Robbed hit of the week 3/13/23 - P.O.D.'s "Alive"...

 

 

"Alive" - P.O.D.

from the album Satellite (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #41

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from the hard rock band P.O.D. (for "Payable On Death"), who came together in San Diego in the early 1990s. Lead singer Sonny Bernardo, who had become a "born again" Christian after the death of his mother, joined guitarist Marcos Curiel and drummer Wuv along with second bassist Traa Daniels when they released their debut album Snuff The Punk independently on the Rescue imprint (ran by Bernando's dad) in 1994. They followed with a second album and a live release before they were given a record deal by Atlantic Records in 1999.

The band's first release on the major label, The Fundamental Elements Of Southtown. The record was revolutionary at the time, combining Christian themes with the rap/rock fusion already new at the time called nu-metal. Nicking off fans of bands like Linkin Park who didn't particularly pay attention to the overtones, as well as church-going youths that wanted to hear music of their own generation instead of listening to a million Amy Grant ripoffs, the band found themselves with a hit, which peaked at #51 on the Billboard 200 sales tally as well as topping the Christian Albums list. Two songs from the record also got played on secular rock radio in 2000 making both charts - "Southtown" (#28 Alternative/#31 Mainstream) and "Rock The Party (Off The Hook)" (#25 Mainstream/#27 Alternative). At the close of the year, another song from the band, "School Of Hard Knocks" from the Adam Sandler movie Little Nicky, scored a third hit at Alternative Rock radio at #38. 

Building on that success, P.O.D. returned with their second album on Atlantic, Satellite, which had the unfortunate release date of September 11th, 2001. The lead single from the record was "Alive", written by the whole band, who co-produced the track with Howard Benson. The tragic circumstances of 9/11 actually aided the reception of the positive song, written about Sandoval's look on life through his daughter. Like fellow Christo-rockers Creed, the band used vagueness about the religious aspect to sell the epic drama of the lyrics, which albeit were delivered in a much harder style that Creed would ever dream of. While it was way too guitar-heavy to make an impact on mainstream pop radio, the melodic nature of the single was a fit on rock station, and the song broke them to an even bigger audience. The stunt-filled music video was all over MTV as well...

While "Alive" spent four weeks at #2 on Billboard's Alternative Rock chart, and rose to #4 on their Mainstream Rock counterpart, the song stalled one notch short of the pop top-40 in January of 2002. Internationally, the single made the top-40 in Denmark (#7), Finland (#9), Austria (#11), Sweden (#12), Norway (#14), Ireland (#15), Germany (#16), Australia (#18), the United Kingdom (#19), and Belgium (#40 Flanders). The Satellite album, released in September of 2001, was their most successful album, cresting at #6 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over three million copies. 

And with that momentum the band's next single would break the top-40 barrier.

(6/10)

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Here's the band appearing on the Tonight Show to promote the single...

Next up, live at the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame...

and lastly in concert...