Bands That Used To Be Great Before They Sold Out Part 1

Growing up in the 1990s I was often drawn to Angst filled music and bands. Some I felt really had something to say others were just following a trend. Some bands made a career and had made a career to that point filling their music with depth and inspiration. Still at a point, often when they became much larger in mainstream music they began to show their true colors. Many rock bands began sing bouncy pop influenced ditties that the mainstream seems to want to hear these days. They had sent years creating guitar layered rock with deep lyrics but now quickly changed to create things that they themselves would have been horribly ashamed of in their younger days. So what happened to that underground credibility? It became all about the money.

The following are a list of bands which in the 1990s or early in their respective careers that I recognized as genuinely great but now are only hollow uninspired versions of what they once were. Take a look.

The Goo Goo Dolls started back in the 1980s and began as a few guys and their guitars eventually progressing through the ranks of rockers to become a huge rock band by mid 90's. They had created riff upon rock riff, guitar melody after guitar melody. They truly rocked but the last album that was really Rock was "A Boy Named Goo," and it was on this album when the Goo Goo Dolls decided to change. Why? They released a song on that album called "Name." The song wasn't really a horrible song but it was a ballad and bereft of any real hard rock guitar. This soft number became a hit and the band knew it.

One their next album they seemed to waffle between rock and Pop again pushing a Ballad, "Iris," as their first single, video and again become a huge hit. Also again it wasn't a bad song but this was a rock band and we expect the ballads to be the lesser tracks on a rock album. Most of the rest of the rock tracks on this album seemed to be shined so smooth you could barely hear a truly distorted guitar in sight.

By their next album they were just releasing watered down pop "rock" and I had stopped listening. I remember seeing a new video from the Goo Goo Dolls a few years ago and seeing the guitarist rocking out on his guitar. But there was no guitar in the song it was all soft layered pianos with no hard rocking in sight. It was just ridiculous. Maybe he forgot to plug in to his amp?

Nickelback is a Canadian and being Canadian myself I heard a lot about them before they became big in the States and abroad. When they released their first album I was listening to "Leader of Men." They were a true rock band and I respected that. Initially when they released their album containing the song, "How You Remind Me," I liked it but in the course of hearing it over and over and over and over and over again on the radio I went from liking the song to absolutely hating it. This song became their biggest hit and went straight to front man Chad Kroeger's head.

Although they have continued to keep their music hard they have become completely full of themselves in interviews. After all Chad Kroeger coined the phrase, "8 million fans can't be wrong," because of course all rock bands only think about how many copies they sell and how much money they make right? Wrong. Kroeger also makes fun of other such acts from his home country like Matthew Good, and while they do not sell as many records as Nickelback have continued to be much more inspiring to me than Nickelback ever could be. Mark my words when I say Matthew Good's music will be remembered long after people have forgotten the name Nickelback. There's only so much the public wants to hear songs about hookers, getting drunk, and how great Nickelback is.

This article will be continued. It is rather long at this point but I have more bands to speak about. So stay tuned.

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