commercially disappointing major label rock/alternative albums of 1996

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.

the Pixies record is solid throughout and maybe their best

Posies record, obviously. I was distracted thinking about K. S.