Something Corporate

One Liner:  Emo pop punk that probably should have remained in 2002

Wikipedia Genre:  Alternative rock, pop-punk
Home: Orange County, CA

Poster Position: 6
Weekend One Only.
Saturday at 2:10.

Honda Stage.

Thoughts:  The lead singer of this band was here a few years ago, as Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, and I remember looking up what Something Corporate was because I had never heard of the band.  So, it seems like the lead guy tried other things before coming back to his old mates.  The band was formed in Orange County in 1998 and it sounds like it - sorta pop punk, sorta emo, sorta operatic alternative rock.  They went on hiatus in 2004 and the McMahon started a new band called Jack's Mannequin, but then they reformed in 2010.  It sounds like they didn't do much with that reformation, until they reunited their core lineup for the When We Were Young festival in 2023.  

Which is made obvious because their discography is super lame - 2002 album Leaving Through the Window, 2003's North, and then a 2010 Greatest Hits album.  I'm sorry, but if you have two albums, you do not need a greatest hits compilation.  At all.  That is horseshit.  I'm sure there are some 30 year olds who are pumped about this band coming to the Festival, but I am preemptively annoyed by them.  There is also too much stuff in here that uses string arrangements to sound pompously important and it is bothering me.

Top track is from that first album - "Punk Rock Princess" - with 24.7 million streams.

The piano cracks me up.  It's like The Fray tried to get harder edged.  Also, dude is wearing flip flops to sing in a pop punk band and play the piano?  Really?  I make fun, but that is a pretty solid early oughts sneering pop punk anthem.  I'm trying to think what I was really into in 2002 that would have kept me from even knowing this band existed.  I guess it would be The Killers.  Oh, The Eminem Show was that year, as was the O Brother soundtrack, Nellyville, Dave Matthews' Busted Stuff, Dixie Chicks' Home, Songs for the Deaf, Yoshimi, Lord Willin', Sea Change - some classics.  I think this was about the time that The Hives put out that one album that I wore out as well.  Well, this band's other big song is from that same album, called "I Woke Up in a Car," also with just over 24 million streams.  After that, the stream count falls off.  The biggest track from North is "Space," with 6.5 million streams.

Yeah, sure.  I can see how this would have clicked with me back then, but now it just sounds overwrought and like he's trying too hard.  The kind of band who would put out a greatest hits album to commemorate their two hits and then just stuff it with every song they had ever made.  I'll let this band do their thing without me.