America in the '90s got really, really into super melodic, lightly country flavored, jangly pop rock. Hootie and the Blowfish capitalized on the fascination!
I see in the UK CRV peaked at 12 and in Germany at 45, which to be fair back then still required a lot of units sold, but yeah comparatively not massive
In the U.S., that album sold more than 7 million copies in 1995 alone. For perspective, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) was the top album of last year in terms of raw sales in the U.S., and it did a little less than 2 million. The industry was wild in the 1990s.
It's also way the follow-up tanked. The 90's was the golden age of acts going platinum/multi-platinum without really having dedicated fans (Bush, Live, Alanis, etc.)
Since we're talking about absurd sales numbers, Matchbox 20's first record is certified as 12x platinum.
I had this argument with a friend yesterday who tried to tell me that Billie Eilish's when we all fall asleep, where do we go? was bigger than Hybrid Theory
It was a time when the 50th biggest song from a year SEEMED bigger than the biggest song of the year seems now. Between radio and MTV and movie soundtracks and the CD golden age, there were so many ways to encounter a song over and over again. And that drove a lot of album sales without always building big fanbases for the bands/artists themselves. A lot of the bands that broke big, especially in the mid to late 1990s, also just did not release their follow-ups fast enough to keep their success going. The two I always think of are The Wallflowers and Fastball. Two true "one-album wonder" bands who, by the time they got around to releasing the follow-ups, were now completely out of step with what was happening on the radio. The interesting thing about Matchbox is how long they were able to keep churning out hits. They proved to be more adaptable than a lot of the other bands that were scoring hits around the same time as that first album. Same! The list of albums that were bigger than Hybrid Theory is surprisingly short.
Yeah that’s why I don’t like when people compare the success of current artists to that of artists from before. It’s a whole different game. Apples and oranges.
Happy 20th to the reason I have an account on this site or its predecessor and the reason I like at least half of the music I like Still goes fucking hard after all these years too
I seem to do a listen or 2 a year but sitting down today with good headphones was great. Forget how dynamic the drums sound. Crazy the music trajectory it took me on!
Happy Birthday to the record that helped me shape my musical taste and inspired me to write my own songs. 20 years have gone so fast, indeed.
This album changed the "what was in" scene in Australia massively. Punk/alternative became cool, which then led into the emo/scene movement of '06 / '07, etc. Every Australian teen who was alternative adjacent was wearing a red tie with a black shirt at one point in 2004/2005.
A little late to the birthday party but yeah what an album. I taught myself how to play guitar using that album..which is why I never got really good at guitar! But yeah I was already moving away from metal/hard rock and getting into pop punk and I already liked Green Day songs from the 90s, and this album really sealed the deal for me.
It's a couple days late, but I wrote about American Idiot for the 20-year! Green Day – American Idiot
Saw the show last week, had SO MUCH fun, and the absolute centerpiece was getting to see American Idiot in full, the way it was meant to be. Just an absolute A++ album start to finish.
I remember buying American Idiot on release day in the CD store in Amsterdam’s main train station, probably on my way home from school. A CD store in a train station. Great times.