After Kurt Cobain’s death seemed to take grunge with it to the grave, a number of acts flourished that drank from the grunge cup but also fed on classic rock and upbeat retro-pop. Collective Soul, Live, even Nirvana-spinoff the Foo Fighters, for instance. North of the border the trend was vital as well, and none did it better than Our Lady Peace. They hit their pinnacle a quarter century back, with the release of Clumsy this day in 1997.
Our Lady Peace had begun in Toronto in 1992, essentially the vision of singer/writer Raine Maida. They had massive success at home with their debut, Naveed, which while not a smash in the U.S. at least got them noticed there. Following up was a bit of an effort for them, especially when they toured close to non-stop for a couple of years. Their producer, Arnold Lanni finally took the situation into his own hands and took the band with him to a remote cottage in Ontario in the winter of ’96, where they had no distractions other than a few games of pick-up hockey on the frozen lake. They quickly put together about 20 demo tracks, and were able to record them fairly quickly upon return to Toronto. Maida said he had the idea of a “carnival atmosphere” for the music, reflected perhaps in the record cover. The first song they did for the record was called “Trapeze”, which was also apparently a working title for the album. Curiously, it got ditched. But many good ones remained, which produced the 11-song album, plus their cover of the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” which was done for the The Craft movie soundtrack.
The song titles suggest more grunge, less carnival. Take “Car Crash”, “Let You Down” and the single “Superman’s Dead” for instance. No wonder allmusic characterize their music as “bittersweet” “brooding” and “reflective”! Reflective probably is more accurate than many noticed; Maida and his wife Chantal Kreviazuk (a popular musician herself) are both very politically-active and have undertaken many charity missions to the Third World. “Superman’s Dead”, it turns out has less to do with the comic book superhero than it does with the decline of popular media. “I grew up with the old Superman, the black-and-white one,” Maida said. “It’s evolved into Beavis and Butthead…(kids) images are defined by television. It’s kind of sad.”
Reaction to the album was anything but sad however, especially at home. In a rare case of convergence, their hometown hard rock station, Q107 and alternative rock one, CFNY stations both listed it as the #1 record of the year. As allmusic noted later, it was likely their best work and it helped them “beat the sophomore slump.” “What makes Our Lady Peace a powerful act is their desire to keep it real on their own turf.”
In Canada, the title track was a #1 hit and “Superman’s Dead,” “4AM” and “Automatic Flowers” all hit the top 30, helping the album debut at #1 and stay high on the charts for most of the year. Eventually it went diamond, and it still ranks as the eighth biggest-selling Canadian album at home. In the U.S., a little bad luck turned good for them. The small label that had been their home in the States decided it wanted to go all-rap, and managed to drop them from their contract. Although that delayed its release there, in time, Columbia (which put them out in Canada) decided it might as well promote and distribute them in the U.S. as well. “Clumsy” made it to #5 on Billboard‘s Alternative Rock chart, and “Superman’s Dead” #11 on the same. Although it peaked at a dismal #76 there, it’s enduring popularity made it eventually hit the platinum plateau by 2004. Worldwide, it’s moved around five million copies. If Raine and his band were trying to make a hit, their effort was far from “clumsy”, it turns out.
Oh, wow; on re-hearing ‘Superman’s Dead’ it is SO of its time. Not in a bad way, but it truly is a sound time capsule, if that makes sense.
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Yes, because it does have a very 90s sound AND it hasn’t really been picked up much by radio since so , unlike say ‘Don’t Speak’ by No Doubt which still spins all the time on many stations, hearing it really does take you back to that point in time.
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I agree with obbverse…it is a time capsule…sounds really good though. I love time capsules!
I like the cover of Tomorrow Never Knows…and that doesn’t happen much but I like it.
I like them more than many of Nirvana songs.
“It’s evolved into Beavis and Butthead…(kids) images are defined by television. It’s kind of sad.” Not to get religious but… Amen
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Gawd yes, amen to that…
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Like I commented to him, it’s really not had much airplay since so it does take you back to when you did hear it routinely. It was a fairly good album, had it in the day but like many others it seems, I just packed it away eventually and hadn’t heard any of those singles for several years at least. I used to think Maida a bit pompous, but looking back at a few interviews from then, he was a pretty bright guy.
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You brought up a good point. Some Nirvana songs do sound like a time capsule find and other bands also from that time BUT they have got played alot since that time…so we don’t think about them that way.
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yep, constant repetition makes for a kind of timelessness, which is not necessarily bad but does alter our impression. I mean things like “Dancing Queen” and “Stayin’ Alive” are about as 70s as you can get, but hearing them doesn’t really put me back there since there’s never been a time when I didn’t hear them often. But something like maybe “Jeans on” or ,”At Seventeen’ are sort of time travel vehicles because it’s infrequent to encounter them now.
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Solid album as I need this one on vinyl as I have the debut on record. After this one it was hit or miss for me in regards to OLP.
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Right. I had this one too in the day and actually quite liked it, but I kind of burned out on it (with the alt rock & classic rock station BOTH having at #1 for the year and it being on the ordinary pop stations too AND CanCon, I did hear it a LOT) and rather lost interest in them. But now listening to those tracks again, it was a pretty good record.
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