"Underwhelmed" is the debut single by Canadian

alternative rock Alternative rock (also known as alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative) is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s w ...

band Sloan. The song was originally released on the DTK Records compilation ''Hear and Now '92: The Best Of The East Coast's Independent'' in 1992 and was later included on the band's debut EP, ''Peppermint''. A music video was released of the ''Peppermint'' version. The song was re-recorded for the band's debut full-length album, '' Smeared'', and was released as the album's lead single. The song is the band's best-charted single outside Canada, peaking at #25 on the

Modern Rock Tracks Alternative Airplay (formerly known as Modern Rock Tracks between 1988 and 2009, and Alternative Songs between 2009 and 2020) is a music chart published in the American magazine ''Billboard'' since September 10, 1988. It ranks the 40 most-playe ...

chart in 1993. Sloan's Chris Murphy says the song's lyrical approach was influenced by "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing", a song by

Minutemen Minutemen were members of the organized New England colonial militia companies trained in weaponry, tactics, and military strategies during the American Revolutionary War. They were known for being ready at a minute's notice, hence the name. Min ...

on their 1984 album, '' Double Nickels on the Dime''.

Legacy

In 1996, 2000, and 2005, the music magazine ''

Chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphics, graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can repres ...

'' conducted reader polls to determine the best Canadian songs of all time, in which Underwhelmed was voted the second greatest Canadian song of all time. In 2007,

CFNY-FM CFNY-FM (102.1 Hertz, MHz, "102.1 The Edge") is a radio station city of license, licensed to Brampton, Ontario. Owned by Corus Entertainment, the station broadcasts a modern rock format serving the Greater Toronto Area. Its studios are in Downtow ...

ranked the song #1 on their list of Top 102 Canadian New Rock Songs.

Track listing

UK version

A-side: # "Underwhelmed" – 4:46 # "What's There to Decide?" – 4:21 B-side: # "Amped" – 3:03 # "Sleepover" – 8:05

References

{{Authority control 1992 songs 1992 debut singles Sloan (band) songs Geffen Records singles Songs written by Chris Murphy (Canadian musician)