Wednesday WTF: The Return of Green Day (Sort Of)

This story is actually a few weeks old, but I've been sitting on it to see if it fizzled or if something big came out of it. In December of 2007 a band calling themselves The Foxboro Hot Tubs launched a MySpace page and website where they were giving away digital copies of their debut Stop Drop and Roll EP. It didn't take very long for music enthusiasts to point out that the anonymous lead singer's voice sounds remarkably like Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, most notably on lead single "Mother Mary". Speculation has run rampant about whether or not this is actually Green Day, but there's plenty of evidence. In 2001, a band known as The Network released an EP, again bearing similarities to Green Day. The band never owned up to being The Network, and its unlikely they'll ever come clean about The Foxboro Hot Tubs (if they are in fact responsible for it).

Under normal circumstances the EP would have floated around the internet a bit and then ultimately fizzled out. But in checking the Alternative Rock Radio Charts for the last week or so, I encountered the following:


"Mother Mary" has apparently been slowly climbing the charts. So for everyone clamoring for a new Green Day album, hope this keeps you amused for a bit. And kudos to Green Day for a brilliant scheme to keep rabid fans at bay.

The Foxboro Hot Tubs - Mother Mary

==TJ==

Cut Nickelback A Break...That's Right, I Said It.

So Billboard did a piece last week detailing the positively behemoth success of Nickelback's 2005 album All The Right Reasons. The album came out two years ago tomorrow, and has not left the Top 30 Chart since then, selling at least 25,000 copies every week for the 102 weeks it has been on the charts.

Here's where the shocking part comes in:
Nickelback's fifth album, released Oct. 4, 2005, has become a phenomenon that's not only eclipsed "Silver Side Up" but is arguably the biggest rock album of the century so far. It's been in the top 30 of The Billboard 200 for 102 consecutive weeks and is currently No. 7. The last artist in that rarefied position was fellow Canadian Shania Twain, whose 1997 release "Come On Over" spent its first 123 weeks in the top 30.

Is anyone else a little shocked/disturbed by this statement? Biggest rock album of the century? From Nickelback? Did I just see four horsemen fly past?

OK, don't get me wrong; as bands go, Nickelback really isn't THAT bad. They're not really any worse then Linkin Park or Daughtry or 30 Seconds to Mars. What kills them is the fact that they get so much exposure from the radio and the media. Admit it; you wouldn't be nearly as annoyed with Nickelback if you didn't hear one of their songs once every half hour on the radio, and in promo spots for a billion TV shows. Granted releasing 7 singles from an 11-track album doesn't help their case, you don't see Daughtry or even a radio-friendly band like Matchbox 20 getting the kind of nonstop, mind-numbing airplay that Chad Kroeger and company do. In my point of view, this kind of situation has only occurred once before, and gives way to my new music culture phenomenon:

American Idiot Syndrome: When a band releases an album that is by most initial accounts anywhere from 'decent' to 'classic', but then oversaturation by the radio, MTV, etc. results in a sudden shift in approval for that band/artist.

As indicated by the name, this kind of thing happened to Green Day after they released American Idiot. That CD was (and is) amazing on so many levels, and for the first month or two of its release, the masses agreed. Then "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" became huge and got played on the radio a bajillion times, followed closely by "Holiday" and "Wake Me Up When September Ends", and before long the general public turned its back on Green Day, calling them overrated and self-righteous. Half of that may be true; just listen to Billie Joe Armstrong preach on Bullet in A Bible. The same basic thing happened to Nickelback with All The Right Reasons. But it's not entirely a band's fault when they get overplayed. Besides, don't radio stations generally play songs that people request? So then in theory aren't the same people accusing a band of being overplayed or whatever amongst the same people who influence what the radio plays?

Either way, Nickelback has said they're done promoting All The Right Reasons and probably won't re-enter the studio until sometime in 2008, allowing everyone to take a breather and remember that somewhere deep down in their hearts, they know Nickelback isn't as bad as they'd like to believe.

Who knows? We might even come to *gasp* miss them for awhile.

Nickelback - Photograph
Savin' Me
Far Away
If Everyone Cared
Rockstar

Nickelback - A View From the Top [Billboard.com]

==TJ==