3 Doors Down

If you were alive and even semi-conscious in the year 2000, you undoubtedly heard "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down. It was inescapable. The song and the debut album from which it leapt, The Better Life, defied the laws of gravity. Both clung to the top of any given chart--album, singles, multi-format radio--for most of that year and beyond. "Kryptonite," in more ways than one, was like the dude Brad Arnold was singing about: Superman. The song struck a huge literal and figurative chord with the populace, a full year before America truly needed a superhero. But who knew that then? Two years, four #1 singles, a couple of world tours, unprecedented radio success, multiple big award nominations, and a bazillion album sales later (alright, it shifted 6 million, but who's counting except the RIAA?), 3 Doors Down were back in the real-life Smallville that spawned the band back in 1996--Escatawpa, Mississippi, a mere hellhound's leap from the crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul.