You ever wonder what was it about certain bands that made us stop caring about them after one song? Is their a science to it or some sort of mysterious Jedi mind trick that makes us suddenly stop looking for new music by a band that we already know can write a good song?
There are plenty of times when the single from a new group is the only thing worth listening to on an album but it can’t always be that simple right? What else could cause a band to burn out after just one massively popular hit?
With Crazy Town, it was marketing. You remember the song “Butterfly” right? Every bar band in the late 90’s and early 2000’s does. You may not but trust me, you had a good time dancing to it when it came up in the set. When that song “Butterfly” came out, it was truly everywhere, and by that I mean on every radio station. Including all of the rock ones. It had this great guitar riff, killer bass groove and yeah, there were some spoken word like vocals, but come on man, this is being played in between Korn and Green Day. This is a ROCK BAND! Heck, they were on the bill at Ozzfest! They’re a rock band.
Yeah… about that. No one else bothered to listened to the rest of the album “Butterfly” was featured on, The Gift of Game. It was basically a rap album. That same album with “Butterfly” featured a song with rapper KRS – One and dance hall/reggae sensation Mad Lion. Heck even Butterfly SAMPLED a lesser known Red Hot Chili Peppers song called “Pretty Little Ditty, from the 1989 RHCP album Mother’s Milk. So imagine the confusion when this hip hop band walked onto the stage at the biggest heavy metal festival of 2000 featuring not only the Prince Of Darkness, Ozzy Osbourne, but Pantera and Godsmack? Yeah it went over about as well as it sounded… and then we all stopped caring.
Crazy Town was never billed as a hip hop band with a crossover song. They were billed as a heavy metal band. So by the time everyone figured it out, no one to pass along the word. Rather than pass the CD to our rap loving buddies, we kept it to ourselves and found another big crossover hit to bond to. The sad thing is there are many stories like Crazy Town out there. There are even more tragic reasons behind one hit wonders as well ranging from severe in fighting with band members to drug abuse and death. At least with Crazy Town, we all had a damn good time to that song.
(Image: YouTube Screen Capture)