Helmet's 1992 album Meantime marked a pivotal moment for the New York alt.rock band, cementing their unlikely status as one of the most hyped acts of the post-Nirvana major-label feeding frenzy. Their brief, semi-mocking but ultimately approving appearance on MTV's Beavis and Butthead, discussing their single "Unsung", became a symbolic marker of the band's mainstream arrival, even as the group themselves remained sceptical of the industry's exaggerated expectations for them.

The band's rise stemmed from genuine commercial promise: their 1990 debut Strap It On sold around 40,000 copies on the independent label Amphetamine Reptile, enough to sustain the label through the decade. This success sparked a bidding war reportedly involving as many as 22 record labels, ultimately won by Interscope Records with a reported one million dollar signing fee, secured partly because their interest predated the wider post-Nirvana gold rush. Frontman Page Hamilton later recalled being told by an A&R executive that Helmet were "the next U2", a comparison he found absurd given the band's very different musical identity.