Round 4: Who's The Worst ALTERNATIVE RADIO GOD?

Previously: Round 1, pt 1. Round 1, pt. 2. Round 2, pt. 1. Round 2, pt. 2. Round 3, pt. 1. Round 3, pt. 2.

Looking for the worst act to manage more than twenty appearances on the alternative airplay chart, we've spent three rounds indulging 21 songs each from 24 acts. With more than half of them now either out of ditties or deemed non-doody, Round 3 ended with 311 ruling the roughage at 11 Shit Points, Korn taking number two with 9 Shit Points, Papa Roach browning bronze at 7 Shit Points, Cage The Elephant tapping out at 2 Shit Points, and The Offspring a conspiracy of 1 Shit Point. How will eliminating the less enduring affect the competition? Find out!

Remember: -1 Shit Points means I'm glad the song exists. 0 Shit Points means I don't really care, it's the radio, whatever. 1 Shit Point means I wish the song didn't exist. 2 Shit Points, or a DEUCE, means I wish it didn't exist, and it made the chart's Top 5. Inescapability definitely makes a bad song worse.

U2
“Last Night On Earth” (alternative chart peak: #11, debut week: 6/28/97) 1
“Please” (peak: #31, debut: 11/1/97) 1
“Sweetest Thing” (peak: #9, debut: 10/17/98) 1
“The Ground Beneath Her Feet” (peak: #20, debut: 2/26/00) 0
“Beautiful Day” (peak: #5, debut: 9/23/00) 0
“Walk On” (peak: #10, debut: 1/6/01) 0
“Elevation” (peak: #8, debut: 4/28/01) -1
Shit Points (Round 4): 2

If I put myself in the perspective of someone who feels more affection than cringe at the thought of U2, I can imagine enjoying the grimy groove of “Last Night On Earth,” or the band’s build on “Please.” I get why such people consider Pop misunderstood or underrated. Me, I can’t believe the dull bridge and shouted hook of the former track, or the length of the latter, Bono’s message oddly diffuse on both. And yes, I did attend to their “single edits” (yikes). There’s no confusing the message of the short, saccharine “Sweetest Thing”: “please forgive us for Pop.” I know the song was first recorded as a Joshua Tree B-side, but I resent the ’98 version’s inclusion on the Best Of 1980-1990 album (otherwise perfect for noncommittal modern rockers like myself). “Sweetest Thing” is not just distractingly cutesy, but ahistorical in its desperation. 

The love theme to a Wim Wenders adaptation of a Salman Rushdie novel - with lyrics by Rushdie! - is less obnoxious than you might expect, even if U2’s instrumental trio was happy to leave it off the upcoming Eno/Lanois reunion All That You Can’t Leave Behind. That 2000 comeback is unrelentingly committed to encouragement and uplift, to the delight of countless normies. Still, I find the echo effects smeared on “Beautiful Day” arbitrary and distracting; it’s as if U2 were afraid to merely recreate 1987, but didn’t have a better idea. “Walk On” became the love theme from 9/11 charity concerts, and sounds like one. The only track that makes my day beautiful is “Elevation” - specifically the single edit that served as the love theme from Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. With Bono euphorically rhyming and hooting over techno-clatter, it sounds like a post-“Firestarter” Zooropa cut. That’s the encouragement and uplift I want.

Pearl Jam
“Wishlist” (alternative chart peak: #6, debut week: 2/28/98) -1
“In Hiding” (peak: #13, debut: 8/1/98) 0
“Do The Evolution” (peak: #33, debut: 10/10/98) -1
“Elderly Woman - Live” (peak: #26, debut: 11/28/98) 0
“Last Kiss” (peak: #2, debut: 5/1/99) 2
“Nothing As It Seems” (peak: #10, debut: 4/29/00) 0
“Light Years” (peak: #26, debut: 7/8/00) -1
Shit Points (Round 4): -1

Despite my friend Tyler’s scathing review in college (“Anthony likes this song”), Anthony still likes “Wishlist,” Eddie Vedder’s lyrics never more evocative and enunciated. He even performed the Ira Kaplan-esque EBow guitar solo himself! Actually, Tyler would probably make a similar mutter of disbelief about my tastes if he heard a Yo La Tengo song of the same vintage. Because "Wishlist" is the closest Pearl Jam ever came to a Yo La Tengo song. There you go. The following pair of Yield tracks are respectively more like, mmm, Son Volt and The Grifters. If this is Greek to you, imagine how mainstream rock radio listeners felt. 

A sloppy live take on a sweet singalong from Vs. charted later that year, less absurd and less excruciating than what happened in 1999. Radio stations found a goofy cover of an early ‘60s “teen tragedy” ballad Pearl Jam put on a fan club single, inspiring its wide release as a Kosovo charity benefit. This once-inescapable radio curio is almost a parody of the band’s own “teen tragedy” origins, though not quite, and I just. don’t. get it. Maybe you have to answer to the siren song of Vedder’s big bellow. DEUCE. 

To their credit, the band responded to the attention by making an album with ‘90s NPR aesthetician Tchad Blake, using binaural audio tech and naming it Binaural. The first single is pretty Pink Floyd in its dour squalling, and the follow-up sounds like Pavement paying tribute to fallen friends, a year before ex-Paver Stephen Malkmus’ “Church On White.” And you wonder how Creed got so big. 

Red Hot Chili Peppers
“Dosed” (alternative chart peak: #13, debut week: 5/13/03) -1
“Fortune Faded” (peak: #8, debut: 11/22/03) 1
“Dani California” (peak: #1, debut: 4/22/06) 0
“Tell Me Baby” (peak: #1, debut: 7/8/06) -1
“Snow (Hey Oh)” (peak: #1, debut: 11/11/06) 0
“Hump De Bump” (peak: #8, 4/21/07) 0
“The Adventures Of Rain Dance Maggie” (peak: #1, debut: 7/30/11) 0
Shit Points (Round 4):  -1

Though I loved the angelic overdubs on 2002’s By The Way, bassist Flea felt let out of guitarist John Frusciante’s fun and almost left the group. With the Greatest Hits tack-on “Fortune Faded” a (rather) rough draft of their revived democracy, 2006’s Stadium Arcadium found the quartet unprecedentedly lithe, each musician's work lively but not busy, impressing long-time fans and young listeners alike. I’m almost embarrassed I’m not more engaged by the accomplishment, but there’s only so much I can do with pleasant, modest, jibbedy-jabber. “They’ve never been less ridiculous! Even on a song named ‘Hump De Bump’!” Fair enough.

Fatigued and apparently eager to explore electronica (hey, better than heroin), Frusciante left the group again, replaced by apprentice Josh Klinghoffer, a guitarist almost twenty years Flea’s junior. “The Adventures Of Rain Dance Maggie” suggested a smoother transition than “Warped” did in 1995, for better or worse. The only reason you might suspect a change in guitarist is his part sounding even more tempered than before.

Green Day
“The Saints Are Coming” (alternative chart peak: #22, debut week: 10/14/06) 0
“Working Class Hero” (peak: #10, debut: 5/19/07) -1
“Know Your Enemy” (peak: #1, debut: 5/2/09) 0
“21 Guns” (peak: #3, debut: 6/6/09) 2
“East Jesus Nowhere” (peak: #17, 10/10/09) 0
“Last Of The American Girls” (peak: #26, debut: 5/29/10) 0 
“Oh Love” (peak: #3, debut: 8/4/12) 2
Shit Points (Round 4): 3

Green Day and U2 covered the Skids at the Louisiana Superdome to celebrate New Orleans after Katrina, and good for them. An even worthier effort was Green Day’s felt, slow-building cover of John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero,” letting kids know punk didn’t invent swearing over open chords. But if you thought the experience would inspire Billie Joe Armstrong to sharpen his political pen on 2009’s 21st Century Breakdown? Nope. “Know Your Enemy” is almost spirited enough to get away with not actually knowing its enemy (“control”?), but “21 Guns” (about "losing control") is a shamefully tepid word salad of surrender, shamelessly jacking the chorus hook from “All The Young Dudes" while aping the chord progression of “Boulevard Of Broken Dreams.” DEUCE.

“21 Guns” having rocked the radio to sleep, neither the anti-religious gibberish of “East Jesus Nowhere” or the pseudo-Kinks near-nostalgia of “Last Of The American Girls” - both livelier, at least - got much attention. Unfazed by the indifference, Green Day announced a trio of albums in 2012 - Uno, Dos and Tre - the first single a five-minute filibuster of jaw-dropping incoherence (“Oh, hours and hours/ like the dog years of the day/ old story, same old story/ won’t you see the light of day?”). I can’t imagine a more darkly ironic, self-parodying DEUCE to kick off such a bloated campaign.

Foo Fighters
“Let It Die” (alternative chart peak: #1, debut week: 4/19/08) 0
“Wheels” (peak: #3, debut: 10/10/09) 2
“Rope” (peak: #1, debut: 3/12/11) 0
“Walk” (peak: #1, debut: 6/8/11) 2
“These Days” (peak: #2, debut: 10/15/11) 2
“Bridge Burning” (peak: #25, debut: 4/21/12) -1
“Something From Nothing” (peak: #1, debut:11/1/14) 2
Shit Points (Round 4): 7

After another alleged growl in Courtney Love’s direction topped the alternative airplay chart in 2008, it became more noteworthy when a Foo Fighters song failed to look down at everyone else. “Wheels” celebrated a Greatest Hits album by writing (re-writing?) a sequel to Tom Petty’s “Learning To Fly,” with extra fuzz-pedal. From this distance, I find it easier to forgive Courtney, and DEUCE. “Rope,” the first single from 2011’s Wasting Light, confirmed Dave Grohl could vaguely recall DC post-punk drama like Jawbox, rather than a more colicky Rascal Flatts, when he bothered. “Walk” is a more colicky Rascal Flatts, Grohl refusing to go quietly. Unless its a false ending before two more runs through the chorus. DEUCE.

Even worse…fu…even worse…is “These Days,” five minutes about how much Dave Grohl hates when people say its acceptable that we get old and die, a stance he chalks up to a lack of pain and experience. I don’t know if he’s told his therapist this, or if he’s imagining yelling at a therapist for saying it. But I’m guessing neither sang to the tune of “Amazing Grace.” DEUCE. “Bridge Burning,” Wasting Light’s fourth American single, would have been the first single on a Jawbox album. Make sure your Foo fan friends have heard Jawbox. 

I wrote about my annoyance with Dave Grohl, and his bizarre HBO vanity project, Sonic Highways, for Deadspin, based on the first few episodes. I never did finish the show, but I vaguely remembered “Something From Nothing,” a tribute to the Windy City recorded at Electric Audio (though not by Steve Albini, my god). This interminable thing starts Beatleseque, then turns Wonder-esque (clavinet hook!), then Kinison-esque (“oh! oh! oh!"), before evolving into another Foo Fighter song about refusing to let it die. DEUCE. 

The Offspring
“You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid” (alternative chart peak: #1, debut week: 8/9/08) 0
“Kristy, Are You Doing OK?” (peak: #7, debut: 12/20/08) 0
“Half-Truism” (peak: #21, debut: 5/30/09) 1 
“Days Go By” (peak: #7, debut: 5/12/12) -1
“Turning Into You” (peak: #39, debut: 12/1/12) 1
“Coming For You” (peak: #16, debut: 2/21/15) 0
“Let The Bad Times Roll” (peak: #10, debut: 3/13/21) 1
Shit Points (Round 4): 2

I’ve long known “You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid” topped Alternative Airplay for 11 weeks, but my assumption the track was another post-American Idiot barge of bombast was wrong. The reference point was actually Fall Out Boy, the word “fucker” thrown in the middle of FOB's “Dance, Dance.” And that's how you make the donuts! “Kristy, Are You Doing OK,” a ballad reflecting on failing to help an abuse victim, resembles the more sincere efforts of Bowling For Soup. I can’t peg exactly what modern pop-punk and classic rock staples are synthesized on “Half-Truism,” with its cavernous “woah-oh” bridge, but trust that’s what’s happening. 

The band reunited with Bob Rock for 2012’s Days Go By, its title track joyfully recalling Sugar Ray and Foo Fighters a decade earlier, and serving as a rebuttal to the Foo’s “These Days." The harrowing, belated Black Eyed Peas parody “Cruisin’ California (Bumpin’ In My Truck)” failed to chart - remarkable considering the grotesquerie they’ve reached number one with - which might be why the merely tiresome plaint “Turning Into You” almost failed as well. 

Nearly a decade followed before the next album, partly due to such events as: a bidding war for their catalog rights, the Smash 20th Anniversary tour, Dexter Holland getting his Ph.D in molecular biology, the firing of bassist Greg K., Greg K. responding with a lawsuit, their ex-drummer filing a lawsuit for royalties as well, and COVID lockdown - the band firing the current drummer for refusing to get vaccinated. The 2015 single “Coming You” (a Muse homage!) was included on 2021’s Let The Bad Times Roll, though they left off 2016’s love theme from Sharknado: The 4th Awakens. Bob still rockin’ the producer seat, the album’s title track responds to the personal and political chaos of the modern era with predictably shiny, shrill, semi-ironic results. 

311
“Count Me In” (alternative chart peak: #31, debut week: 11/19/11) 0
“Too Much To Think” (peak: #20, debut: 4/1/17) -1
“Good Feeling” (peak: #35, debut: 6/22/19) -1
“You’re Gonna Get It” (peak: #17, debut: 7/6/24) 1
“Full Bloom” (peak: #17, debut: 11/16/24) 0
Shit Points (Round 4): -1

I and I apologize for not informing you that Bob Rock had produced 2009’s Uplifter and 2011’s Universal Pulse, which features “Count Me In,” the wah-wah graced marriage proposal of every grody goddess’ dreams. The self-released Stereolithic failed to get much attention, with the band signing to BMG for 2017’s Mosaic and “Too Much To Think,” a sympathetic plea to be left alone with their bongs, and their finest hit since “Love Song” - in I and I’s opinion. Don’t get worried when Nick Hexum handles the rap. SA Martinez is still part of the posse, 311’s line-up unchanged since their first album. And that’s not Robert Fripp soloing at the end - that’s Tim Mahoney! Nebraska’s own!

2019’s breezy “Good Feeling” may have been too pop for the old school - Ed Sheeran’s friend Fiona Bevan helped write it - but I’m not bothered. I am disappointed by the admonishing swagger of “You’re Gonna Get It,” written with a friend of Linkin Park and likely meant to make sure real men bought 2024’s Full Bloom, their return to self-distribution. It’s even more annoying than that familiar fuzz guitar muddying up the title track. After more than thirty years of watching that pedal get pressed…hearing it, too…these guys really must be friends.

Linkin Park
“Lost In The Echo” (alternative chart peak: #12, debut week: 9/8/12) 0
“Castle Of Glass” (peak: #16, debut: 4/6/13) 0
“A Light That Never Comes” (peak: #7, debut: 10/5/13) 0
“Guilty All The Same” (peak: #21, debut: 3/29/14) -1
“Until It’s Gone” (peak: #19, debut: 6/14/14) 0
“Final Masquerade” (peak: #32, debut: 12/20/14) -1
“Heavy” (peak: #22, debut: 3/4/17) 0
Shit Points (Round 4): -2

Fort Minor fans were likely delighted by “Lost In The Echo” and the Steve Aoki collaboration, but chasing EDM washed out Linkin Park’s sound a touch too much. The band must have agreed, as 2014’s self-produced The Hunting Party was a return to nu-metal roots. The mixture of live drums, crunching metal riffs and synth-drama introducing the industry-damning “Guilty All The Same” is wild enough. Then Rakim shows up, revealing the roots of Mike Shinoda’s stentorian style by eerily resembling him. The songwriting hasn’t changed a bit, but all the tubular bells, Bonham beats, cathedral organ and wind sounds are a refreshing retro novelty.

With neither the label nor audiences as entertained, the band (still self-producing) leaned pop on 2017’s One More Light, bringing in songwriting pros and releasing a duet with Kiiara as the first single. The fan reaction was ugly, an issue compounded by singer Chester Bennington’s close friend Chris Cornell coincidentally dying by suicide the day before its release. Sadly, Bennington lost his own battle with depression just two months later. 

Weezer
“Back To The Shack” (alternative chart peak: #5, debut week: 8/9/14) 2
“Da Vinci” (peak: #32, debut: 12/13/14) 0
“Thank God For Girls” (peak: #11, debut: 11/14/15) 0
“King Of The World” (peak: #17, debut: 4/23/16) 1
“Feels Like Summer” (peak: #2, debut: 4/18/17) 0
“Happy Hour” (peak: #8, debut: 11/18/17) -1
“Africa” (peak: #1, debut: 6/16/18) 0
Shit Points (Round 4): 2

After the underwhelming response to 2010’s Hurley, Weezer once again took a long break. Once again, they returned a few years later with some self-contradicting cringe. “I thought I’d get a new audience, I forgot that disco sucks,” explains Rivers Cuomo on “Back To The Shack,” written with a Dr. Luke associate, admitting he needs to get back to rockin', and that we need to “turn off those stupid singing shows.” “If we die in obscurity,” says the guy who just left Epitaph to reunite with Ric Ocasek and UMG, “at least we raised some hell!” So brave. So DEUCE. “Da Vinci,” co-written by a Billy Steinberg associate, has that old-school Ocasek crunch, but also a digitized whistle hook, rhyming “dad and mom” and “ancestry dot com.”

It took four guys (not counting the producer of Fall Out Boy’s “Uma Thurman,” replacing Ocasek), to help Rivers write “Thank God For Girls,” the first single from 2015’s White Album, a stream-of-consciousness drama about Adam & Eve, hiking trips, and cannolis, rhyming “LA” with “Holla Jesu Christe.” It’s better than the second single, where Rivers apologizes to his Japanese wife for the bombing of Hiroshima. “No Prozac or Valium/ we’ll face tsunamis together.” Seven people (including J.R. Totem!) helped Weezer make a hand-clap pop number to welcome the summer of 2017, but I prefer the woozy tribute to “Happy Hour” they made with just three extra hands (including Butch Walker!). “Sipping on a lime and coconut…maybe I’ll meet a scientist in sweatpants/ we’ll converse about ghetto birds and MIDI keyboards” is probably the least distressing fantasy Cuomo has shared in decades.

The youth responded to all this attempted crossover by tweeting “cover Africa by Toto!” Weezer naturally did so (drummer Patrick Wilson producing!), and it was their first Hot 100 single in a decade. Irony lives.

Coldplay
“Adventure Of A Lifetime” (alternative chart peak: #1, debut week: 11/21/15) -1
“Up & Up” (peak: #22, debut: 6/4/16) 0
“Hymn For The Weekend” (peak: #20, debut: 10/15/16) 1
“Orphans” (peak: #1, debut: 11/2/19) 0
“Champion Of The World” (peak: #28, debut: 3/28/20) 0
“Higher Power” (peak: #4, debut: 5/15/21) 0
“My Universe” (peak: #13, debut: 10/2/21) -1
Shit Points (Round 4): -1

Enjoying the attention of actresses younger than Gwyneth Paltrow, Chris Martin got his divorced DILF on with “Adventure Of A Lifetime,” a euphoric twirl across the dance floor that unintentionally recalls Sydney Pollack in Husbands & Wives on the matter of feeling alive again. The following singles from 2015’s A Head Full Of Dreams revealed he also won Beyonce’s friendship in the split, her uncredited background vocals prominent on both bits of happy, if overblown (“Hymn For The Weekend”?), business. Noel Gallagher’s guitar solo was cut from the single version of “Up&Up,” which Jay-Z must have loved. 

I thought about including “Something Just Like This,” where Martin is sweetly forgiven for refusing to shut up about superheroes (many men's dream), but that’s really a Chainsmokers song. Coldplay proper returned on 2019’s Everyday Life and “Orphans,” which encourages Syrian refugees to dream of partying again. That’s certainly kinder than Sting’s “Russians,” if still a bit much. “Champion Of The World” also invites the youth of Earth to join him in the stars (“I have E.T. on my bicycle/ because giving up won’t work”). It is also a bit much.

For 2021’s Music Of The Spheres, Martin and his bandmates (who I assume are standing at a line of keyboards like Tubeway Army at this point) brought in that legendary Martin named Max to really go for the global market. “Higher Power” still features a massed choir representing all continents, but “My Universe” abandons Amnesty International cliche and gets down with K-pop monolith BTS for some shimmering digital disco. God bless.

Blink-182
“ONE MORE TIME” (alternative chart peak: #1, debut week: 9/30/23) 2
“ALL IN MY HEAD” (peak: #7, debut: 9/7/24) -1
“TAKE ME IN” (peak: #29, debut: 12/21/24) 1
Shit Points (Round 4): 2

Did you hear Blink-182’s “ONE MORE TIME”? It’s a slow, acoustic rewrite of “I Miss You,” on which they repeatedly say “I miss you”!  But instead of yowling pop-goth poetry, Tom and Mark sing about how much they love each other, directly referencing the band’s break-ups and most famous scrapes with death. Travis joins in on the chorus! Though they wrote “I Miss You” by themselves, somehow this redux required two song doctors! “ONE MORE TIME" was number one for twenty weeks on the alternative airplay chart, a record shared with Portugal The Man’s “Feel It Still.” You might have missed it, though, as it was only on the pop charts for two weeks, peaking at #62. For comparison, that “I’m a rebel just for kicks” song reached the pop Top 5, hanging around for almost a year. New Blink is more niche than that.

If I heard “ONE MORE TIME” exponentially more often, in my car, over a series of months, than I have on my laptop this week, I might give it 2 Shit Points. But it wouldn’t be fair to assume its absurdity would be more grating in a different context. Especially when the autotuned power ballad “TAKE ME IN” is already grating in this context. Somehow, “ALL IN MY HEAD,” written with just one assistant, sounds like it could have been a hit twenty years ago. A touch of autotune aside, it’s a boisterous punk blitz with ping-pong vocals and big drum rolls. Was that so hard, guys?

Update: while editing this post, I heard “ONE MORE TIME” enough to say…DEUCE.

THE STINKY SEVEN
311 (FINAL SCORE): 10 Shit Points
Korn (FINAL SCORE): 9 Shit Points
Papa Roach (FINAL SCORE): 7 Shit Points
Foo Fighters (FOUR ROUNDS): 5 Shit Points
The Offspring (FOUR ROUNDS): 3 Shit Points
Cage The Elephant (FINAL SCORE): 2 Shit Points
Blink-182 (FINAL SCORE): 1 Shit Point

Despite valiant turns away from their once foul formula, 311 still holds more caca than Korn, the pride of Nebraska maintaining their pole position. However, an unprecedented load in Round 4 has sent Foo Fighters bellowing into the bathroom. If Dave dooks it up like that again in Round 5, there’s a new King Shit in town. And congratulations to Blink-182, for the on-brand achievement of one little poopie.

But who will join dirty Dave and Dexter in Round 5? 

IN THE NEGATIVE, COULD STILL TURN TURD IN FUTURE ROUNDS
Weezer are at -8 Shit Points, everything after The Teal Album to come. Green Day are at -10 Shit Points, everything after Uno! to come. Red Hot Chili Peppers are at -8 Shit Points, everything after I’m With You to come. Pearl Jam are at -7 Shit Points, everything after Binaural to come. U2 are queasy with 0 Shit Points, everything after All You Can’t Leave Behind to come.

HAD MORE HITS, BUT COULDN’T BE SHIT
Coldplay has three more charting songs about teleporting to The Planet Of Love that we could discuss, but their -8 Shit Points render them moot. Though a Meteora outtake hit number one in 2023, and the band’s recent return with singer Emily Armstrong has already scored another pair of chart-toppers, there’s still no way Linkin Park’s remaining airplay singles could overcome the -14 Shit Points they’ve got, a “low” second only to Beck. Rap-rock…you either love it, or hate it, or both.

In case you can’t be bothered to count, seven modern rock legends are still squatting over their seats after this round. But just how many charting songs does U2 have? You could look on Wikipedia or Billboard, or you could wait and see if Round 5 is our last! If you think I'm too mean to Dave Grohl, or Mark Hoppus, or Bono, anthonyisright at gmail dot com is where you should venmo me to care. Or rather, tell me. Just tell me.