90s Modern Rock Ranked!

“RPM” is a song about what revs Mark McGrath’s engines (hint: it’s not cars). It sounds like Primus’ “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver” played by guys who would (and did) throw some “vroom vroom” sound effects on top. Better things, or at least guilty pleasure things, were on the way.

Yeah, whatever.

I can understand why Jakob Dylan didn’t like being compared (unfavorably) to Bob Dylan, which is why I can’t understand why he covered “Hereos” just be compared (unfavorably) to David Bowie.

I realize that “Counting Blue Cars” is about a conversation with a child, but isn’t “Tell me all your thoughts on God, because I’d really like to meet her” the corniest peak 90s pickup line imaginable? Just look at the guys on the cover of that CD up there and tell me you can’t picture any of them sauntering over to some lady with a tiny backpack and hitting them up with this profound query. It’s all I can think of whenever I hear the song. As for “Once in a While,” I just listened to it and can’t think of a single memorable thing about it.

This song has always bothered me, as these lyrics…

What do I have to do to make you happy?
What do I have to do to make you understand?
What do I have to do to make you want me?

…are soon followed by the line, “I know exactly what you’re thinking.” If you know exactly what she’s thinking, wouldn’t you know what you have to do? Clearly this lack of comprehension is what caused her to leave you in the first place.

I’m always surprised by the LPs that show up on Record Store Day, and few have been more surprising than a limited edition, 30th anniversary version of dog’s eye view’s Happy Nowhere for the low, low price of $50. Are there really 3,000 Chandlercore fans who’ve been dying to hear this album in the greatest possible fidelity, with the disposable income to spend $50 to do so? Good news: it seems like there are plenty of copies still available, now as low as $19.99. As Chandler would say, “Could that BE a better deal?”

By and large there are two kinds of songs about drug addiction: “Man, I’ve got to stop doing these drugs” (see “Down in a Hole” by Alice In Chains) and “Man, I wish my friend had stopped doing those drugs” (see “The Needle and the Damage Done” by Neil Young). Anyone can write the latter, but in order to write the former, you kind of have to be a drug addict. And really, that’s the only time you kind of have to be a drug addict.

This is why something about “Not an Addict” always seemed off to me. It was too polished, and too hungry to be a rock radio hit to be a convincing first-person look at drug addiction. And sure enough, the songwriter had never been addicted to anything harder than cigarettes, which makes this song just another “heroin chic” attempt to break it big in the post-Cobain era. So while this song rings fake to me, at least the Belgian siblings who founded K’s Choice are – unlike Cobain and a number of his fellow Seattleites – still alive.

Our last song was a cover of an 80s hit by a band who got their name from a John Hughes film. This one is a to a tribute to popular 80s rockers by a self proclaimed “geek rock” band who got their name from a Star Wars film. These two songs are just a taste of how obsessively indebted to pop culture Gen Xers were, and are. As for “Van Halen,” it just sounds like a parody of Weezer from long before Weezer became a parody of Weezer.

A cursory Google search of Save Ferris brings up a whole bunch of controversies: performing at a show promoted by a guy with MAGA ties, responding to the backlash to that performance with a super defensive IG post, responding to that backlash with a “top selling” t-shirt clearly designed by AI, then responding to that backlash by deleting social media comments about AI. And this comes after the singer brought back “Save Ferris” without the knowledge of the other original band members, which is partly why she was booed when appearing on screen during a screening of a ska documentary (skakumentary)?

The list goes on. To me, they’re just guilty for (another!) 80s cover that’s significantly worse than the original. Their “Come on Eileen” sounds like it was performed by No Doubt if Gwen Stefani was really really really into musical theater. “Goodbye” has a similar vibe, only it’s teeters more into the retro swing thing. Unlike Ferris, neither song is righteous, dude.

Much like Marilyn Manson, I (and most people) were introduced to Limp Bizkit through a desperate for attention cover of a popular 80s tune. But where Manson went over-the-top self-serious, Limp Bizkit went silly with their cover of George Michael’s “Faith.” All these years later, the band’s mocking tone comes off quite poorly, with Michael’s legend as a musician, vocalist, and humanitarian growing exponentially in the wake of his early death. But they’re still playing it live at festivals, and while opening arena shows for Metallica, so what the hell do I know?