The Post-Grunge Thread

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namkcuR

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"Post-grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged in the mid-1990s as a derivative of grunge, using the sounds and aesthetic of grunge, but with a more commercially acceptable tone."

So says Wikipedia, and it sounds about right. I felt like starting a thread dedicated to all of those post-grunge bands that were huge from the mid 90s to the beginning of the 00s. A lot of these bands haven't had a great deal of staying power in terms of relevance, but they put out some really big(commercially) albums and hit singles during their time in the sun. A small handful of post-grunge groups sort of transcended the label and period and don't really need to be lumped in with the rest(bands like Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer, Stone Temple Pilots, Counting Crowes), but for most of them, I think they have sort of become to the 90s what hair bands were/are to the 80s - acts that were extremely successful in their time and are maybe even still popular with those who grew up with them, but that don't share much wider relevance anymore(though that doesn't necessarily mean some of them aren't still making new music).

While certainly not what I listen to most now, this music still has significant sentimental/nostalgic value to me and, I think, to a lot of people who grew up during that time period. Plus there are some legitimately good tunes there too. I created this thread to hopefully start a discussion about it amongst other people who grew up during that era and have the same sort of sentimental attachments to this stuff, even it's not stuff you'd often listen to anymore.

Here is a list of some of the biggest singles and albums from this era. Mind you, some of these bands/songs don't share 'the' post-grunge sound, but were pop-rock-ish in nature and came from the same era(and not all of them were new at the time, some had been around for a while and just broke through commercially during this era):

Barenaked Ladies:
Brian Wilson
Old Apartment
One Week
It's All Been Done
Never Is Enough

Better Than Ezra:
Desperately Wanting

Blink 182:
What's My Age Again?
All The Small Things
Adam's Song

Bush:
Glycerine
The Chemicals Between Us

Collective Soul:
Shine
Run

Creed
Higher
With Arms Wide Open
My Sacrifice

Deep Blue Something:
Breakfast At Tiffany's

Eagle Eye Cherry:
Save Tonight
Falling In Love Again

Eve 6:
Inside Out
Leech
Open Road Song

Everclear:
I Will Buy You A New Life
Father Of Mine
Everything To Everyone

Fastball:
The Way
Fire Escape
Out Of My Head

Fuel:
Hemorrhage(In My Hands)

Gin Blossoms:
Hey Jealousy

Goo Goo Dolls:
Name
Iris
Slide
Black Balloon
Dizzy
Broadway

Harvey Danger:
Flagpole Sitta

Lifehouse:
Hanging By A Moment

Lit:
My Own Worst Enemy
Zip-lock
Miserable

Live:
The Dolphin's Cry

Marcy Playground:
Sex And Candy

Matchbox 20:
Push
3AM
Real World
Back 2 Good
Long Day
Bent
If You're Gone
Mad Season
Last Beautiful Girl

Nine Days:
Absolutely(The Story Of A Girl)

Offspring:
Pretty Fly(For A White Guy)
Why Don't You Get A Job
The Kids Aren't Alright
I Want You Bad

Semisonic:
Closing Time
Singing In My Sleep
Secret Smile

Silverchair:
Ana's Song(Open Fire)

Smashmouth:
Walkin' On The Sun
All-Star
Then The Morning Comes
Waste

Staind:
It's Been A While

Sugar Ray:
Fly
Every Morning
Falls Apart
Someday

Third Eye Blind:
Semi-Charmed Life
How's It Gonna Be
Jumper
Losing A Whole Year
Graduate
Anything
Never Let You Go
Deep Inside Of You
10 Days Late

Tonic:
If You Could Only See

Vertical Horizon:
Everything You Want

Verve Pipe:
The Freshmen

Wallflowers:
One Headlight
The Difference

Some of the biggest albums:

Barenaked Ladies - Stunt
Blink 182 - Enema Of The State
Creed - Human Clay
Everclear - So Much For The Afterglow
Fastball - All The Pain Money Can Buy
Goo Goo Dolls - Dizzy Up The Girl
Lit - A Place In The Sun
Matchbox 20 - Yourself Or Someone Like You
Offspring - Americana
Semisonic - Feeling Strangely Fine
Smashmouth - Fush Yu Mang and Astrolounge
Sugar Ray - 14:59
Third Eye Blind - Eponymous/Self-Titled
Wallflowers - Bringing Down The Horse

Discuss.
 
Well, I'd be lying of I didn't say this was 90% of the music I listened to when I was 14-16. Fortunately, I discovered there's so much more music out there other than what the radio plays, and I continue to be baffled at the sheer amount of radio play the bulk of those songs still get today (see: the spin doctors "two princes." ).

I'm not usually prone to nostalgia, but there are still a lot of things from that period that I do still have a great deal of fondness for (see: any time I've mentioned the barenaked ladies, or my last.fm can tell you how I listened to better than Ezra last week).
 
There are like three bands on that list that are post-grunge, and they're the worst three.

This thread could be better titled "90s radio rock."
 
OK, I think I follow.

Of those songs you listed, Closing Time is one of my favorites. I listened to that album a couple years ago on the strength of that track, and it was decent.
 
Well then if it's just about that era, where are Radiohead, Beck, Oasis, Blur, Incubus, etc.? I mean, is this just really a list of music that came out in the mid-to-late 90s...?
 
the tourist said:
Well then if it's just about that era, where are Radiohead, Beck, Oasis, Blur, Incubus, etc.? I mean, is this just really a list of music that came out in the mid-to-late 90s...?
Click to expand...

There's still a certain sound that a lot of them share though. A lot of them are the late 90s pop-rock thing. Radiohead, outside of Pablo Honey, has pretty much nothing in common with any of the bands listed. Nor does Oasis really. Plus, the same reason I didn't include Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, etc, that I stated in the OP - Radiohead and Oasis transcend the time period, they're not associated with a certain period in time like a bunch of these bands are.
 
Creed and Bush have literally nothing in common with Gin Blossoms and Barenaked Ladies musically.

But I get what you mean, in the sense that these bands are associated with the mid to late 90s, an era that succeeded grunge, so they are "post-grunge" bands in that sense.
 
namkcuR said:
There's still a certain sound that a lot of them share though. A lot of them are the late 90s pop-rock thing. Radiohead, outside of Pablo Honey, has pretty much nothing in common with any of the bands listed. Nor does Oasis really. Plus, the same reason I didn't include Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, etc, that I stated in the OP - Radiohead and Oasis transcend the time period, they're not associated with a certain period in time like a bunch of these bands are.
Click to expand...

I really don't think Harvey Danger has anything in common with most of those bands unless you're only considering Flagpole Sitta and the quicker vocal delivery akin to some of the other bands listed. In which case, maybe. But they sure don't sound alike. Anyway, with regard to Radiohead, you say that only Pablo Honey sounds like this genre/time period/unquantified list... so where does that leave The Bends, a very guitar driven post-grunge album?
 
the tourist said:
I really don't think Harvey Danger has anything in common with most of those bands unless you're only considering Flagpole Sitta and the quicker vocal delivery akin to some of the other bands listed. In which case, maybe. But they sure don't sound alike. Anyway, with regard to Radiohead, you say that only Pablo Honey sounds like this genre/time period/unquantified list... so where does that leave The Bends, a very guitar driven post-grunge album?
Click to expand...

I also said Radiohead, among some other bands too, weren't included because they transcended the time period. Because they were/are better than 100% of the above list. In short, they're too good for the list.

And yes, I've never heard a Harvey Danger song other than Flagpole Sitta, so that's what I'm basing that on.
 
namkcuR said:
I also said Radiohead, among some other bands too, weren't included because they transcended the time period. Because they were/are better than 100% of the above list. In short, they're too good for the list.

And yes, I've never heard a Harvey Danger song other than Flagpole Sitta, so that's what I'm basing that on.
Click to expand...

So, a post-grunge (era-wise) band is too good for a post-grunge (era-wise) list? :hmm: Does that mean that bands like The Who and Pink Floyd aren't classic rock bands because they still had success in the 80s?
 
the tourist said:
So, a post-grunge (era-wise) band is too good for a post-grunge (era-wise) list? :hmm: Does that mean that bands like The Who and Pink Floyd aren't classic rock bands because they still had success in the 80s?
Click to expand...

The list is specifically a list of bands that had big commercial success in a certain era but nothing near it after, a list of bands that are associated by most with a specific 5-7 year period rather than being timeless like Radiohead. I don't know what's so hard to understand.
 
namkcuR said:
The list is specifically a list of bands that had big commercial success in a certain era but nothing near it after, a list of bands that are associated by most with a specific 5-7 year period rather than being timeless like Radiohead. I don't know what's so hard to understand.
Click to expand...

That makes sense. The only bands I see on there that are even still operational as far as I know are Goo Goo Dolls and BNL.
 
A pretty nostalgic list for me, not because I liked all this music, but because this was the era I grew up more or less.

I think some of these bands you may not have the best or even most nostalgic songs, but a pretty decent list.

I think Live may deserve a different spot, this particular song was right about the time they were declining. They had some pretty solid albums.

I think you're missing some of the more nostalgic songs from Bush.

I never gave Better Than Ezra a chance during their height, but they wrote some decent songs, one of my favorites is a later song, Overcome.
 
iron yuppie said:
That makes sense. The only bands I see on there that are even still operational as far as I know are Goo Goo Dolls and BNL.
Click to expand...

And Third Eye Blind.

And Harvey Danger until 2006.

namkcuR said:
The list is specifically a list of bands that had big commercial success in a certain era but nothing near it after, a list of bands that are associated by most with a specific 5-7 year period rather than being timeless like Radiohead. I don't know what's so hard to understand.
Click to expand...

Because The Bends is so timeless? Anyway, I guess it's just hard to understand why your arbitrary list of bands that don't sound similar leave out bands that were there at the same time just because they changed a half a decade later into something completely different.
 
BVS said:
A pretty nostalgic list for me, not because I liked all this music, but because this was the era I grew up more or less.

I think some of these bands you may not have the best or even most nostalgic songs, but a pretty decent list.

I think Live may deserve a different spot, this particular song was right about the time they were declining. They had some pretty solid albums.

I think you're missing some of the more nostalgic songs from Bush.

I never gave Better Than Ezra a chance during their height, but they wrote some decent songs, one of my favorites is a later song, Overcome.
Click to expand...

Unless better than Ezra had a song called overcome that I never heard, I think you may have mixed them up with Live. Which I find funny, cos I did the same thing at one point. I was trying to figure out where the hell desperately wanting was on throwing copper...

Man, live were one of my favorite bands at one point, but some of their stuff was awful. I still like pretty much everything up until the distance to here, but I listened to V for the first time in ages (ironically, the one with overcome on it) and most it was just painful. The first three albums, however, were still enjoyable. But yeah, for live you'd want I Alone or Lightning Crashes. Selling the Drama, even.


Post-grunge is stupid, because slapping post- on something to call it a genre is always stupid.
 
Haha, eve 6. We can also file that under albums I loved when I was 15. I will admit to some huge nostalgia on that one.
 
It's almost like someone set out to spark a rant from me.
As a bigtime OG fan of so-called "grunge" (I fucking hate that term) I can't tell you how much I loathe some of this music. I mean, I can, and I just might. But I don't want to.

Live definitely doesn't deserve to be on this list.
They were recording Mental Jewelry before Nevermind and Ten were out. But also in general. I mean, that is one fucking dreadful list. I am no mega fan but Live had some pretty good shit. Live and...probably Collective Soul (one of the first real post-grunge bands) are the only bands listed there not worth absolutely burning to the ground.
 
U2DMfan said:
Live definitely doesn't deserve to be on this list.
They were recording Mental Jewelry before Nevermind and Ten were out. But also in general. I mean, that is one fucking dreadful list. I am no mega fan but Live had some pretty good shit. Live and...probably Collective Soul (one of the first real post-grunge bands) are the only bands listed there not worth absolutely burning to the ground.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I wouldn't put Live on that list either for the reasons you mentioned.
 
Well - these bands were more alongside grunge (I didn't get into grunge, so I'm not clear on the timeframe)...

Ride, MBV, Slowdive...well shoegaze in general (which I did get into). Also Spiritualized, Curve, Garbage...
 
namkcuR said:
Discuss.
Click to expand...
There is not a single band or song on this list that I liked. I was in my 20's at the time, and these bands seemed to cash in on the sweat and tears of much better "alternative" bands. These bands were to Alternative Rock what the Monkeys were to the Beatles.
 
Also, I have zero interest in reliving this music. Fucking dreadful.

Do any of you guys have friends that have pretty much given up on finding new music in the last 10 years? Then you go to their house for a party and they throw on their shitty 90s mix? Man, I hate that
 
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