Wednesday’s Musical Memory Box solution: Gel, Collective Soul, Collective Soul, 1995. Stephane Dubord begins to put his Royal Stamp on the month of April, getting bonus points for the second day in a row.
Strange but true : Youtube did not have the “Gel” video. I had to find a really crappy version on Daily Motion.
I love it when you guys do the work for me. Stéphane:
“Collective Soul is the most underrated, under appreciated 90s band. Because they never fit the grunge image, they came out right after the grunge explosion when times were uncertain. So many acts were either post-grunge rock (all the flannel, none of the emotion) or the start of that sickening nu-metal stuff. In the midst of that, Canada held tight to its rock bands, which we’ve named many times already in MMB. Along with them, we adopted Collective Soul. A Southern band would seem like a weird fit amongst the neo-CanCons of the time, but at their core, they shared the same ideals: very well written, meaningful songs that rocked out hard or mellowed out in just the right balance.
Unfortunately, their popularity peaked quickly in the US, and after this album and the follow-up, they were passed over for Limp Bizkit and their clones.
I’ve seen Collective Soul in concert 3 times, and have always come away from it totally satisfied. Great shows, great band, great frontman, etc. And always wondering why on earth did they never reach superstardom.”
I believe I also saw Collective Soul three times; once at Carleton, once at the Civic Centre and once at Edgefest, where a huge Canada-themed hot air balloon came into view just as they took the stage, and declared themselves honourary Canadians or something to that effect.
So is Stéphane right? Was Collective Soul the most under appreciated 90′s band? Let us know in the comments section below.
Here are your lyrics for today:
“On the day I was born, the nurses all gathered ’round
And they gazed in wide wonder, at the joy they had found
The head nurse spoke up, and she said leave this one alone”
From Rick Devereux:
“I have a hard time considering Collective Soul “underrated”. Are they as big as U2 or Pearl Jam? No, but they were pretty freakin’ huge. I definitely cannot comment as a huge fan, since this album and the one before it are the only ones I owned but they were one of the bigger bands in the rock world when this album was released. “The World I know” was one of the biggest songs around. From my perspective they seemed a lot like Live. A band that didn’t exactly fit grunge, or what was ‘cool’, but were still close to it, had a couple of really wonderful albums that each had 3–4 songs that got HEAVY HEAVY rotation, and then couldn’t sustain it at that level. (again, not a huge fan, so my possible apologies to their more recent material)
My vote for most underrated band of the 90′s is Pavement – I’m not sure how many MMB players are familiar with them, so here’s a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj6QilYg5VA
And then there’s this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQHstA0cZDw (wherein they take a shot at the pumpkins and STP)
If Nirvana and Alice In Chains and their ilk wrote the blueprint for the grunge era I’d argue that pavement had a big hand in starting the indie movement that became so popular in the 2000′s. They were doing lofi crazy noise, and weird, funny, sarcastic, lyrically complicated and bizarre no-rules stuff all throughout the 90′s, and I would argue that their approach and aesthetic is hugely influential. Perhaps influential is not underrated, but I also think that they are one of the best bands ever, so there we are.
They are a little too weird sounding for mainstream popularity I guess, but I definitely think they are underrated.
They make the best, most bizarrely hilarious videos, and are fun for that reason too, since music videos don’t matter anymore”