The Presidents of the United States of America - Lump: youtube.com/watch?v=_sj_U6vObUA
Rock and roll was really something terrible in the 90s. I think maybe it was always a certain kind of terrible, but the 90s really did something uniquely bad that it deserves mentioning. Remember The Tea Party? And Econoline Crush? Spin Doctors? U2 went to shit in the 90s. Pearl Jam were a certain sort of bad when they started out. Even Radiohead could not be impervious to the awful that stained everyone; remember "Creep"? It's near unlistenable. And listening back to The Smashing Pumpkins makes me angry that Billy Corgan fooled me as long and hard as he did. Long and hard.
Granted, not all was bad; there is the exception to every rule. The 90s brought us Bjork and Beck. At least in the B's.
One band that sticks in my mind as embodying everything 90s rock is The Presidents of the United States of America. But not necessarily in a bad way. They did follow the typical 90s bands in that they came out with one good album then went to a certain obscurity (probably due to a lack of sonic growth that comes from being in a stringent rock 3-piece), their singer had an angsty, annoying voice and they used a lot of distortion on their guitars. However, they had a good sense of humour, something their counterparts did not have. And it was all quite self-conscious. You don't write a song about peaches and expect people to call you a poet or a prodigy.
Anyway, not much else to say about that. 90s rock sucked and I hate it for nurturing my young, impressionable brain.
And I want to start a Presidents of the United States of America cover band.
do it
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