The Dumb Shit That Labels Did In The Wake Of Nirvana

"Nobody knows anything." --As the late William Goldman famously said in his book, Adventures in the Screen Trade (1983). Many others said it before, I'm sure. It's an open secret to Hollywood insiders. But amateurs still need to learn it. https://t.co/n1SVABmgAE

— Lizabeth Felti (@LizabethFelti) February 9, 2019

I cannot stress this enough: no one knows what the fuck they're doing, least of all companies. Real truth about it is, no one gets it right. Yahoo! consistently makes the worst decisions imaginable and yet somehow still exists. Leeds United are just one of countless examples of brands that tried to update themselves and their image for the modern day and lost the plot. And once Nirvana broke, no label had any idea what they were doing.

There's a ridiculously oversimplified narrative that says "indie did not exist, and then Nirvana released "Smells Like Teen Spirit", and then everything and everyone was suddenly indie." This is false. Independent record labels have existed since popular music has existed - check Sun Records' roster for a who's who of rock'n'roll, or consider Apple Records, or even A&M before 1989 - but we both know that's not what's meant by indie. The kind of music that Nirvana represented the apex of had been called "college rock", "alternative rock", and "indie rock" by 1991, and a lot of bands had already gone through the indie-to-major label rigmarole that Nirvana went through. R.E.M had been courted by major labels as early as 1982, and eventually signed to Warner Bros. in 1988 as part of their slow ascent to the top. Renowned noisy people Sonic Youth signed to Nirvana's eventual label in 1990, and Dinosaur Jr, who are the only ones I actually like, signed to Warners Bros. imprint Sire Records, home of indie forefathers like Talking Heads and The Smiths, and then released the greatest single of all time.
All this is to say Nirvana's path had been trodden before. The difference with Nevermind was in scale. Sure, Document sold over a million copies, and "The Wagon" fucking bangs, but by the end of 1991 Nirvana were challenging Michael Jackson for the Christmas #1 spot. Friendly reminder that this was pre-pedophilia-exposition Jackson, post-three-perfect-albums-in-succession Jackson, biggest-person, let-alone-musician, on-the-planet Jackson. And on January 11, 1992, two longhairs from backwoods Washington and their Virginian mate overtook him on the charts. The path may have been trodden before, but this was not a simple walk; this was more like driving a tank over Tooting Graveney Common. Everything had changed. Check this, from the NYT: "Suddenly, all bets are off. No one has the inside track on which of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of ornery, obstreperous, unkempt bands might next appeal to the mall-walking millions," i.e. labels no longer knew what the fuck was going on, if they ever did in the first place. They then spent maybe five years trying to find "the next Nirvana" out of these ornery, obstreperous, unkempt bands, with hilarious consequences. Let's take a look at some of the decisions they made.

Credit to swanboy.com

Smashing Pumpkins

Signed to: Virgin Records, 1993

I include these guys purely to be fair to the record labels. Not everything they did post-1992 was a whiff. Smashing Pumpkins were a product of the Chicago scene - not that anyone particularly liked them there - that some people decided was the new Seattle after Kurt died and Pearl Jam stopped being easy. They successfully fused a lot of different strands of alternative music, touching on metal, shoegaze, power pop, and basically everything else, before collapsing under the weight of Billy Corgan's massive, balding head, among other problems. Sold a fucking shit-ton of records, but similarly to R.E.M, I can't really point you to any modern band that would be super quick to list them as an influence. Maybe Steve Albini was right: "Smashing Pumpkins are REO Speedwagon (stylistically appropriate for the current college party scene, but ultimately insignificant)." On the other hand, Steve Albini is perhpas the only person in music who is more of a bellend than William Patrick Corgan, so who knows? Good while they lasted though, right?

Bush

Signed to: Interscope, 1994

Full disclosure: I went through a big grunge phase in Year 9 (8th Grade) and I loved Bush. They combined my two biggest passions - grunge and being British. Named after a suburb of London that just happens to be the one my grandparents moved to when they came to England, Bush are not at all rated by the musical intelligentsia. They were one of the primary exponents of "post-grunge," which, in the tradition of all the post- genres, is an incredibly nebulous definition that could mean anything from Bush's barefaced Nirvana worship to Creed's Christian-inspired gargle rock.
Bush aren't necessarily a BAD idea - Sixteen Stone is 6x platinum, Razorblade Suitcase hit #1 - I just highlight them because everyone hates them. It's simple enough - being such an obviously American-influenced band, especially at a time when Blur, Suede, et al were reviving Britishness in music, Bush come off as pale facsimile, as money-hungry rip-off merchants. That's all probably true, but I still think some of their singles are very good, and Gavin Rossdale is peng (he pulled Gwen Stefani, the absolute legend) so they were always gonna be popular. Interestingly enough their second album, from which I have taken the banger you see below, was produced by our favourite cunt Steve Albini. The fun thing about Steve Albini is that he purports to have incredibly refined taste and thinks himself an arbiter of quality, but he will produce literally any fucking band that ask him. This is why his discography includes classics like In Utero but also utter wank like Razorblade Suitcase by Bush and something called Return of the Sexy Demon that I refuse to listen to because that will make it real and I don't want to live in that world. Anyway, here's Swallowed. Look at Gav jump about like he's in a real band. In fairness to the haters, it really should be illegal to be in a grunge band and a have name like Gavin or Nigel.

Silverchair

Signed to: Sony, 1994

It's a tale as old as time: three normal fifteen year olds from suburban New South Wales send a demo to the radio, and then a bidding war ensues that ends with Sony signing them on a three-record deal. Wait, no, this is a fucking stupid tale for idiots. AND YET IT WORKED. Silverchair's first album, Frogstomp, hit number 1 in Australia and went double platinum, and worst of all, I will never be able to get the riff to 'Israel's Son' out of my head as long as I live. Silverchair's music grew up as its members did, culminating in the critically acclaimed Neon Ballroom and Diorama. I've not listened to those albums, unfortunately, but they required a touring keyboardist so you know they're serious and deep and good. There is no way a group of angry teenagers would've been shunted into the limelight, or even signed, without Nirvana paving the way beforehand; at best, we would've seen something like what happened with their antipodean comrade Lorde, a long gestation period where all the kinks were ironed out and the scene was set so that Silverchair could emerge fully formed in, like, 1998 or so. Sony didn't have that kind of time in a world where Interscope already had to hop the pond to sign Bush and the list of American cities to plunder was dwindling quickly.
Right, enough successes, let's get into the dumb shit.

Drive Like Jehu 

Signed to: Interscope, 1994

I had no idea these guys released Yank Crime on a major, but apparently so. Drive Like Jehu were an abrasive San Diego post-hardcore band whose best song is a nine-minute epic called "Luau." According to Noisey, they were signed because guitarist John Reis insisted upon it if Interscope were to sign his other band, Rocket From The Crypt, who should also have never made it to a major, but are at least fun. Drive Like Jehu are named after an obscure Old Testament line, and they fucking sound like it. Yank Crime didn't sell, but it's an integral text in the emo and math-rock spheres so we'll let it slide. I still find it ridiculous that these guys were anywhere near a major, but then that's the point of this article.

Hum

Signed to: RCA, 1993

It's difficult for me to find definitive failures because I'm trying to limit it to bands I at least have some knowledge of. If I were truly just looking for the biggest flops I'd repost the Noisey article, this article here, and call it a day. However, Hum are one of my favourite bands, as well as Chino Moreno from Deftones', and they deserve to have their story told. Hum were from Champaign, Illinois, and came from a slightly earlier generation than the kids like Braid, Sarge, and Americ anfootball that came from the town in the late 90s - Hum frontman Matt Talbott actually ended up recording some of that stuff in his studio. Hum wrote very heavy, very spacy songs exclusively about space. What it was on their debut Electra 2000 that convinced RCA they were worth a punt is beyond me - seriously there's like one good song on there - but their next two albums are classics. "Stars," the lead single from second effort You'd Prefer An Astronaut, got pretty big, including a customary Beavis and Butthead appearance where they turn the song off after a minute. Both You'd Prefer and 1998's Downward Is Heavenward perfect their sound and provides the missing link between Smashing Pumpkins and something like Deftones' "Minerva." They're really good, but they were never going to replace Nirvana. Here's the third single from You'd Prefer An Astronaut, which failed to make a dent on the charts.

Shudder To Think

Signed to: Epic (Sony), 1994

Don’t ask me why me and all my friends unsuccessfully ripping off Shudder To Think and Fugazi for 25 years is way cooler than Greta Van Fleet very successfully ripping of Led Zeppelin BUT IT IS

— Mike Kinsella (@mybandowen) February 25, 2019

Once again, Shudder To Think are a dissonant D.C. post-hardcore band that had no business being on a major label. Furthermore, the journey to a major label normally suggests some form of gradual smoothing of edges, a movement towards palatability. 1992's Get Your Goat was an alternately muscular and breezy affair, and I can almost see what Epic was hoping to have signed as I listen to it while writing. There is a very easy route towards fame that the band could've taken following that album. Shudder To Think, though, had other other plans. In a move that would grant them eternal love and respect, from me at least, they released Pony Express Record, which is a clusterfuck in the best possible way. All the most dissonant chords, all the most unrepetitive meandering song structures, the perfect balance between the camp and feminine (check the "oohs" on "Earthquakes Come Home" below) and the masculine (check the everything else on "Earthquakes Come Home" below), and yet it's somehow still catchy and headbanging. Once again, there is absolutely no way this band could've replaced Nirvana, but I really wish we lived in the universe where "X-French Tee Shirt" was "Smells Like Teen Spirit" sometimes. Shudder To Think did eventually tone down the dissonance on their final album, 50,000BC, but they're no less weird. As well as "Earthquakes Come Home" from Pony Express Record, I've chosen to include "All Eyes Are Different," which is a doo-wop song played completely straight, because of course it is. Kurt could never.

OK Soda

This isn't a band, but it's the kind of thing that was only possible in the 1990s when, as I have said repeatedly, nobody knew what the fuck was going on. Essentially, off the back of the spectacular failure of understanding the public that was New Coke, Coca-Cola brought back the same guy and watched as he created a drink for Gen-Xers that also sucked balls and sold pitiful amounts.
OK Soda is delightfully weird. You see, what the ad men understood was Gen X were cynical. They'd been advertised to enough. They were wise to all the tropes. What OK Soda tried was to lean into that cynicism and position itself as the cynic's drink of choice. The execution is actually very similar to the kind of surreal things that brands are trying today. Consider OK Soda the 90s equivalent of dumb shit like "Heinz made a tomato meme by capitalising on people's need to argue online" or steak-umm's entire twitter presence. I bet you I could get steak-umm to reply to this, as well; shitting oneself for being a brand, passing it off as "don't look at me man I just run the account," (which you do, but this is still bollocks) while still being a brand is very, well, on-brand these days.

Watch the ads and understand that this was actually approved by multiple people as a good idea. The worst part is I completely understand what they were going for; the ads are surreal, metatextual, and fiercely tribal (check out how frequently bossman talks about people "who don't understand"), the presentation is avant-garde, featuring artwork from artists at the forefront of their field, and the name and tagline are the ultimate expression of Gen X apathy - "Things Are Going To Be OK." And yet, the whole thing fell flat, which is the worst thing for a fizzy drink to be. It all feels a bit forced, as though it's obviously the work of people who do not intuitively get why cynicism and Nirvana are popular and advertisments and big business are not, but are trying really hard to get it. The whole endeavour lacks a sort of "studied carelessness," if you will. If only there were some concept that could've helped them...
I think my favourite part of OK Soda is I can write all of the above without talking about the fact that it was a drink - it's a concept, not a drink, and from all accounts the drink was bad. I don't care how many comic creators you have on the front, there's no way to make this sound appetising: "OK Soda had a more "citric" taste than traditional colas, almost like a fruit punch version of Coke's Fresca. It has been described as "slightly spicy" and likened to a combination of orange soda and flat Coca-Cola. It has also been compared to what is known as "suicide", "swampwater" or "graveyard", the resulting mixture of multiple soft drink flavors available at a particular convenience store or gas station's soft drink dispenser." I could shoe in a perfunctory TLP reference by suggesting OK Soda's reliance on image over action (i.e. how it tastes) is a manifestation of our culture's narcissism, but that's dumb, so I won't.

All in all, the labels didn't do that badly. They found a few hit artists and accidentally produced a few cult favourites along the way. I didn't talk about the vast wasteland of bands who signed to a major and then fell off the face of the earth because I don't know anything about them; they fell off the face of the Earth, remember? Just know that I offer my sincerest condolences to anyone screwed over by record labels, from Moby Grape having five singles released at once by Columbia, through Dinosaur Jr's (and everyone else's) money troubles with SST, to Lil Wayne not being allowed to put out Tha Carter V or whatever the fuck was going with that. All I'm saying with this post is, time and again there will be periods where the creative industry, where any industry, will be in great flux, and Yahoo! will buy GeoCities again and again. Sony will sign Shudder To Think again and again. Just make sure when the time comes you're GeoCities' owners and not Yahoo!'s; make sure you're Shudder To Think in this scenario and not Sony. Good luck.