I have been listening to 311 Greatest Hits 93-03 for a few days and I gotta admit, there are some really good tunes on here. Most of the mellower stuff is pretty good. The ultra played Down and All Mixed up always annoyed me and kept me from checking out their other stuff. The I heard that cover of Love Song and the new one First Straw and really liked them so I got this disc and am pleasantly surprised. I may have to borrow some discs from some friends and see what the rest of there stuff sounds like.
311 is a pretty damn fine band. The way they approach their version of a rock-rap synthesis is better than most attempts (cf Limp Bizket and Kid Rock) and they continually bring a different dimension to it.
I used to be quite amused that they were from Nebraska of all places. But over time I’ve wised up and learned that good music is where you find it. For all I know coming from a non-traditional ‘hotspot’ allows bands to create and develop in non-traditional ways whereas a band from LA or NYC is going to be under more pressure to conform to the conventional wisdom.
And I’ve always likes ‘Come Original’ a hell of a lot.
I like them a lot. I got into them a while back, because I heard a song on some compilation CD. When Down and All Mixed Up were released as singles, I kind of grew away, and when I heard Come Original I didn’t listen to them for a couple of years. We moved to a new town and the radio station played 311 pretty often, and I rebought the old CDs and remembered how much I’d liked them.
If you like their mellower stuff, check out 8:16 am from the Grassroots album.
I like their cover of Lovesong, too. I think I’m one of the 5 Cure fans in the world who doesn’t hate it.
Why? Those songs are, if anything, perfectly representative of 311’s entire sound and schtick. That’s like saying “Paranoid” turned you off to Black Sabbath.
311 would probably rank as one of my bottom-10 bands of all time. There’s something about them that just makes me think of frat boys and date rape.
They ain’t half good either. I had the misfortune of hearing the Cure cover on the radio yesterday :dubious:
I can just imagine what went on in their minds at the band meeting…“Hey, we know we suck, everone in radioland know we suck, but we really need a hit so our record company can rake in some cash. Of course, we won’t see any of it, but the record company has to make a profit. Gee, what are we gonna do? Nobody cares about anything we write, so lets cover a song. How 'bout ‘Love Song’? It was a billion seller, and it still gets played on the radio every couplea hours, and golly, The Cure has a new album coming out so everyone’s going to be interested in Cure related stuff, and all the Jr. High kids who weren’t around in the 80s are going to be discovering their old stuff, so they’ll be lining up to buy our new record since they don’t know any better! WHOOHOO! We’re…er…I mean…our record company’s gonna make millions!”
I don’t hate 311 like you do, but I understand the connotation. They always were popular with the jock/frat boy/preppie/Abercrombie-wearing/“God’s gift to women” crowd, for what it’s worth. Limp Bizkit, Sublime, and Dave Matthews Band are popular bands in that “subgenre” as well.
