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The Hapless Albums of 1995 and 1996

What is a Hapless Album?  It’s an album that has been overlooked or forgotten for whatever reasons.  It may have followed a monster album.  Or, it was followed by a monster album.  Or, it came out during a tumultuous time for the band.

It’s not the same thing as a Trainwreckord.  Most Hapless Albums aren’t career-enders.  They’re at least moderately successful and produce a few hit songs.  And, they’re often every good albums.  They’ve just been forgotten.

I first learned of the term from this very good review of Soundgarden’s Down on the Upside.  And, that got me thinking about other possible Hapless Albums from alternative rock.

As I started putting a short list together, I started to notice a common denominator with most of these albums.

They came out in 1995 and 1996.

Aside from the aforementioned Down on the Upside (itself a 1996 release), I also came up with Alice in Chains’ Tripod (1995), Radiohead’s The Bends (1995), Blur’s The Great Escape (1995), Pearl Jam’s No Code (1996), and the Chili Peppers’ One Hot Minute (1995).  All from the same two year period.

Tripod followed two monsters (Dirt, Jar of Flies) and is overshadowed by Layne’s worsening addiction.  The Bends didn’t produce a “Creep”-sized hit and was followed by two monsters (Ok Computer, Kid A).  The Great Escape was caught in-between two monsters (Parklife, Self-Titled), was overshadowed by the Oasis rivalry, and is disliked by Damon Albarn.  One Hot Minute was also caught in-between two monsters (Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Californication) and is overshadowed by the band’s tumultuous time with Dave Navarro on guitar.  No Code was a significantly harsher and less accessible album than the previous three (Ten, Vs, Vitalogy) and marked the beginning of Pearl Jam becoming more of a cult band.

Why did 1995 and 1996 produce so many Hapless Albums in alt rock?

Those years were a transitional time for rock music.  The Alternative Boom of the early 90s had started to fade after Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994, but the plastic pop and nu metal that would eventually take over wouldn’t come to prominence until 1997, at the earliest.

Grunge was very much still a thing, but radio and MTV increasingly started to favor it in the form of bands like Bush, Candlebox, Collective Soul, and Live – mass-produced butt rock that sounded vaguely similar to the original Seattle bands, but was in a more marketable and radio-friendly package.  The real grunge bands were too messy and adverse to fame for radio and MTV to continue caring about them.

Meanwhile, Britpop that wasn’t Oasis had a difficult time even getting a foot through the door in the US, while the Smashing Pumpkins sucked up a lot of the oxygen from other American bands.  (The Mellon Collie singles completely ruled alt rock radio in 1996.) 

And, there was a big wave of “pop alternative” like Hootie, Alanis, Counting Crows, Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews, etc, that had some of the trappings of earlier college rock but was repackaged into lightweight, easily-digestible soft rock.  The commercialization of alternative was in full-swing.