Quote Originally Posted by Judaeus Apella View Post
I remember Letters to Cloe from the 90's... I never understood why they were popular back then. Its not a matter of what kind of music I like or don't like, I just thought their talent was mediocre. She was good as the singer in Josie and the :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:cats though. I'll admit if someone has talent, even if I can't stand the kind of music they perform.
Yeah, they were definitely the biggest sellout band that got to use the word "grunge" (albeit not strictly) in the 90's. Plenty of other bands made money with commercial ventures but after their initial success they were immediately sucked in to doing music for movie soundtracks and lost any chance at being taken particularly seriously. Heck, not long after they started into that I'm not sure one could really even use the word "grunge" in association with them anymore.

What I find interesting about them though is that they're so very stereotypically mainstream mid-90's... you can put a lot of their music right up against most any other mainstream grunge or powerpop band then use it to transition to a boy band without even noticing the seam. Or you can use them as a jumping point to go from mainstream sound into some of the more small-label bands that were more focused on their genre. In the Neapolitan ice cream of the 90's, they were vanilla. They're not as good as the big names that were out at the time by any stretch, but the thing is that all the big names are pretty genre-focused (because selling out != making good music)... so while the big names show you the "highs" of the time, it's bands like Letters to Cleo that show you how things ended up going from point A to point B. And that makes them a must-hear if you're interested in really sitting down and doing a tour of music in the 90's. There are other transitional bands that do the same, this is really just one example.


On a side note, Josie and the :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:cats was a wildly brilliant movie IMO and for one reason: the entire movie was about product placement and contained a ridiculous amount of product placement as a running gag, but the movie company actually did all of the product placement to further the joke and didn't ask or receive a single dollar for any of it. They could have paid for the whole movie 3 times over if they had, but in a silly movie aimed at teens/pre-teens they for some reason decided to take a stand against actually selling out. That's a 10/10 on the integrity scale. Plus it was a 100% clean comedy, and that's always appreciated.