Did Beavis And Butthead Ruin This Band's Career?
As any Gen X'er who still wears acid wash jeans and calls people "dude" can attest, Winger was, for a while there, a band. Beginning in 1988 with their eponymous studio debut, they managed to knock out two platinum albums in a row before their third release, 1993's Pull, failed to achieve certification. Seemingly out of nowhere, the world didn't want any more Winger. What happened?
Depending on who you ask, something nefarious. Fans have been pointing an accusatory finger at Mike Judge, the creator of King of the Hill, Office Space, and, more pertinently, Beavis and Butthead. Fans of MTV's epochal grunting animated peanut gallery may remember that their series featured a secondary character named Stewart. Stewart, for anyone unfamiliar, wets his bed. He was a wuss — think proto-Butters from South Park. And boy, did he love Winger.
The theory goes that the portrayal of Stewart as a wimpy mama's boy clad in Winger gear, especially on one of MTV's most popular shows, led to the downfall of the band. Does it hold water?
Heh heh. "Hold water."
We know how Kip Winger, the band's humdinger of a lead singer, felt about it. Asked by XS Rock whether Beavis and Butthead torpedoed Winger's success, he was quoted as saying "Well, it sure didn't help us any." That said, putting the blame on the shoulders of a cartoon 9-year-old might be, you know. An oversimplification.
For one thing, Stewart made his debut in mid-June of 1993. Winger's first less-than-successful album, the aforementioned Pull, was released a month earlier.
Do you know what else was happening in 1993? Not a lot of hair metal. Times were changing, and the wadded up, bleachy sound of the grunge genre had overtaken the polished tones of bands like KISS, Whitesnake, and Scorpions. Like it says in Ecclesiastes, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die, and Beavis and Butthead? Well, they sure won't help you any."