As a self-proclaimed prankster, I have to admit I love it when musicians release their crossover tunes onto easy-listening stations, knowing full well that their CD is nothing like that one song. Unwitting grandmothers and soccer moms hear it and think, “What a pleasant melody,” so they head to Target to pick it up, and image their shock at the remainder of the album. (I wanted to go into a whole thing about grandmothers looking for LP’s and cassette tapes, but I thought it was mean and stopped myself.)
So what better way to express the level of shock value than by rating them with surprised grandmothers?
The latest culprit: Shinedown, with their album The Sound of Madness
- The Crossover: Second Chance
- The Reality: The Sound of Madness
- Surprised Grandmother:
"Well I never..."
A few other groups have done it in the past, like Rise Against and their album Siren Song of the Counter Culture.
- The Crossover: Swing Life Away
- The Reality: To Them These Streets Belong
- Surprised Grandmother:
"That's music?"
Green Day committed the act late in the game, on their CD Nimrod.
- The Crossover: Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
- The Reality: King for a Day
- Surprised Grandmother:
"What silly boys..."
Oh, and what can I say about Extra co-host, Mark McGrath’s, “humble” beginnings in Sugar Ray. For the record (clever pun!), their first CD, Lemonade and Brownies (juvenile pun!) looked like this:

Nicole Eggert of "Charles In Charge" and something called... "Baywatch"?
It was their second album, Floored, that pulled the bait-and-switch.
(SIDENOTE: Both of the above videos were integral to launching McG’s future career as a feature film director. So every time you see Mark McGrath mugging on Extra, you can thank him for making Lemonade=Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle and Brownies=Terminator Salavation possible. And McGrath <> McG? Do I smell a conspiracy? Nope. Just turds.)
This post, in my humble opinion, is genius. Well done.
Your kind words get a mildly startled grandmother.