Sometimes we get chatting at Wall of Sound HQ (I know right, a sociable workplace) and the most recent topic of conversation turned to the 2000’s and all the killer tracks and one-hit-wonders that came out around that time when bands like Limp Bizkit, blink-182, Linkin Park, Sum 41, The Offspring, Evanescence and KoRn were reigning supreme on a mainstream scale. Turns out, there are a few alternative bands who kinda disappeared into oblivion after leaving a pretty decent impression on us back in the day, so we went back to track down some of them and, holy shit, their songs didn’t age well. So grab your fake Oakleys from Bali, chuck on your baggy jeans and Roxy Bikini and relive your youth with our Top 7 2000’s Songs You Probably Forgot About… Until Now

#7 – Taxiride – ‘Creepin’ Up Slowly’

Ok, I’m going to admit this, I really wanted their other song ‘Get Set‘ but apparently that was released in 1999, so this song gets added to the list for continuity reasons. At one point Taxiride were one of Australia’s biggest rock exports, scoring songs in blockbuster movies, scoring ARIA Awards in the process too. In 2002 they released their album Garage Mahal which went Platinum in Australia (selling over 70,000 copies) and spawned their most popular single ever released ‘Creepin’ Up Slowly‘ which reached #6 in the charts.

 

#6 – The Androids – ‘Do It With Madonna’

Yeahhhh, a song about sex without mentioning the word sex because that’s not cool but saying “do it” was because they said it in American Pie. Now that we got that out of our pre-pubescent systems, The Androids were a band formed by former guitarist for The Superjesus, Tim Henwood and this was their signature song (and only major hit single). They scored an ARIA Award for Best Music Video in 2003 which featured drag queens and old actors dressed up like the female artists depicted in the lyrics and, at the time, was one of the funniest videos to catch on Video Hits (RIP) early Saturday Mornings. The actual video is on YouTube but the quality is shithouse, take a look here, but we’ve posted the song below instead.

#5 – Lash – ‘Take Me Away’

West Australia Represent. Back in the day, if you were a young, angsty, teenage girl, chances are you wanted to start your own girl band after hearing Lash. The ladies scored an ARIA Nomination for this song in 2001 (but were beaten by The Avalanches) and also scored a label signing from Festival Mushroom Records, sadly both this single and their follow up ‘Beauty Queen‘ didn’t sell enough to validate their signing and they disbanded shortly after. However, they did manage to play Homebake and support the likes of Eskimo Joe, The Living End and Motor Ace… BUT the real icing on the cake came a few years later when ‘Take Me Away‘ was used in the Lindsay Lohan (pre-meltdown) remake of Freaky Friday where her character played the song with her band.

#4 – Alien Ant Farm – ‘Movies’

A band who managed to get famous of a (pretty decent) cover of Michael Jackson‘s ‘Smooth Criminal‘ after giving it a nu-metal twist were on everyone’s minds back in 2001. Following their #1 spot in Australia for that track, they followed it up with their album Anthology and the subsequent single ‘Movies‘ which, despite only reaching #32 on the ARIA Charts, managed to stay in the US Charts for a whopping 32 weeks, 5 weeks longer than their cover. Pretty sure this is where Hollywood’s love addiction for remakes and reboots started too.

#3 – The Ataris – ‘Boys of Summer’

If punk rock was more of your thing, chances are you frothed over The Ataris (and probably still do). Their cover of Don Henley‘s ‘Boys of Summer‘ gave the song a punkier makeover which resulted in it being their most successful single to date. In 2003 it was hard to escape the song as it was played all over commercial radio and tv here in Australia, but it was harder to escape it in the US after the album it was on, So Long, Astoria, went Gold selling over 500,000 copies. Even though they’ve gone through 23 members since first forming back in 1996, the one thing that’s stuck is the catchiness of this rendition.

 

#2 – Steriogram – ‘Walkie Talkie Man’

Just across the ditch in New Zealand, these guys broke out in 2004 with this absolute banger of a track. Its one of those earworms that when you first heard it, you didn’t know if it was good or not and slowly, as time went by, the more plays it received, the more popular it became. So much so they even scored a Grammy Nomination for the music video back in 2005. It was later used for advertisements for iPods, Beer, the TV show Alias and various video games.

 

and the winner is

 

#1 – Hot Action Cop – ‘Fever For The Flava’

The year was 2002. Hot Action Cop released what would be, arguably, their best and most popular single to date, ‘Fever For The Flava‘ and the world didn’t know what was about to hit them. Once again, it was snatched up by pre-pubescent boys due to the sexual content of the lyrics, but the words, along with the catchy riff and ”woop woop” sounds later made the song popular in clubs, and consequently helped to get it featured in video games like Need for Speed and Project Gotham Racing, as well as movies like American Wedding (American Pie 3), S.W.A.T. and The Real Cancun. Also, it pays to mention I used to work at Red Rooster and we had a new food item added to the menu not long before this song came out called a Flayva and I can remember working in the drive-thru and having teenage/young adults come through either singing this into the ordering box or Craig David‘s single ‘What’s Your Flava?‘ which was also released back in 2002. I kinda feel like they were responsible for so many of those meals getting sold during that period.

The band and song were highly criticised by various media outlets and digital music networks labeling the video ”controversial” and inappropriate and they sorta became the Limp Bizkit of alternative rock, but that didn’t stop them touring with the likes of Evanescence at the time and even scoring a slot at Lollapalooza in 2003. Flashback now with the song which probably may have got you laid way back when…. or slapped.

 

Browny @brownypaul