Songoftheday 2/16/22 -Awake on my airplane awake on my airplane, my skin is bare my skin is theirs...

 

 

 

"Take A Picture" - Filter

from the album Title Of Record (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #12 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 15

Today's song comes from the industrial rock band Filter, led by singer/songwriter Richard Patrick. Patrick had been a touring member of the group Nine Inch Nails during the first two albums from Trent Reznor's project, before leaving to start his own act. Originally a duo with multi-instrumentalist Brian Liesegang, The pair released their debut album Short Bus on Reprise Records in 1995, which went to #59 on the Billboard 200 sales chart and selling over a million copies. Lead single "Hey Man, Nice Shot", which was written about the on-air suicide of a crooked politician in Pennsylvania in the 1980's, came at a time soon enough after the death of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain to have many people assuming the song was about his suicide. Despite the denials from Patrick, the rumors fed the buzz around the song, and it rose to #10 on Billboard magazine's Alternative Rock radio chart, #19 on the Mainstream Rock format list, and made it on to the main "pop" Hot 100 at #76. In 1995, Patrick and Liesegang collaborated with the alternative dance act Crystal Method on the song "(Can't You) Trip Like I Do", from the movie Spawn which popped on to the Alternative Rock chart at #29, while becoming a top-40 hit in the UK at #39. 

Liesegang left Filter before their second album Title Of Record, with Short Bus touring members Frank Cavanaugh and Geno Lenardo and hiring drummer Steven Gillis. The lead single from the set, "Welcome To The Fold", surprisingly got a decent reception at rock radio, given the group's sporadic absences, and rose to #8 on Billboard's Alternative Rock chart, and #17 on the Mainstream Rock radio list. That record was loud and brash, with Patrick screaming his heart out and influencing a generation of metalcore kids of the future. 

The second release from the album mellowed things out a bit. "Take A Picture", written by Patrick and produced by Richard with Lenardo, Ben Grosse, and Rae DiLeo, has him wanting a recollection of his drug and drink-blinded shenanigans from the previous night. Starting with strumming guitars in a marching beat, Patrick's vocal is sardonic yet restrained as he recite this tone poem, and instead of screaming its a harmonic drone that drives the chorus. He does let it all out in the end, as he yells the line "Hey Dad what do you think about your son now?". The music video has the band in a series of aquatic situations focused around a plane crash...

"Take A Picture" became Filter's biggest pop success, reaching the top-20 on Billboard's Hot 100 in February of 2000. The song was also their biggest on rock radio, spending two weeks at #3 on the Alternative Rock chart and getting to #4 on the Mainstream Rock chart. It even made the top ten on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format list at #7, spending a half-year (26 weeks) on the chart, while reaching #3 on the Adult Album Alternative (or "Triple-A") Rock radio countdown. The remixes of the track, done by the likes of Peter Rauhofer's Club 69 and Hybrid, helped it top Billboard's Dance Club Play list for a week. Internationally, the single made the top ten in Canada (#3) and New Zealand (#8), and reached the top-40 in the UK (#25), Australia (#32), and Iceland (#35). The Title Of Record album, released in August of 1999, peaked at #30 on the Billboard 200, their highest rank of their career, selling over a million copies. 

The third single released from Title Of Record was "The Best Things", which cut the middle ground between the two previous songs in intensity. It missed the pop Hot 100, but was a moderate hit on rock radio, placing on both the Alternative (#18) and Mainstream (#31) Rock radio charts, while the dance remixes of the track put them at #6 on the Dance Club Play tally in Billboard. 

Patrick, Lenardo, Cavanaugh, and Gillis returned in 2002 with Filter's third effort The Amalgamut, which scored their second top-40 album on the Billboard 200 at #32. The lead single, "Where Do We Go From Here", tried to recapture the mood of "Take A Picture" with the strummed guitars at the start, and questioning lyrics. While the song just missed the top ten on Billboard's Alternative (#11) and Mainstream (#12) Rock radio chart, the single stalled down at #94 on the pop Hot 100. (It was also a minor club hit at #21.) While touring behind the record, Patrick's drug and alcohol issues led him to rehab, with the rest of the band leaving to newer pastures.

When Richard returned from rehab, instead of starting Filter back up he was involved in a few other bands, including joining Robert and Dean DiLeo of Stone Temple Pilots and future Korn drummer Ray Luzier for Army Of Anyone. Their self-titled sole album went to #56 on the Billboard 200, and from it the single "Goodbye" spent a week at #3 on the Mainstream Rock chart and #21 on the Alternative Rock list.

In 2008, having left Reprise, Patrick assembled a "new" Filter for a fourth album of Pulse Records, Anthems For The Damned, which went to #60 on the Billboard 200. Mostly assembling it himself with outside help, the song "Soldiers Of Misfortune" was the only track to make it to Mainstream Rock radio at #27. Bringing in newbies Mitchell Marlow on guitar, John Spiker on bass, and Mika Fineo on drums, another album, The Trouble With Angels on the indie label Rocket Science, came out rather quickly in 2010, though radio pretty much ignored it. 

Richard signed Filter to the bigger rock label Wind-Up, and again pared Filter down to a duo of just himself and Jonathan Radtke for The Sun Comes Out Tonight in 2013. The set spawned a pair of rock radio hits, with "What Do You Say" peaking at #15 and "Surprise" at #37 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart. Their most recent studio album, Crazy Eyes, was released in 2016, and spent a solitary week on the Billboard 200 at #151. 

Recently, Patrick and Liesegang reunited to work on a new album tentatively title 'Murica. So far two politically-charged songs have been released in 2020, "Thoughts and Prayers" and title track "Murica".

(9/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

This is the Club 69 Trance Mix from the late Peter Rauhofer, that helped the track top Billboard's Dance Club Play chart...

Next up, the band appearing on The Tonight Show to promote the album in 2000...

Here's Filter live in concert in 2000 in New York...

and lastly, an acoustic take in 2010...

 Up tomorrow: Norwegian duo isn't into hearing romantic advances.