Song of the Day: Mighty Joe Plum, "Live Through This (Fifteen Stories)"

I've been going through Apple Music and putting together some playlists from various mid '90s summers to try to re-capture the thrill of modern rock radio in that era (it's partially for a writing project idea and partially just to make me feel good). In going through a bunch of old archived issues of Billboard to check out old rock charts, I have run into two problems. First, there are a ton of major label alt-rock also rans whose music is missing from the major streaming services (another reason I value my burdensome collection of compact discs); and second, even though I consider myself an academic-level expert on the radio hits of that era, there are still a ton of songs and artists who had relatively long chart lives but I have no awareness of at all. 

Here's a great case in point: In the summer and fall of 1997, a band called Mighty Joe Plum got a ton of spins of a tune called "Live Through This (15 Stories)." It arrived about six years too late for the grunge revolution but still retains all the hallmarks of your average Skinyard record: Classic rock-leaning riff, angsty vocal, slightly delirious lyrics and a hook just sweet enough to make the medicine taste good. They emerged from the same central Florida swamp that produced butt rock heroes Creed, and the marks of what passes for a scene dot both bands. Mighty Joe Plum didn't last past their 1996 full-length debut The Happiest Dogs, but they were the only band bold enough in '97 to ask the question, "What if I were sticky enough to walk the ceiling?"