"Unlistenable"

Melvins (Atlantic, 1993-1997)

There’s a decently famous rumor regarding how the Melvins got signed to Atlantic: Kurt Cobain was a huge fan, his manager had a presence at Atlantic, Kurt begged him to sign the group, and there they were. While the band themselves have stated this to be untrue on multiple occasions, Kurt was legitimately a huge fan, which certainly helped lend the band some credence whenever they got scooped up, because it seems like in any other situation they wouldn’t have lasted as long as they did.
The Melvins were not the first “sludge metal” band to be signed to a major label - Primus has them beat there - but they were probably the first to completely own that sound rather than combining it with friendlier genres. But it wasn’t enough that they played doom-metal riffs at blistering speed; they had a sense of humor about it too. The Melvins liked to mess with people, changing songs right as listeners got comfortable or devoting them entirely to stupid jokes, all with the intent of getting a rise out of people. Reportedly the group played Atlantic execs their previous album, Lysol, just so Atlantic really made sure they wanted to sign the band whose previous album was a single half-hour track consisting of extended droning feedback sections and multiple demented Alice Cooper covers. And they did!
With a slightly more commercial sound thanks to pop-metal producer Garth “GGGarth” Richardson (and a few tracks produced by Cobain himself), 1993’s Houdini saw the band at peak marketability without really sacrificing much of their edge. The harsh soundscape, droning noise sections, twisted cover songs (this time of Kiss’ “Goin’ Blind”) and intentionally annoying sense of humor were still present, but more fine-tuned and presentable than ever before. With a decent amount of radio and MTV airplay on top of it all, things seemed good for the group.
1994’s Stoner Witch saw the group at an odd transitional period, finding a strangely even balance between pop sensibility and inaccessibility. The album seems to follow a pattern of poppier sounds with a heavier grunge-metal sound followed by bizarre genre experiments. While the extended drone tracks were of course still present, the stranger songs also saw heavy influence from space rock, blues, jazz and country, all played in a deranged Melvins style, of course. While the album sold well much like its predecessor, a particularly unpleasant tour opening for White Zombie the following year led the band and the public to realize maybe they were out of place in the major label scene after all. Despite that, they still released a third album on Atlantic…
…and that album was 1996’s Stag. Stag marks a turning point in the Melvins’ discography, in that it’s when they fully become an experimental band. While some semblance of their previous poppier tunes are still there, the album saw the band fully embrace their more avant-garde sensibilities. Of the two singles released, “The Bit” has extended sitar segments and “Bar-X the Rocking M” features an organ, turntables and a trombone solo. The drone tracks are gone in favor of multiple threatening ambient soundscapes ranging from barely a minute to nearly five, and the remaining tracks are bizarre musical ideas that defy classification beyond “psychedelic” or “experimental.” Despite the album charting and the band landing tour dates with Kiss, critics and label execs were appropriately baffled, and this seemed to give the band the a-ok they had been silently wanting for the past year or so. The Melvins left Atlantic in early 1997 via answering machine message, and have since found greater creative success on Mike Patton’s Ipecac label, whom they signed with in 1998 and still release records through to this day.
(As a bonus, the Melvins recorded a song about the Atlantic deal on Honky, the album immediately following Stag. “Laughing with Lucifer at Satan’s Sideshow” is a song whose lyrics consist entirely of less-than-helpful things Atlantic folk said to them. Just in case you were under the impression that their parting was amicable…)

Medicine (American, 1992-1995)

Rick Rubin is perhaps the easiest person to cite behind some of the stranger signings, as most of the groups that got signed to his label American Recordings (formerly Def American) were simply groups he liked and wanted to give a wider audience (get ready for this to be a recurring theme!). Such is the case with Medicine, a particularly noisy shoegaze group. The group was formed in 1990 by Brad Laner, who had shopped around some demo tapes of his and was told he could get signed if he formed a band to play with him. Form a band he did, and with that he got signed to American in early 1992.
When Medicine released their debut album Shot Forth Self Living in September of that year, they instantly set themselves apart from their shoegaze contemporaries just from how much of their sound was based in noise. While the songs were undeniably melodic, at times crossing over into dance music, the production was seemingly as harsh as possible, with the dreamy, cooed vocals being almost completely drowned in a sea of piercing buzzsaw guitars and extended harsh noise segments. While the album did receive positive reviews and a decent amount of MTV airplay, the album never seemed to expand beyond college radio stations, probably because of just how harsh it was.
To call the group completely anti-commercial would be false, though. 1993’s The Buried Life saw the group maintaining their noisiness but introducing a more lush production style similar to My Bloody Valentine, who they were often compared to. While there was still a definite edge to their sound (including a 7-minute closing track of entirely harsh noise), the cleaner production alongside a marked shift towards dancier compositions pushed the band ever slightly closer to the mainstream, pushing the following year when they recorded an original song for the film The Crow.
And then… nothing else really happened. 1995’s Her Highness was supposedly a victim of label meddling, with the final product having a different tracklist than originally intended, but the biggest casualty was the production. Any previous noise elements had almost entirely vanished in favor of a more lush, radio-friendly (read: generic) sound. Critics were apathetic towards it, it predictably failed to sell, and the group had broken up before the year was over. Considering nearly every artist on American’s lineup would get dropped when the label split from Warner Bros. in 1997, the group probably got out at the best time. While Medicine’s reach never expanded beyond cult success despite their best efforts, the fact they were willingly signed to American and stayed there as long as they did is a testament to how obliging Rick Rubin was to promote artists he liked regardless of their commercial potential.

Shudder to Think (Epic, 1994-1999)

Considering its roots in the D.C. DIY scene, it makes sense that most of the artists signed to Dischord Records would be against promoting themselves on such a widespread scale. The only two artists from the label who jumped ship to major were post-hardcore outlet Jawbox (who were just poppy enough to not make it here) and Shudder to Think. Shudder had already built a reputation for being perhaps the strangest group on the label, playing a particularly angular and complex brand of artsy prog-punk. So it only makes sense that their goal upon signing to Epic would be to get even stranger.
1994’s Pony Express Record saw the group pushing all the facets that had made them infamous as far as they could go without breaking. Traditional time signatures were nowhere to be found. Every song was a series of multiple segments that sounded completely disjointed and started as soon as they stopped. Vocalist Craig Wedren delivered surreal, cryptic lyrics with an overexaggerated flamboyance and femininity as a deliberate challenge to the inherent machismo of rock music. And despite (or possibly because of) all that, the album was a surprise hit. Critics were infatuated with its unique sound, and the video for single “X-French Tee Shirt” became an unexpectedly popular MTV staple.
After a three year period in which Wedren battled Hodgkin lymphoma (and won) and the band went through a personnel shakeup, the group returned in 1997 with 50,000 B.C., which was not the album anyone expected it to be. Once again looking to change their song, the group went in the complete opposite direction and reemerged as… a poppy alternative group. Critics were not unsatisfied, but they were disappointed, and the album failed to sell. At this point the band underwent another shift to composing film scores, writing the soundtracks to indie films First Love, Last Rites and High Art before disbanding in late 1998 after another personnel change. Wedren and fellow member Nathan Larson have gone on to successful careers composing film and television scores, and STT themselves have been somewhat immortalized as one of the absolute strangest bands to see major distribution, if not in general.

The Jesus Lizard (Capitol, 1995-1999)

There may have been a time where (in)famously rowdy and provocative post-hardcore outlet The Jesus Lizard had some commercial potential, having previously collaborated with Nirvana, been featured on the soundtrack to Clerks and released a live album through Warner Bros., but when they signed to Capitol in late 1995 that time had come and gone. While the production sound of their 1996 major debut Shot was much cleaner thanks to them seeking out friend of the Melvins Garth Richardson, this may have ultimately been to the group’s detriment. Vocalist David Yow, whose vocals on previous albums had been a drowned-out frantic scream-growl, were now front and center, and he had traded in his preestablished style in favor of vocals that ranged from froggy supervillain snarls to frantic, coarse-throated ramblings. Combine this with the songs themselves becoming arguably more experimental in structure, and the album was a hard sell to most people, especially in 1996 when the mainstream was starting to tire of aggressive noise rock. Despite all of this, the album received decent reviews and became the group’s only release to crack the US charts, perhaps giving Capitol a sense of false hope.
1998’s Blue saw the band working with another producer, former Gang of Four member Andy Gill, already giving the album a much darker and less commercial sound than its predecessor. The songwriting this time around was definitely stranger, with the band deliberately harkening back to the more experimental and industrial-tinged sound of their debut EP Pure. The album saw the group at their most inaccessible, and despite Capitol’s best attempts at trying to promote the album to industrial fans, it still failed to make anything resembling an impact. Critics were baffled and the album failed to sell, to the point where Capitol’s Canadian distributor EMI took notice and refused to localize it. All this led to the band getting dropped by Capitol in late 1999 and breaking up not long after. While Shot and Blue aren’t bad albums by any stretch, they're near impossible to sell to anyone who isn’t already a fan of the group, and their time spent on a major came much too late in the “alternative” boom period for them to make any kind of mainstream impact.