It amazs me and it is also a beautiful thing that an entire arena can get behind and sing present tense and yet that was never on the radio or a hit. This goes for many songs in their catalog.
One point I deleted off my post before was that if No Code were a Foo Fighters record, it would be their second biggest selling (and pretty close to their biggest).
Hell, if you invented a band that matched all of PJ's album sales AFTER the big first three, you'd actually have a band that was comparable to the Foos or Radiohead in terms of US sales.
Obviously sales are a poor analytical tool for big picture casting, but they do offer a degree of concrete scope-setting for what is a very nearly uninterpretable topic. No Code hasn't had the massive late-era reappreciation that it warrants, but it's not a poor selling record (or catalog record) by any measurement other than something like early Pearl Jam's. It's basically somewhere between Who Sell Out, Pop, and Ghost of Tom Joad...records that aren't remotely on a level with those bands' biggest moments, are abnormal within the catalog, are appreciated by fans (even Pop...), and are hardly unheard secrets. Bruce can play Youngstown and the place goes mad. Plenty of casual U2 fans can talk about Wake Up Dead Man or Mofo. If The Who play Our Love Was, the audience will squeal even if they don't recognize it because it is catchy, abnormal but still Who-like, and easily digested.
Somewhere in there, you have a track like Present Tense.
