Robbed hit of the week 11/7/22 - American Hi-Fi's "Flavor Of The Weak"...

 

 

"Flavor Of The Weak" - American Hi-Fi

from the album American Hi-Fi (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #41 (three weeks)

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from the rock band American Hi-Fi, who came together in Boston in the late 1990s. Led by Stacy Jones, who originally played drums for alternative rock bands Letters To Cleo and Veruca Salt, and had switched to guitar and singing lead, the group was signed to Island Records, where they recorded their self-titled debut album in 2001. The lead single from the set was the power-pop gem "Flavor Of The Weak". Written by Jones and produced by Bob Rock, the song has Jones singing to a female friend who is in a bad relationship and how she should be with him instead (a common trope in that era). The result was the bridge between Blink-182 and Avril Lavigne...

"Flavor Of The Week" frustratingly stalled one notch below the top-40 on the Billboard magazine "pop" Hot 100 chart in August of 2001. On the radio, the song climbed to #5 on Billboard's Alternative Rock chart, #15 on the Mainstream Top-40 list, and #35 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format. Internationally, the song was a top-40 hit in the United Kingdom at #31. The American Hi-Fi album, released in February of that year, peaked at #81 on the Billboard 200 sales tally.

The band's follow-up single, the power-ballad "Another Perfect Day", featured Patton Oswalt in the music video as a corn dog. While the song placed on Billboard's Alternative Rock chart at #33, it missed the pop Hot 100 altogether.

American Hi-Fi returned in 2003 with their sophomore effort The Art Of Losing. The title track again made it to #33 on the Alternative Rock radio chart, but that was it (the song did slip on to the British singles chart at #75), while the album placed at #80 on the Billboard 200, one rung higher than their debut, it only lingered on the list for two weeks (as opposed to 25). With declining sales, they were let go by Island.

Their third album, Hearts On Parade, was released in Japan, and eventually picked up by Madonna's vanity imprint Maverick Records, where it came out in the States in 2005. The set would be their most recent charting album on the Billboard 200 at #129. After a Live In Milwaukee concert set, the band and Maverick parted ways as well.

Since then, the band has released three more albums independently, with an acoustic version of their debut album coming out in 2016. A new EP of cover songs, Anywhere Else But Here, arrived in 2020.

(6/10)

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Here's the band performing on the Top Of The Pops show in the UK  in 2001...

 

 and lastly, in concert in 2015...