Songoftheday 9/28/23 - Met a girl thought she was grand, fell in love found out first hand...
"She Hates Me" - Puddle Of Mudd
from the album Come Clean (2001)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #13 (four weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 19
Today's song comes from the rock group Puddle Of Mudd, who scored a huge crossover pop success with their second single "Blurry", which reached the top five on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the spring of 2002. That was followed by the mood piece "Drift & Die" (a very decent Alice In Chains pastiche), which was a huge rock radio hit, topping the Mainstream Rock chart for six weeks and spending four weeks at #3 on the Alternative Rock counterpart. However, mainstream radio was too much bright and shiny pop to fit in, and it stalled at #61 on the Hot 100.
For the fourth and final single from the record, the band still rocked but in a goofily comic way on "She Hates Me". Written by Wes Scantlin and former bandmate/guitarist Jimmy Allen, the songs lyrics tell of a romance that flamed out pretty quickly. She ripped his heart apart and took his stuff, and he's just belting out his rage. Nothing fancy, but done in a way (especially with the uptempo production) that is seems just funny. It harkens back to the quirky alternative hard rock one-hits of the decade prior. And that humor ended up translating very well, bringing pop radio back on board for one last big go...
"She Hates Me" became Puddle Of Mudd's second (and final so far) top-40 hit on Billboard's Hot 100 in December of 2002. On the radio, the song peaked at #7 on the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart, and #30 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, but like before its biggest success was on rock radio stations, topping the Mainstream Rock chart for a week and spending three weeks at #2 on the Alternative Rock list. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in Austria (#7), Ireland (#8), and Australia (#9), and made the top-40 in the United Kingdom (#14), Germany (#20), Switzerland (#23), Belgium (#25 Flanders), Italy (#37), and the Netherlands (#37).
Puddle Of Mudd returned at the start of the holiday season in 2003 with their sophomore effort Life On Display, which peaked at #20 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and sold over a half-million copies (as opposed to Come Clean's three million). The lead single from the record, "Away From Me", spend three weeks at #1 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart, and got to #5 on the Alternative side, but stalled down at #72 on the Hot 100. It was also their last minor hit in the UK at #55.
By the time the group recorded their third disc for Flawless/Geffen Records in 2007, half the lineup left, with Scantlin and bassist Doug Ardito joined by new guitarist Christian Stone and drummer Ryan Yeadon. Famous landed a third top-40 placing on the Billboard 200 at #27, while second single "Psycho" (a sonic sister of "She Hates Me") hit #1 on both the Mainstream (nine weeks) and Alternative (three weeks) Rock radio charts, but again stoppped at #67 on the Hot 100. Paul Phillips returned to the band as guitarist for their fourth and final release on Relentless/Geffen, Volume 4: Songs In The Key Of Love & Hate in 2009, which hit #95 on the Billboard 200. Both of its singles, "Spaceship" and "Stoned", topped at #6 on the Mainstream Rock chart, but both didn't make any way towards the Hot 100. After this, their major-label tenure with Geffen would end (with the obligatory greatest hits collection).
In 2011, the band went indie, putting out the Re: (disc)Overed covers collection in 2011, which went to #96 on the Billboard 200, their most recent appearance. Since then, Wes assembled a whole new Puddle Of Mudd, and released Welcome To Galvania in 2019 under the Pavement Music label. From it the single "Uh Oh" scored them a new top ten hit on the Mainstream Rock radio chart at #9. Their most recent studio album, Ubiquitous, arrived this year, with the single "My Baby".
(9/10)
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Next up, from their Striking That Familiar Chord live DVD from 2005...
and lastly, in a show from 2012...
Up tomorrow: Neo-soul queen pays homage to the genre.
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