Puddle of Mudd is the difference ’tween laymen who think Nickelback is the worst rock band e’er & those o’ us who are truly deep into the grime & know that there are far worse bands. I had to write ’bout their infamously atrocious “She Hates Me” when reviewing that anthology o’ so-called divorced dad rock, & 1 might expect me to look @ their most infamous album, & the 1 that put them on the map, Come Clean, but as always, I want to dive into the more neglected artifacts o’ 2000s buttrock. So instead we will be looking @ Volume 4: Songs in the Key of Love & Hate, the album that came out @ the tailend o’ their fame — so much so that they wouldn’t release a real album again till 2019 to cash in on 2000s nostalgia. Like many o’ these relics, I have authentic memories o’ hearing this album’s lead single “Spaceship” — the main reason I wanted to look @ this album, which you will understand when I get to it — on the radio & checking out this album from the library & listening to it; & like somebody who tries to get an annoying song out o’ their head by spreading it to others like a virus, since I have this gunk stuck in my memory, I must now spread it to you all.

1. Stoned

This song was a single, which is a bad sign, as I don’t e’en remember this song. My 1st impression on seeing this title is, “I bet this song’s idea was taken from that Hinder song, ‘Get Stoned’”. I’ve ne’er particularly liked that song, but I can a’least see some glimpses o’ catchy melody to it, especially its chorus; this song, meanwhile, is the most forgettable, bland hard rock song. It’s not unlistenable, which is an accomplishment for Puddle of Mudd, but I don’t imagine I will e’er voluntarily listen to this song again, given there are millions o’ better buttrock songs.

I think the only thing I have to say is, Scatlin seems to mistake weed for a harder drug like coke when he says stuff like this:

sunshine has always been the enemy
my life a chemical insanity
sundown is bringing out the freak in me
wired getting higher

As someone who partakes in the leaf himself, I can tell you that getting “wired” & “bringing out the freak in me” are the last things I would say to describe a drug whose main properties are calming you down. Again, I think they just wrote this ’cause stoner anthems were a big thing @ the time.

Also, this music video, with the band wrecking shit in the office, made the terrible mistake o’ reminding me too much o’ the much better music video for Deftones’ magnum opus, “Back to School (Mini Maggot)”.

Grade: C

2. Spaceship

¡Now this is a music video — the band playing in a spaceship that looks like ’twas rendered for the 90s show ReBoot; alien babes with devil tails & long tongues on stripper poles; some guy doing sick tricks on a bike badly bluescreened o’er outerspace; & the video ends with a giantess jerking herself off with their spacecraft! Ed Wood would cry tears o’ joy if he could have lived to see it.

Spoiler alert: this is the best song on this album — a song where Scatlin symbolizes having sex with being on a spaceship & taking some woman on “a little riiiiiiide”, starting with the following lines sung in what I think is Scatlin trying to sing in a sexy daddy voice:

a looong time ago in a galaxy far away-ay
i’m basted c’mon yeah
i’m in the flo-ahw & i got all the flavors you tasted
with sweat drippin’ down yo’ little back

Scatlin is weirdly obsessed with the sweat dripping down this woman’s — given the emphasis on her back being “little”, I hope it’s an adult woman — back. It’s honestly very gross, but to be fair, that’s kind o’ what you’d expect from a band called Puddle of Mudd.

This is also legit the catchiest song on this album with a catchy, bouncy groove & o’erall the only reason I cared ’nough ’bout this album to review it. I will miss it deeply. Still, it’s wild in hindsight that radios just unquestioningly played this bizarre & gross song to millions o’ listeners. Lucky for them, it seems like the Men in Black mind-erased e’eryone, as I’m the only 1 who seems to remember this song e’er existed.

Grade: 🛸

3. Keep It Together

That goofy-ass song is then followed by a sad acoustic song whose 1st verse mentions being down on his knees & praying to God, when this album’s very existence is proof that a God that cares ’bout humanity’s wellbeing could not exist.

Honestly, as corny & boring as the verses are, the chorus’s melody is pretty catchy. Unfortunately, Scatlin doesn’t exactly have the best voice for melodic pop singing.

Grade: C

4. Out Of My Way

This song starts by jumpscaring the listener with Scatlin angrily singing @ the listener with a particularly nasally voice, as if he’s holding in a loogie thruout the whole song. & yes, it goes thruout the whole song, including thru the chorus, where he screeches out “i’ll go out of my waaaaaaaay” in a particularly heinous way.

The lyrics are some o’ the most creative I’ve seen from Puddle of Mudd, with almost-poetic sounding lines like, “she paints the desert with her wicked green eyes”, but unfortunately all this lovely imagery & the depiction o’ this woman as being an “angel” completely contradicts the hoarse, bitter sound o’ Scatlin’s voice, which is why I initially thought this was ’bout some “crazy bitch on her period” or something, like so many meatbrained post-grunge songs. I guess the chorus does imply that the protagonist is failing to meet this woman’s standards, so maybe that’s the irony o’ the song: ¿she presents herself as an angel? Honestly, the lines are so poetic to the point o’ incoherence. I still have no idea what this song is really about. Then again, it’s a Puddle of Mudd song, so I don’t really care, either.

Grade: D

5. Blood On The Table

I swear the riff ’hind the verses & the 1st 2 lines o’ the verses are from a Nickelback song — I’m thinking “Another Hole in the Head”. God, it’s so embarrassing that I have a fucking Nickeback deep cut so lodged in my memory from my youth that I can recall it so well. But e’en mo’ embarrassing is that the Nickelback song is much better than this song. It certainly has a better chorus than, “you lied, you cried / the blood’s on the table”. This song’s composer didn’t seem to have much faith in any o’ this song’s melodies, as it stuffs like 3 o’ them into the verses, making this whole song feel like a jumble o’ hard rock guitar chugging rather than a coherent song, not helped by the repetitive, thrown-together lyrics that also keep repeating the words, “lied”, “cried”, & “blood on the table”. This song sure tried to stretch, “Bitch was mean to me & now pretends she’s sorry, but I’m still mad”, into a whole 3-minute song.

Grade: D

6. The Only Reason

This song’s annoyingly catchy carousel up & down melodies does nothing for me but remind me o’ their less annoying version o’ this from Life on Display, “Spin You Around”. ( Yes, I know, I am probably the only person who has that song burned into my memory. This is what happens when you let mainstream rock radio dictate your music tastes as a child in the 2000s ). I guess I don’t mind the breezy melodies before each verse. It doesn’t really fit the rest o’ the song tho.

Grade: D

7. Pitchin’ a Fit

O, good, we get more o’ Scatlin’s loogie voice.

This song is so repetitive I don’t e’en think it deserves a review. I counted 34 instances o’ Scatlin’s nostrils groaning, “she’s pitchin’ a”, & the verses are no less repetitive & generic: the song literally starts with, “it makes me sick, it makes me sick / it makes me sick when you’re in my face”. & the music is just generic riffs. There’s no way they spent mo’ than a couple hours making this whole song.

Grade: F

8. Uno Mas

O, ¿is it 5 de mayo again? Look, these crackers added the slightest bit o’ flavor: the chorus repeats “1 more time”, but the song is titled the Spanish translation — well, except the Spanish word for “more” is “más” with an accent o’er the “a”; without an accent “mas” means “but” or “however”, so this song’s title is actually, “1 but” or “1 however”… which I guess is interesting in its own right, but almost certainly not intentional.

This song is similarly repetitive as “Pitchin’ a Fit”, constantly repeating, “nothing’s really over” & “oh yeah, here we go again”, & has riffs & drumbeats that might as well not e’en be there, they’re so easy to ignore; but this song has much mo’ energy to it & this song probably has Scatlin’s best singing on this album, with him sounding like he’s genuinely losing his mind during the 2nd verse. Also, in this song’s defense, it does make sense for a song talking ’bout “1 more time” being repetitive.

Grade: C

9. Better Place

Another sad pop song that has decent, catchy melodies ruined by Scatlin’s nasally voice — especially the way he bleats out, “NEVER WANT TO SAY GOODBYE” in the chorus like a talking doll whose batteries are dying. I don’t get why a band like this called Puddle of Mudd would make a song like this. ¿Do people get catharsis from Puddle of Mudd in the same way one would get catharsis from an Adele song? I guess “Blurry” was their biggest song, & that song was kinda sad; but it was morose in a way that fit their grimy sound; it didn’t demand Scatlin to cry out clearly beyond his voice’s range like he’s Mariah Carey.

Grade: F

10. Hooky

& then that very sad song ’bout a lost loved one is followed by a goofy-ass song starting with someone going, “a-woocka wow”, ’bout how this grown-ass man doesn’t want to go to school today & wants to play hooky so he can stay home & masturbate. I’m not making that up — here’s the 1st chorus in all its Petrarchan glory:

i don’t want to go to school today
i wanna go outside & play
i don’t want to go to school today
i’ll stay @ home & masturbate
i don’t want to go to school today
the teacher’s always in my face
i don’t want to go to school today
i wanna punch the lunch lady

¿What did the lunch lady do to you? ¿Provide you sustenance to keep your energy up while you’re trying to learn?

Also, this:

i don’t want to go to school today
the girls all making fun of me

& this:

i don’t want to go to school today
¿what’s the point? i won’t get laid

Bro, you were around 37 when you released this song: it’s a good thing you weren’t getting laid by school girls. ¿Haven’t you gotten into ’nough legal trouble already?

This is the only other song I remembered from this album ’cause o’ how bizarre it was. Honestly, I kind o’ respect its audacious terribleness, which is a’least on brand for a band like Puddle of Mudd, unlike all the generic pop-rock songs I had to trudge thru earlier. If most o’ the songs on this album were like this, this review would’ve been far mo’ entertaining.

Grade: 🏫

Conclusion

It doesn’t surprise me that much that Puddle of Mudd took a long hiatus after this album. Relistening to it with critical ears, it’s clear that they had no idea what kind o’ band they wanted to be. It’s not nearly as unlistenable as, say, the Saliva album I reviewed; other than the 2 highlights, it’s mostly just forgettable & a li’l annoying.

Final Grade: D