoring Alternative Radio hits in America up through Brutal Youth, and then immediately dropped off the radar except for his core audience like so many other still-active '80s College Rock faves (Moz, Westerberg, Siouxsie, Peter Murphy etc.).

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain),

"13 Steps Lead Down" and "Kinder Murder" got play oh my college station in spring '94, after which...zero. He was on Letterman that season a couple times after Dave said he dug his guitar playing.

13 steps lead down was considered a "return to form"

by then I was way into Aphex Twin and Warp records stuff so it did not revive ym interest in contemporary EC

R.E.M. was my favourite at the time and still is, but the Pixies record is solid throughout and maybe their best, they are less in thrall to their guitar sounds than they were on Frosting on the Beater.

Don't know whether the Soundgarden or the STP records better illustrate a band falling apart in 90s style. I like five songs on each. At least Tiny Music is 24 minutes shorter; the last half of Down on the Upside is a wasteland.

I like five songs on each.

...including all the singles on each except for "Ty Cobb". I am obviously the sort of fairweather fan who stifled these bands' creativity by disdaining such bold strokes as "Overfloater" and "Art School Girl".

Listening to Tiny Music right now. The '90s were so full of these minute-long instrumental album openers.

I loved Ty Cobb at the time for the banjo.

OK, the singles are seriously really good! And I do like the mellow jams a bit ("Daisy" is beautiful!), but the rockers are a bit shit. And "I got a girlfriend, she goes to art school. I got an art school girlfriend" strong contender for worst lyric of all-time. Aha! "Referencing the Tiny Music... album in his memoir, Not Dead and Not For Sale, Stone Temple Pilots lead singer Scott Weiland wrote: "We wanted to make a statement. We wanted to deconstruct, go low-tech, get to the dark heart of the matter. I was happy to write Bowie-esque stream-of-consciousness lyrics that didn't need to make sense. Example: 'Big Bang Baby.'" You call it stream-of-consciousness, I call it lazy.

I listened to Tiny Music earlier too. And it's pretty Britpop?? In a way not unlike Monster, although the production is decidedly different. I guess this is just what happens when you're a 90s alt rock band going glam.

I though tit was a pretty good album but I was maybe expecting a bit more eclecticism, given its reputation as a quasi-art-pop curveball. Isn't No Code meant to be one too? I haven't heard it in about 12 years and remember nothing of it.

No Code is more of a shaggy contemplative and atypically acoustic curveball. a few missteps but a good album, and probably did the most of any of these to help the band move forward or find their long-term footing.

(well, Load too, but not in a good way)

I enjoy Who You Are (the only song off it I know) because great drums and fun as a deliberately fanbase-slimming choice of lead single a la The 13th and E-Bow the Letter.