Bands come and go. Music comes and goes. Some albums are good, some are bad, some are great, and then some albums completely eclipse their debut. This is the case of the Wolfmother Self-Titled album. Back then I heard the album fairly early when it came out on Halloween Day in 2005. Once I listened to it a few times I knew the young band would completely explode and everyone would lose their heads over Wolfmother!
I was a tad bit wrong. The band did find success, and a lot of it. They sold tickets and toured and reached fame and notoriety. Hell, even their track “Joker and the Thief” made it on Hollywood movie soundtracks like Shrek the Third. But the album did not rewrite rock music the way I imagined. In fact, here in the United States, the band didn’t even come close to the success they found in their home country of Australia. And the follow-up album Cosmic Egg received even less attention, while still being a solid rock set of tracks!
Wolfmother’s Self-Titled Album
So what happened? Maybe my expectations were just too high for Wolfmother. But I have another theory…
I think their sound turned off radio geeks 🤓 and program directors! The album was released on Halloween in 2005, and in the mid-2000’s radio was in a nu-metal gorging phase to appease the alternative listener, all while depending heavily on classic rock to keep the aging rock fans tuned in. We worked in terrestrial at the time of the album’s release and saw this first-hand. Our own program director declared rock fans only cared about the actual classic rock songs they were already familiar with, or just wanted post grunge sounds like Linkin Park. He was dead wrong.
Radio didn’t give Wolfmother’s Self-Titled album any support. They still don’t give the band any support. The radio industry really did not like the post-grunge/garage rock band when they came out. Individual rock stations didn’t play them. When the CD came out terrestrial radio was focused on slam dunk “everybody knows these” songs to keep listeners from tuning out. How many times did you hear Linkin Park, Creed and AC/DC on the air back in 2005 and 2006? How much Wolfmother did you hear? Exactly.
Wolfmother has released multiple albums since and their sound has stayed true (except for Rock ‘n’ Roll Baby – what was Andrew Stockdale thinking?). But their sound of retro psychedelic stadium rock straight from the dusty corners of your garage persists and is wholly separate sounding of the rock forefathers Wolfmother bears their influence from. Radio still doesn’t play much Wolfmother here in the United States. They are wrong, just like they were wrong when the band came out. And their program directors are still wrong.
Best Wolfmother Self-Titled Album Songs
- Joker And The Thief
- Woman
- Love Train
- Dimension
- Where The Eagles Have Been
- Colossal
- White Unicorn
- Pyramid
- Apple Tree
- Vagabond
- Witchcraft
- Mind’s Eye
