The creative circumstances surrounding Our Lady Peace and their fifth studio album, Gravity, were tumultuous to say the least. Longtime guitarist Mike Turner was having creative differences with lead singer and band leader Raine Maida, and although he appears on nearly half of the songs on this record, Turner would eventually be replaced by Steve Mazur by the time the album was released. Maida was quoted in interviews by saying, “I don’t know if Mike was born to be a guitar player. The studio was a tough place for him and we were working too hard to make up for it – we felt like we were cheating ourselves. Four albums is way too fucking long to put up with that. I’m sure he’ll do great things, just not with six-stringed instruments.” Out of this conflict, however, would come some of the band’s best material since their landmark Clumsy record. Gravity was front-loaded with superb singles like “Somewhere Out There,” where the lyrics in the chorus inspired the record title, and crowd favorite, “Innocent.” By the time the promotional cycle had ended, Gravity would go on to sell over half a million copies in the U.S. alone.

1997 was a huge year for the Alternative Rock genre, and music fans in general, due to the vast number of great releases coming out. Since I missed the opportunity to write about Clumsy by Our Lady Peace at the 20 year mark, I figured it was about time to revisit this Alt Rock classic for its 25th Anniversary. Sure, everyone knows the major hits on this record like “Superman’s Dead,” “Automatic Flowers,” “4 AM,” and the slow-building title track, but the depth that Mike Turner, Jeremy Taggart, and lead vocalist Raine Maida went to into crafting the songs that surround these huge singles speaks to Our Lady Peace’s ability to live on in Alt Rock-lore. Many people don’t realize that Clumsy was the sophomore album from Our Lady Peace, with their debut coming in the form of Naveed. The music landscape had changed significantly since their debut released in the United States in 1995, and it was only a matter of time before this talented Canadian band would strike the right chord of the heartstrings of music listeners everywhere. Clumsy was produced by Arnold Lanni, who also gets writing credits on the album, and he does a great job in getting the best performances out of these young rockers to create a legendary, Alternative staple.