10 Hard Rock Albums With Only One Good Song
7. Come Clean - Puddle Of Mudd
In the post-Cobain era of rock music, many bands were coming to the forefront trying to ape the trademark style of grunge. While later bands like Days of the New were pushing the sound of grunge in new sonic directions, Puddle of Mudd tried to make it work with just a couple of guitar chords and doofy lyrics.
Across the band's major label debut Come Clean, the songs seem like 2nd-rate Pearl Jam plagiarisms while being hunkered down with Wes Scantlin's grating nasal delivery. Though the record does start strong out of the gate, it loses its steam pretty quickly.
The album opener "Control" does a a great job at kicking the door down with a harsh sonic bite to the guitars and a more aggressive vocal approach. Though Scantlin's voice is still in its full nasal form, the anger displayed on this track is still insanely crunchy.
The song sounds like the more punkish leanings of Pearl Jam or even the more poppier sides of Metallica, but the good will runs dry when the song stretches out its chorus for nearly half the runtime. There are definitely some interesting ideas to be found on this track, but it's not necessarily the lynch pin that could have saved the album.