Silversun Pickups: A Pearl in a Sea of Mediocre Modern Rock.
As my previous 3 articles explained in great detail, 90s Alternative, became not just my favorite genre and era of music but a way of life for me for many years. While part of the appeal was being able to hide some of my gayness behind white guys with guitars, it was a genre of music that still spoke to me deeply as a boy trapped in the closest and it spoke to me even as I came out during college. Alternative Rock got it's name because it was "alternative" to mainstream music. In the 80s it was a collection of people who didn't fit into what the mainstream typically accepted. Many of the 80s Alternative rock acts were Queer too, such as Bob Mould & Grant Hart of Husker Du, Michael Stipe of R.E.M., and every member of the B-52s.
While the Queerness was toned down after Grunge exploded the trade off was two-fold. One was that straight white guys in guitar bands such as Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder and Scott Weiland used their platform and privilege to try and gut toxic masculinity from rock as they railed against racism, sexism and homophobia in their own ways. Their mainstream success helped give voice to those who had felt voiceless more so then with 80s alternative, which had remained a very niche genre with a small audience outside a few bands like U2 and R.E.M. The other trade off is we also got a lot of women in rock music who were breaking down barriers for how women were viewed and perceived within music and especially rock. The Grunge explosion actually helped women gain more of a platform in a genre that had kept most of them out in the past outside a few exceptions like Heart, Jefferson Airplane and Fleetwood Mac. Now we had women ranging from Tori Amos, Gwen Stefani, Shirley Manson, PJ Harvey, Courtney Love, Doloros O' Riordan, Tanya Donelly, Juliana Hatfield, Veruca Salt, Kim Deal, Kim Gordon and more within the rock sphere.
Even as alternative rock became more and more mainstream during the mid 90s women continued to do well and most rock music was still devoid of toxic masculinity until we reached the very end of the decade. First, Lilith Fair despite being a success ended up segregating women from Alternative Rock radio to the point that they all but disappeared from the format at the turn of the millennial. More damaging though was the rise of Nu Metal with acts like Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock. All of a sudden all the sexism of hair metal was back, but now it was less glamorous, less fun and even more misogynistic then before. Nu-Metal was actually worse than hair metal because at least hair metal singers like Vince Neil and Bret Michael's sounded like they enjoyed having sex with women, which is something I never got from Fred Durst or bands that followed in his wake such as Puddle of Mud, whose rampant sexism and apparent hatred of women has always been a major turn off for me with that band.
Nu-Metal didn't last long as many people grew tired of it quickly, but the damage had been done. Rock music in the ‘00s was at war with itself and was having a complete identity crisis. So many bands and genres were declared as the saviors of rock every few months and most of them were forgotten quickly. It's why I turned to 90s Alternative during this period as did rock radio itself! There's a reason 90s rock songs still dominated the format during the 00s and that's because no new bands seemed good enough to take over. It was during this period that I felt disconnected with most popular music at the time. Most of the "new" music I liked was usually from 90s bands who kept going like Green Day, The Foo Fighters or Velvet Revolver.
Critics kept trying to keep rock afloat by over hyping bands and scenes left and right. First there was the garage rock revival, which arrived among a flurry of hype and then deflated immediately leaving only The White Stripes with any kind of career and long lasting success on rock radio. Then there was EMO, which on the surface should have been appealing to me, but it wasn't. I found the music and lyrics just as juvenile as Nu-Metal in a lot of ways. Emo was also a weird mix of hetero-normative lyrics (that usually sounded like they were scribbled in some 8th grader's journal) and co-opting gay culture that I actually found very distasteful. I remember seeing Pete Wentz, the guitarists from Fall Out Boy, on a magazine cover with a quote saying something to the effect that because he wore eye liner and dressed a certain way, he was "Kind of sorta gay!" That quote really pissed me off because it was a perfect example of gay culture being co-opted and watered down by straight men of privilege who never had to experience homophobia. Wearing eye liner doesn't make you kind of gay Pete, having sex with men does!
Looking back there were "Emo" bands I liked such as Jimmy Eat World and Death Cab for Cutie, but the image and message the genre was presenting did not click with me at all throughout the 00s. Meanwhile lots of mainstream rock radio stations who ignored Emo just kept peddling Nickelback, Puddle of Mudd, Hinder and other watered down copycat neo-Grunge bands who's music all the sounded the same and whose message and views on women usually left a lot to be desired. There were some newer bands here and there who I would get into such as Muse, Coldplay, The Vines, Queens of the Stone Age, but none of them could really rival the 2 dozen plus bands I loved from the 90s. In fact, I just kept getting into more and more 90s bands as the 00s wore on from Britpop acts like Blur and Pulp to Shoegaze acts like Lush and Catherine Wheel.
I kept waiting for a scene and band to latch onto to call my own, but the 00s felt like a desert for me. Sure I had Britney, who kept blowing by people's expectations throughout the entire decade and kept releasing some of the best pop music of the 00s, but it wasn't enough. Then a funny thing happened after I graduated from college in 2008 and I met my husband in 2009, pop music and alternative rock started getting better again. Sure it wasn't on the level of the 90s, but it was becoming a lot better than it had been. I was still a decade away from Queer pop blowing my mind and giving me everything I had wanted and more from music, but at least by 2009 things were looking up again.
It was during 2009 that I ended up discovering my favorite Alternative Rock band since the end of the 90s and that finally brings us to Silversun Pickups. The intro may have been a little long winded, but I wrote all that out to make a point, which is that outside a few pop divas like Britney and Gaga, the only act I ended up loving as much as the Alternative Rock bands from the 90s and the current wave Queer Pop acts I love now was Silversun Pickups. They were an oasis for me in a desert of forgettable music.
Now unlike most people I didn't first hear Silversun Pickups with Lazy Eye, in fact I would not discover them until their second album Swoon dropped in 2009. I had just started dating Cory in the summer of 2009 and we went over to visit his friends one night. We hung out and watched MTV U, the music video channel aimed more at college students, and this is when I first heard and saw Silversun Pickups. The music video was Substitution and it caught my attention pretty quickly. First I thought the concept of a the video being a game of musical chairs with hot super models was actually pretty entertaining. The music though grabbed me more. It wasn't the most flashy but it had an appeal to it that reminded me of what I had loved about the 90s. I made a mental note to check more out by them later.
I then saw the music video for Panic Switch on YouTube and it rocked my world! The song gave me a rush that I had not felt from most of the 00s rock scene. It was rocking but also unpredictable and atmospheric as hell. Yes they were indebted to the 90s, but unlike Puddle of Mudd or Nickelback, Silversun Pickups had learned all the right lessons from 90s Alternative. Silversun Pickups also seemed to have a wider net of influence with bands like Radiohead, Sonic Youth, Garbage, The Smashing Pumpkins and shoegaze bands like Ride, Catherine Wheel and My Bloody Valentine being important sign posts and influences for Silversun Pickups. Most of the watered down copycat Grunge acts of the 00s just ripped off Pearl Jam & Alice in Chains over & over & over again to the point that I wanted to rip my ears off.
I bought Silversun Pickup’s 2009 album Swoon soon thereafter and I loved the opening 2 tracks upon first listen. There Are No Secrets This Year reminded me of Siamese Dream era Pumpkins (especially songs like Quiet.) The second song the Royal We topped it though. The Royal We felt epic, expansive and completely immersive. As I have said before some of my favorite music is the kind that creates other worlds for you to escape to and Silversun Pickups were a band who excelled at this. While some songs took longer than others to get into, I ended up loving all of Swoon, because it was so transportive. Every time I listened to Swoon it swept me up into another world and gave me a sense of escapism that I looked for in a lot of music, 90s alternative especially. It didn't take long for Swoon to become my favorite post 90s Alternative Rock album and I knew I needed to hear more.
I went back and got their 2006 full length debut Carnavas. Again like Swoon it didn't click all it once, but the more I listened to it the more I loved it, which made me love Silversun Pickups more. Silversun Pickups music doesn't always click for me immediately, but my patience is always rewarded. The more I listen to their albums the more I grow to love them and it's nice to have a band who's music gets better and better as you listen to it over weeks, months and years instead of loving it instantly and then getting tired of it quickly. Like Swoon, Carnavas recaptured the atmosphere, world building and excitement of early 90s Shoegaze and Grunge. Well Thought Out Twinkles was a good rock song that became great when the wall of distortion guitar solo erupts during the bridge and it feels like a hurricane has been unleashed between you ears. Rusted Wheel felt otherworldly as if the band had somehow tapped open a world that was only real between the speakers. It's a world that begged to be re-visited over and over again because each time I would make a new discovery.
Eventually I went and got their debut EP Pikul, which was much more stripped down than their 2 albums but also demonstrated that Sonic Youth was very a much an influence as that EP sounds very Sonic Youth to me circa the early 90s. I also downloaded their 2011 Seasick EP as soon as it dropped and listened to that non stop to keep me satisfied while I waited for the new album. In fact despite only joining Twitter less than a year ago I actually went on to Twitter quite a bit back in 2011 just to follow Silversun Pickups and see what the updates were for the new album.
Eventually their 3rd full length album was released in the spring of 2012. With a Target gift card that I had won at work in hand, I went out and bought the CD the day it came out. Like all of their albums I latched on to a few songs initially but a lot of my favorite songs were revealed to me more over time such as Dots and Dashes. Dots and Dashes is now my favorite song off Neck of the Woods but it actually took a few years for me to come to that conclusion. I also love the music video which depicts a lesbian relationship between 2 teen girls. The Pit, the second single became another favorite once it was released to rock radio. Again it's an album that rewarded my patience as I grew to love it more over time. That year I also finally got to see the band live. They performed at the final DC 101 Chili Cookoff along with Soundgarden, Capital Cities and Awolnation. They only performed for about 40 minutes so I only got to hear 8 songs but they were great and performed 2 of my favorites, Panic Switch and The Royal We. I also wore my Silversun Pickups shirt to the show since it was a festival and I wanted to show my support. I got a lot of compliments for the shirt and people thought I had bought it there (my husband had bought it offline for me for Xmas.)
As I waited for the next album I listened to Cannibal off their Greatest Hits quit a bit as well as their mini EP Let It Decay. Once Better Nature was finally announced my excitement levels rose again and I LOVED the lead single Nightlight. I thought it was one of the best songs they had ever done. I bought the CD as soon as it came out at Best Buy, but I had to really search to find it! It showed CDs were really on the way out and it would be one of the last 5 CDs I bought before transitioning over to Spotify completely. Nightlight I liked quickly but again another of my favorite songs would only emerge about a year later with Latchkey Kids, which was much more pop and early 80s New Wave for the group than I was used to. Once I got used to it though it became one of my favorites by them. I really wanted to see them live again for a full show, but it just never happened on the Better Nature tour. Either shows sold out too quick or I wasn't in town and I just never made it to see them.
When word came that Butch Vig was gonna produce the next Silversun Pickups that got me all hot and bothered! Now my favorite band since the 90s was going to work with one of the great architects of 90s Alternative. I couldn't wait for this album. It was my most anticipated album from the moment I heard about it...until Queer pop arrived. All of a sudden I now had a whole genre laid out for me to explore that I was falling head over heels in love with. I still loved Silversun Pickups, but they were no longer at the front of the pack. Still I knew I would still enjoy the album and when Widow's Weeds dropped in early 2019 I did like it. Lead single Doesn't Matter Why became another instant favorite for me that showed how good Silversun Pickups are at crafting rock radio hits that still sound unique and don't sound cookie cutter at all. I loved the strings used throughout it especially. The album overall was also solid but again like all their albums I will need more time with it since Silversun Pickups albums always reveal some of their greatest gems over time. That said, unlike before where they had my main attention, they now have been pushed slightly to the side by Queer Pop.
That said I still want to see them live again at some point for a full show. For ten years they were easily my favorite act in music and gave me lots of hours of music listening pleasure. There is already a lot of nostalgia and investment I have with them, which means they will never be tossed aside. Silversun Pickups are one of the few rock bands I still follow on social media and interact with. Years ago I said they were the rock band I was gonna hitch my wagon to for the next 2 decades and I still plan to, they are just gonna be sharing more space now with Queer pop acts than before.
