Cover Story: Yesterday’s Modern Rock

Sounding better every day



There was a time in the not-too-distant past that Bush (Sat., 8:45 p.m., Miller Lite/99X Stage) was the epitome of everything insipid and soulless about modern-rock. In the mid-’90s, the band, with its cover-boy lead singer, grunge-by-numbers riffs and vacant lyrics, was the favored whipping boy of critics and fellow musicians alike. The band’s very name became symbolic of all that the promise of Nirvana never delivered on.

Well, I recently heard Bush’s “Machinehead” tucked in amongst Nickelback, Puddle of Mudd and Linkin Park on the radio. With its blitzkrieg guitar riffs, pounding rhythms and indelible hooks, it sounded like a fucking revelation. Similarly, hits by Stone Temple Pilots’ (Sat., 10:30 p.m., Miller Lite/99X Stage), Better Than Ezra (Sun., 6:30 p.m., Jose Cuervo/96 Rock Stage), No Doubt (Sun., 8:30 p.m., Miller Lite/99X Stage) and the Goo Goo Dolls — bands that seemed to be doing nothing particularly interesting or energetic five or six years ago — practically leap off the radio these days.

Has modern rock grown so stale that what was once dismissed as merely serviceable now feels like a near-unattainable standard? Quite honestly, perhaps. Still, such a contention reeks of sentimentality, revisionism and a bit of “back in my day” old-codger-ism. Many, like myself, who dismiss modern rock’s current crop as tuneless and dull may be unwittingly reacting to the fact that they’ve simply grown out of modern rock’s target audience, which seems to skew younger and younger each day. I find the rage and disaffection so gratuitously flogged on modern rock radio these days laughable and embarrassing. But somehow, it didn’t seem that way when it was coming from Nirvana 10 years ago. Was Nirvana simply better? Probably. But I was also 18 then, and at a time in my life when even Candlebox’s treacly hit, “Far Behind”, could hit me in some deep, dark place (though I wasn’t man enough to admit it).

But there’s more than nostalgia at work as I tap my foot to Stone Temple Pilots’ “Interstate Love Song.” For all its classic -rock poses, the song has a vitality and a tunefulness to it that much of today’s modern rock lacks. Forget the fact that today’s modern rockers hopelessly ape years worth of bands that have come before them — the same could certainly have been said about Bush, STP and Better Than Ezra back in 1995. But even when Nickelback or Staind stumble upon a decent melody, they deliver it with the kind of enthusiasm most of us reserve for trips to the dentist. Better Than Ezra’s “Good” may have been derivative, but at least the band themselves sounded as if they liked the tune.

Garbage (Sun., 5:15 p.m., Miller Lite/99X Stage) is an act that was at least trying to push the musical envelope in 1995. But as modern rock’s tastes skewed away from the group’s atmospheric electro-pop, Garbage followed its own muse, making a recent album (Beautiful Garbage) that laced moody pop with subtle R&B grooves. modern rock radio responded with overwhelming indifference.

No Doubt, for its part, has followed an even poppier path, collaborating with producers-of-the-moment the Neptunes, among others: If modern rock gave No Doubt the cold shoulder, Top 40 radio would still be there to embrace the group. As it turns, Gwen and Co. have remained darlings of both. Meanwhile, Remy Zero (Sun., 3:45 p.m., Miller Lite/99X Stage), whose initial efforts to break into modern rock were rebuffed, have retooled their sound to follow the post-Radiohead path blazed by Travis and Coldplay, and have found some success.

But even such trend-hopping brings no guarantees in such a fickle format. Some who, just a few years ago, were modern rock’s shining stars have found themselves euthanized. Kid Rock (Sat., 10:15 p.m., Jose Cuervo/96 Rock Stage), whose 1998 album Devil Without A Cause sold 10 million copies, has met with a much chillier reception with his follow-up, Cocky. It shouldn’t surprise anyone, though. With its playful (though admittedly tired) mix of classic-rock sentimentality and rap-rock braggadocio, Cocky is completely out-of-step with the self-lacerating tone of modern rock’s current heroes. Of course, that inconceivably trite Skynyrd-lite cowboy lament from his last record, “Only God Knows Why,” is starting to sound better every day.??