http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn_zhdYFABE

that came out in 2003, and i feel like it captures kind of a post-90's, post-tech boom wounded prosperity. things are still sort of okay, but it's a little different; the sound is a bit more longing maybe. i think a lot of bro rock was either pumped-up party rock (here comes the boom; party hard) or more of this kind of revis stuff (chevelle, 3 doors down, hoobastank).

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#22726399)

90s alt rock radio morphed into something truly putrid and unlistenable in the early 2000s. in the late 90s/2000, you still had effeminate alternative bands like Marcy Playground appearing on rock radio. then it turned completely into that deep Pro-Tools wall-of-noise sludge-rock, nickelback shit.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#22726408)

i think it started around 95/96. cobain was dead, and there was an emerging category of white zombie/korn/RATM music that wasn't metal and wasn't exactly alternative rock, either. especially whenever rap elements showed up.

then within a few years, a bunch of MTV-friendly bro bands started popping up, falling roughly into the rap-rock/DJ category (limp bizkit, incubus, POD, etc.) and the "straight" rock category, sometimes with fear factory-influenced "industrial" elements (basically, late-90's WWF theme music - godsmack, disturbed, staind, orgy, lit, and so on).

90's creed was probably the biggest precursor of the "earnest" or "yearning" school of bro rock.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#22726446)

frontline had a documentary from 2001 called the merchants of cool which specifically discussed the origins of limp bizkit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxGjRclN3mw#t=46m

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#22726478)

the op is correct that it only really crystallizes in hindsight.

at the time, living through it, it wasn't clear what was happening. rock radio just began to sound undefinably different: even though bands were superficially still doing the rip-off grunge sound, with the eddie vedder warbling and power-chord guitars, the style/production was changing. the songs were becoming oppressively LOUD, regimented and tuneless.

but you can't really pin it on one band.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#22726458)

"One more word about giving instruction as to what the world ought to be. Philosophy in any case always comes on the scene too late to give it... When philosophy paints its gloomy picture then a form of life has grown old. It cannot be rejuvenated by the gloomy picture, but only understood. Only when the dusk starts to fall does the owl of Minerva spread its wings and fly."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#22726466)

This shit was the worst. Even more vile than nickleback/creed stuff imho.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#23641781)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuAC9YIC2Bs

they took elements of the grunge aesthetic and basically made it louder, blunter, and more polished at the production stage.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#33877745)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRGrNDV2mKc

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#22726447)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONBYpWeqDi0

when i saw this video i knew something was changing. it was no longer rocker-looking guys w/ long hair, but some douchebags in Mossimo shirts singing a song about date rape (i think), and there is even a rap interlude.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#22726475)

I don't understand

The peak of the Bush era was 2003-2007. Most of the music you guys are talking about was before that.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#22728905)

do i really wanna listen to some lite-"rock" like vampire weekend instead of something more akin to zeppelin?

no, not really.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#22729102)

All awful awful bands.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#22732722)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SSUQxGjZZ4

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#22732761)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#22732786)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qrRzNidzIc

oh, forgot trapt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTvu1Yr3Ohk

jesus what an awful era.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#22732781)

"not gonna fuckin' bow breh!! not gonna bow!!"

at the FSU sigma chi fraternity hazing.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#22732802)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTiGlNDnOtE

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#22732785)

bro rock was emotive ersatz for a really disingenuous age. especially after 9/11, there was a brief hysterical kill-them-all impulse, but that faded into confusion rather shortly. so we had one strain of very aggressive, metallic bro rock, but it was also polished and produced to the point where it sounded like a disney song on "hard" mode or something.

this was an obvious act of fakery, but it was consonant with its era, because the prevailing emotional temper itself was faked. this was directly related to our ersatz economy in the form of the real estate bubble of the early 2000's.

we were going through the motions, as it were, of things we believed we were supposed to be doing. iraq was a "going through the motions" kind of war - the country didn't REALLY want it, but when you've been hit, you're SUPPOSED to hit back, right?

the economy felt weird and unstable, but the rising markets informed us that we were SUPPOSED to feel prosperous.

bro rock was a simulation of rock in a very similar way. it's like a paint-by-numbers kind of genre in which the songs held the hand of the listener and directed him very bluntly how to feel during those confusing times.

and it was accepted at the time, since no one seemed to know any better.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#23605553)

my theory is that bro rock as we saw it in the 90's was at least in part an attempt to revive the pre-grunge rock movement typified by GNR and so forth, but using modern accoutrements which fit the spirit of the age. limp bizkit, so far as i am concerned, was its generation's stab at a motley crue or something similar (though significantly shittier).

but after terrorism/economic decline became a more dominant mode in our culture, bro rock wasn't sure how to proceed. so we had a whiplash effect going on between ball-swinging bravado and emo whinery, sometimes within the same song.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#23780157)

How much of a catalyst do you think 911 was in sparking bro-rock?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#24677220)

what it did, perhaps, was finally kill the "alternative rock" format as it had existed since around 1991. generic bro rock took the bulk of that cultural "space," while interpol/strokes/white stripes/etc. were broken off into the misnomer category of "indie" rock - more or less post-alternative non-bro rock.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#25029904)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rdmG0k8S8k

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#23624415)

https://youtu.be/BJk6gZuPKRE

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2194688&forum_id=2#33877593)