As someone who’s been listening overwhelmingly to our two alt rock stations for roughly the past 25 years, I became aware of Walk The Moon pretty much the moment Shut Up And Dance blew up.
Honestly? I don’t think they’re doing anything that any of the big pop rock groups of the past…Duran Duran, The Bangles, Kenny Loggins, Bruce Hornsby and the Range, Blondie, et al…didn’t do at least as well. I’m convinced #1 reason they hit it big was that they found the perfect sweet spot between insufferably gooey and unapologetically harsh, and therefore were able to score points with the top 40 crowd, the dance crowd, and the alternative crowd.
This, in fact, is a (not disastrous, but not entirely welcome either) trend I’ve been seeing with alt rock for a long time, a move away from the raw, unfiltered, deeply personal music that defined the genre and was an unbelievable breath of fresh air for me after the endless mush I’d been force-fed for the first 18 years of my life. Sometimes serious (R.E.M., Vertical Horizon), sometimes angry (Linkin Park, Disturbed), sometimes cynical (Green Day, 3 Doors Down, Blink-182), sometimes bitter (Gin Blossoms), sometimes…whatever (Citizen King, Len, Crazy Town, Pearl Jam), but always free from the foul taint of “acceptable”. And then…around the time of Nickelback, or Maroon 5, or Paramore, I don’t know precisely when…it started slipping. And it kept slipping, to the point where Star 101.9 and KSSK have a big overlap I couldn’t even imagine in my college days. And it was this environment which Walk The Moon came in and rode straight to the top.
Eh. Shut Up And Dance is way overplayed, but other than that they haven’t had anything I find unlistenable. Not great, but good. I’ll take it.
Oh, my personal favorite. 