Puddle Of Mudd - Away From Me

2003

Puddle Of Mudd - Away From Me (2003) Director: Dean Karr Era: Post-Grunge / Early 2000s Alternative Rock Peak (2003) - Mid-cycle of post-grunge's mainstream dominance, released during the height of active rock radio and MTV2 saturation, coinciding with Puddle of Mudd's commercial follow-up cycle after the multi-platinum Come Clean (2001). High archival value as a confirmed-director, chart-topping artifact of early-2000s post-grunge at full commercial peak. The combination of a verified Dean Karr directorial credit, strong chart performance data, and quantitatively measurable production metrics (155 cuts, 1.57s avg shot length, high saturation) makes it a well-documented and analytically tractable specimen for both genre and production studies. Its CD-ROM inclusion and O.C. placement further document the era's multimedia distribution experiments. Context: Released in 2003 as the lead single from Life on Display (Flawless/Geffen), 'Away from Me' arrived at peak post-grunge commercial saturation, a moment when active rock radio and MTV2 were still primary discovery mechanisms for the genre. The song reached #1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart for three weeks and #5 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, and was later featured in an episode of The O.C. in 2004, illustrating its crossover into mainstream teen pop-culture. It emerged from the same Flawless Records/Fred Durst pipeline that had launched Puddle of Mudd's debut Come Clean to triple-platinum status, carrying high commercial expectations as a follow-up vehicle. Its warm, vivid, performance-forward video aesthetic aligns with the era's MTV2-optimized rock clip formula. Director notes: Confirmed via IMDb title record (tt8918938) as director of the 2003 music video for 'Away from Me' by Puddle of Mudd. The video was produced in conjunction with the release of the single on Flawless/Geffen Records (released November 24, 2003) and the album Life on Display. The video was also included as a bonus feature on the Life on Display CD-ROM component. Karr's direction of this video falls within his most prolific active rock video period (2002–2007), during which he also directed Queens of the Stone Age's 'No One Knows' (2002), Godsmack's 'Voodoo' (2002), The Distillers' 'Drain the Blood' (2003), and later Three Days Grace's 'Animal I Have Become' (2006) and Daughtry's 'It's Not Over' (2007).