5 Flop Songs From The '90s We Can't Help But Love

There's little justice to be had in the arts, is there? Plenty of songs, shows, movies, books, and games that are crap get released, just as plenty of worthy projects get canned. Sometimes, truly great music gets the recognition it deserves, sure. Other times, a garbage song reaches No. 1, like in the case of Captain and Tennille's 1975 trash hit "Love Will Keep Us Together." Yet other times, a song flops when it's actually not that bad. This was certainly true in the '90s, same as any other decade.

But how do we define a "flop"? A song from a big-name artist might flop if it underperforms in comparison to expectations, but it still sells much better than lesser-known artists. A song might also be considered a flop if fans detest it, no matter how it performs commercially. We also have to more or less limit our song choices to singles (with the semi-exception of a Depeche Mode song — more on that later) because there are fewer expectations in place for non-single tracks. That's the key criterion right there: expectations. Whether or not a song is a success or a flop depends wholly on expectations vs. reality.

As far as why we love these '90s flop songs, that can boil down to anything from sheer musical chutzpah to legitimate musical quality, so long as something about the song remains unfairly unrecognized. This includes "The Unforgiven II" from Metallica's long-reviled, mid-'90s "Load" era, "Nine Inch Nails'" follow-up single to "The Downward Spiral," an overlooked track from Portishead, and a desert/stoner rock track that few outside the scene know, period.

Metallica's short-haired "Load" (1996) and "Reload" (1997) era has been endlessly criticized and marauded over the years, with "The Unforgiven II" from "Reload" taking center stage in a larger tête-à-tête amongst critics and fans. One camp regards "The Unforgiven II" as the height of sellout trash, and the other as not too bad. Metallica themselves have only played the song seven times in almost 30 years. But the song has over 212 million listens on Spotify. For our part, we're giving "The Unforgiven II" a pass because of one very thoughtful, sincere person: Papa Het, aka singer and guitarist James Hetfield.

But first: No, "The Unforgiven II" isn't exactly Metallica's best work. Yes, it borrows anything good about it — musically and thematically — from the superb "The Unforgiven" off Metallica's 1991 self-titled album, commonly called "The Black Album." No, "The Unforgiven II" doesn't remotely reach the volcanic emotional power of "The Unforgiven" and its acoustic-cowboy stylings and old man who "prepares to die regretfully." Yes, "The Unforgiven II" is cheesy in comparison, right down to James Hetfield's knowing eyebrow raise in the song's video when he delivers his first "Or are you unforgiven, too?" end-of-the-chorus line. Get it? Because the song is called "The Unforgiven II"? Sigh.

But all that can be forgiven. As Ultimate Classic Rock explains, Hetfield intentionally wrote "The Unforgiven II" to extend the story of the original "The Unforgiven." Sometimes he likes to "find new things" in older songs and "revisit them from a different, older perspective," he said. That level of care, plus Metallica's musical cred as a whole, transforms "The Unforgiven II" into a respectable musical foray from a legendary band that ought to be allowed to do whatever it wants.

Folks who were kicking around when Nine Inch Nails (NIN) released "Closer" from 1994's "The Downward Spiral" can tell you how big it was. It and its extraordinarily memorable music video — grainy anatomist's lab and air-spinning Trent Reznor, included — cinched Nine Inch Nails' place in popular culture. It also yielded the typical problem that newly successful artists face: How to follow up on such a hit? Three years later, the public got its answer with 1997's "The Perfect Drug" from the soundtrack to David Lynch's film, "Lost Highway." In comparison to "Closer," it was a flop.

No matter how weirdly interesting, "The Perfect Drug" sounds half-baked and disjointed. The track has an ascending violin plucking section atop a manic drum 'n' bass percussive track, rushes to its chorus, features a melodic outro that mirrors the piano closer on "Closer," and is stuffed full of angst. It's more of a collection of ideas than anything cohesive. This makes sense, as Reznor had to rush the track for the release of "Lost Highway" and was never satisfied with it.

Moreover, Reznor had already driven himself to the self-destructive breaking point, pushing "The Downward Spiral" to excellence. Add to this the pressure created by the album's success (five million copies sold), and Reznor nearly broke.  He eventually dug himself out of his (head like a) hole, but it took years. This makes "The Perfect Drug" a unique, fascinating track in NIN's discography, one that represents a unique time and produced a unique sound. Plus, it came with that killer music video that looks like an Edgar Allen Poe fever dream, Reznor goatee strip and all.

Portishead fans love debating the particular virtues of the Bristol-formed trip-hop outfit's three studio albums – "Dummy" (1994), the self-titled "Portishead" (1997), and "Three" (2008) — if only to hear from other people how much they love Portishead, too. "Dummy" tends to top the list of such highly rose-tinted discussions, while "Three" stands out as the most experimental of the albums. But it's the group's second album, "Portishead," that often gets overlooked, no matter the relative success of MTV-featured singles like "Only You" and "All Mine." And even on an overlooked album, it's the album's second single, "Over," that truly flopped.

It'd be easy to gloss over "Over" and say that it's another low-tempo, slow-grind trip-hop affair laced with turntable scratches, immense bass booms, instrumental flourishes (no horns this time, though), and singer Beth Gibbons' toothy, heart-wrenching lounge vocals. But even if the song was as simple as all that, would it be bad? Hardly. "Over," much like all of its album, "Portishead," presents to the listener a dense, heavy slab of absolute sorrow, dejection, and auditory darkness. In fact, we'd say that it's so haunting and evocative that sensitive listeners ought to take care to be in the right frame of mind when taking it in.

Perhaps Portishead set such a high standard for themselves with "Dummy" and, to a lesser extent, "Portishead" singles, that "Over" never took off. Perhaps it just had the least commercial appeal of any of their tracks within the group's admittedly smaller-than-mainstream audience. It currently has almost 11 million listens on Spotify, while Portishead's biggest track, "Glory Box," has over 376 million listens. Nonetheless, we love "Over" and recommend that readers give it a shot.

Even if you know nothing else about English electronic pop pioneers Depeche Mode, you probably know two songs: "Enjoy the Silence" and "Personal Jesus." These songs come from 1990's "Violator," a smash commercial hit that sold anywhere from five million (per Best Selling Albums) to fifteen million (per Diffuser) albums. "Enjoy the Silence," alone, has over 950 million listens on Spotify. In comparison, what's a mere 37 million listens? For Depeche Mode, this is the flop named "Halo" from the same album, "Violator." Or at least, it's the flop that almost was.

Somewhere along the tangled path to commercial release, "Halo" got diverted from its apparent release as a single. The timeline isn't exactly clear, but "Halo" was released on a non-commercial promotional single in 1990 — the kind that gets sent to radio stations for airplay. In addition to a CD, there were also multiple vinyl prints of the would-be single. Multiple labels handled this promotional release, one of which was Mute Records, which is also credited on "Halo's" music video. So yes, an eventual non-single from "Violator" got a music video. Two non-singles got music videos, in fact, the other being "Clean." But there's no indication that "Clean" was ever going to be a single. 

So what really happened in all this mess? We can't say. But given the success of "Violator's" other singles, it stands to reason that the moody, danceable, string-filled "Halo" might have gotten its time in the sun if it had gotten a proper release and not a half-hearted rollout. No matter how the music video might have helped bring the song to people's attention, it's gotten a lot less love than it deserves.

Even though we could dive into far more niche territory for this last choice, we're going to stay in orbit of recognizable mainstream music. Enter "Gardenia" from Kyuss, aka the desert rock (aka stoner rock) band that spawned Queens of the Stone Age and the rise of everyone's favorite ginger Elvis, singer and guitarist Josh Homme. But back when Kyuss released "Gardenia" off their third studio album, 1994's "Welcome to Sky Valley," Homme was just the guitarist, and Kyuss was one year away from disbanding. They also had a flop to their name ("Gardenia") and no idea how much of a legendary, cult status they'd eventually achieve.

Readers who aren't keyed into the desert rock/stoner rock scene might recognize "Demon Cleaner" from "Welcome to Sky Valley," if anything. The single received a music video that got some airplay on MTV, but the album's other single, "Gardenia," didn't. "Demon Cleaner" is also an atypical Kyuss song, as it's uptempo and is built around a fairly clear, not-too-fuzzy lead riff that might mislead listeners regarding the rest of Kyuss' discography. "Demon Cleaner" also clocks in at a radio-doable five minutes eleven seconds, while "Gardenia" is almost seven minutes long.

There's no specific data on how many units "Gardenia" or "Welcome to Sky Valley" sold, but as a benchmark, Kyuss' previous album, 1992's "Blues for the Red Sun," only sold 39,000 copies. But, its lead single, "Green Machine," currently has nearly 35 million listens on Spotify. That's because Kyuss has taken on mythic status over time amongst certain rock fandoms, especially "Gardenia," which has over 18 million listens at the time of writing. But no matter the numbers, "Gardenia" is a worthy song that flopped.