Modern Rock #1 Hits of 1994

Looking forward to another thrilling last-place finish for Teh Cranberries.

I could vote for nearly any of these songs with a couple of exceptions! Lemonheads, PJ, either Nirvana, Gin Blossoms (maybe my favorite song of theirs), Tori, Green Day, Morrissey . . .

Nirvana, "About a Girl" - easily my favourite song of these, but this the lame Unplugged version right?

there are a bunch of great songs here next to a terrible Cranberries song

"Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" is my secret shame.

As much as most of those songs are permanently hardwired into my brain from having listened to them hundreds of times, I'm surprised that it comes down to "Into Your Arms" and "Found Out About You" for me. '93 me is maintaining a veneer of disgust over the latter, but even he would be forced to admit that it's a good song.

Morrissey's is the one I'd listen to now, so I voted for it. Runners-up:

"Kenneth"
Nirvana
Green Day
Gin Blossoms

ahh Toad the Wet Sprocket, with one of the last of the jangle-pop #1's.

Oh, this is the first time I've posted here. Sorry about the screwy formatting. Any way to edit something once you've posted it?

Nirvana, "About a Girl" - easily my favourite song of these, but this the lame Unplugged version right?

― Heaven knows I'm thirsty and miserable now (NickB), Monday, May 21, 2012 9:33 AM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nope -- topped the chart in January '94 as the second single from In Utero. i remember radio stations playing the Unplugged versions of it and other songs here and there before the official album was released that November, but not much.

Wait...what? "About A Girl" was on Bleach. I'm confused.

I think he's confused 'About A Girl' with 'All Apologies' :D

Voted for 'What's The Frequency, Kenneth?'.

my heart says "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm," even though my mind is telling me no.

Basket Case.

All Apologies

sorry dudes i misread NickB's post, i thought he said "All Apologies" -- but yeah the "About A Girl" that was a hit was the Unplugged version

Basket Case > Kenneth > Fall Down > God > Einsten On The Beach > Found Out About You > Daughter > Come Out And Play > Loser > Into Your Arms > The More You Ignore Me > Longview > All Apologies > Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm > Selling The Drama > About A Girl (Unplugged) > Zombie > Bang And Blame

the lead Toad always performed barefoot, so he deserves a vote

unplugged "About a Girl" kicks the electric version's ass.

Signature Moz and Beck tunes too. Probably Moz for me.

A few songs I like, but almost 20 years along, "Loser" towers over everything else for me.

one of my long unrealized poll ideas is 'biggest post-Nevermind US rock radio hit by various '80s college rock staples' with stuff like "The More You Ignore Me" and the Violent Femmes' "Breakin' Up" on it

oh god I missed Beck but it's not even my favorite song from that album.

This was the peak of Moz's American popularity: most everything from '91 onwards was huge on college radio. He also scored his first top twenty album in '94.

"Monster" really was everywhere in 1994, even as everyone said they didn't like it...

(xpost) "Backwater," "Pepper"...I used to find that phenomenon interesting too; very disorienting at the time to think of the Meat Puppets and Butthole Surfers as having hits.

"Backwater" is so good.

one of my long unrealized poll ideas is 'biggest post-Nevermind US rock radio hit by various '80s college rock staples' with stuff like "The More You Ignore Me" and the Violent Femmes' "Breakin' Up" on it

Don't forget to include stuff like Cracker and Sugar.

"Friday I'm in Love"

http://open.spotify.com/user/sp10000/playlist/26QaeVL1NN2F8n8V36Y3Bx

11-year-old me votes Basket Case.

The only thing with the Cure is, they'd already had American hits in the '80s; with the other bands, it felt different. (Not that some dude's poll idea says you couldn't have had a hit in the '80s to qualify.)

"Friday I'm in Love"

b-b-but "Lovesong" hit #2 well before this "phenomenon"!

xpost

yeah for some of them it was a belated breakthrough, for others it was the last gasp of a longer period of commercial success (xpost)

ftr i did mean "biggest of their hits after Nevermind," not necessarily "their biggest hit came after Nevermind"

also let's not forget the landscape of pre-grunge explosion "Modern Rock Radio": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_one_modern_rock_hits_of_1988

Backwater" is so good.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, May 21, 2012 2:16 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I disliked Backwater when it came out. I was in my early teens and Meat Puppets were one of those bands I had found "on my own" by randomly ordering records from Black Flag cassette inserts and I thought the newer stuff was too commercial or whatever. But I became a huge fan of the song when I saw them play it live at RFK Stadium at the HFStival. OMG, they came on in the late morning/early afternoon, but there wasn't a stronger riff played for the rest of the day.

I loved it years after the fact – pretty much when I bought Up in the Sun in the late nineties.

Crash Test Dummies have been a punchline for far too long. time to reclaim the throne

I mean when even the Counting Crows have a reasonably listenable and decent song here, this was a pretty good year! Even the Live song is not completely atrocious!

longview, loser, or all apologies

gonna go with longview i think

btw biggest recurrent hits from 1994 that didn't hit #1:
The Offspring "Self Esteem"
Stone Temple Pilots "Interstate Love Song"
Soundgarden "Black Hole Sun"
Green Day "When I Come Around"
Nine Inch Nails "Closer"
Weezer "Undone (The Sweater Song)"
Weezer "Buddy Holly"
Stone Temple Pilots "Big Empty"
Green Day "Welcome To Paradise"
Soundgarden "Fell On Black Days"
Live "I Alone"
Stone Temple Pilots "Vasoline"
Soundgarden "Spoonman"
Bush "Everything Zen"
Beastie Boys "Sabotage"
Alice In Chains "I Stay Away"

nice list, some dude... if anything, that is more 1994 to me than the #1's.

^^ I am now convinced this was the greatest year in the history of music.

"I Alone" and "Lightning Crashes" certainly seemed like bigger hits in LA than "Selling the Drama".

xxxpost

That list is just about equally good. If not better.

I was a sophomore in college so it def wasn't.

xxpost

"Lightning Crashes" hit in '95

Every single one of these 1994 songs is in my '90s alt' iTunes playlist. Which gets some healthy rotation, lemmetellya.

1994 was a horrible year personally and yet thanks to music my nostalgia for it knows no bounds

The Offspring "Self Esteem"

oh man, I love this song so much

Voting "Fall Down" because I heard it the other day and it was much better than I remember.

"God" is probably the song here that suffers most in comparison to the real biggest hit from its parent album, "Cornflake Girl," but it's still pretty fantastic, deserves more love itt

i think think five of my ten fave 90s albums dropped that year

When Scott Woods was running Top 5 lists on rockcritics.com, I named 1994 as one of my five favourite years for music ever--lots of great hip-hop and Top 40 R&B, too.

Ever do the relative-time thing? I do it all the time, and the older you get, the weirder it gets. I have a hard time getting my head around the idea that we're now farther from '94 than '94 was from the Sex Pistols.

between the stuff in this thread and the fact that '94 was also the year of "Gin And Juice" and "Cream" and "Regular" and "Flava In Ya Ear" i think yeah good candidate for best year of the '90s

Regular=Regulate

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fe/Tonybennettunplugged.jpg

I have a hard time getting my head around the idea that we're now farther from '94 than '94 was from the Sex Pistols.

Scary...

Even this lame Counting Crows song has a good hook in the chorus.

a related thread: 'indie' modern rock radio hits of 1994

Beck, Beasties, Bedtime Stories, R.E.M., "Regulate," and Brit stuff like Suede kept me sane. The pop songs were okay but I have a hard time remembering anything from that summer beyond "I Swear" and Lisa Loeb.

haha yeah this might be the only cc song i begrudgingly like

1994 is probably the all-time low point for capital p Pop music -- the only enduring song i can think of is "All I Want For Christmas Is You"

Basket Case is still the catchiest shit ever. In retrospect it's not hard to see how a band that could put tracks like that together would still be around, but who would have foreseen five more top 10 albums and two #1's in the 2000s...

Compare the Modern Rock top ten with the pop one:

http://books.google.com/books?id=XQgEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&rview=1&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

another good point, some dude... for children of the mid and late '90s pop music was Hanson, Spice Girls, boy bands and that's about it.

The Offspring "Self Esteem"

oh man, I love this song so much

― I'M THAT POSTA, AAAAAAAAAH (DJP), Monday, May 21, 2012 10:33 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Haha, YES, I heard it when I was getting my hair cut a couple weeks ago and it was like instant nostalgia.

or children of the mid and late '90s pop music was Hanson, Spice Girls, boy bands and that's about it.

much better acts than the ones on '94's chart

There's a couple here that I really like: "Basket Case", "Come Out and Play", & "Einstein on the Beach". Voted for "Einstein on the Beach", which is my favorite Counting Crows song by a pretty good margin.

"Regulate" is still awesome though.

Basket Case is still the catchiest shit ever. In retrospect it's not hard to see how a band that could put tracks like that together would still be around, but who would have foreseen five more top 10 albums and two #1's in the 2000s...

At the time I thought Green Day was going to be another catchy pop-punk band that was going to flare up on the radar and then go away a la K's Choice. I do like them but in the back of my mind I still feel that way, so it's perpetually mind-boggling to me to see (for example) posters for the American Idiot touring show all over major marquees in town.

I looked up my Top 10 for '94, and I don't think there's anything I don't still like a lot:

1. "Fantastic Voyage," Coolio
2. "Miss World," Hole
3. "Cut Your Hair," Pavement
4. "Gin and Juice," Snoop Doggy Dogg (later changed his name)
5. "At Your Best (You Are Love)," Aaliyah
6. "Self Esteem," Offspring
7. "Do You Wanna Get Funky," C&C Music Factory (nostalgia for 1991)
8. "Flashlight," Fuzzy
9. "Worker Man," Patra
10. "Pay No Mind," Beck

I was a little tired of "Loser" at that point, so--pursuant to something that came up on the Beastie Boys countdown--sometimes I do fall in love with songs all over again.

damn great list, you were cool in 94

The Billboard to which I linked has the following horrors on the top ten:

Big Mountain - Baby I Love Your Way (from "Reality Bites")
Jon Secada - If You Go
Elton John - Can You Feel The Love Tonight?
All 4 One - I Swear

mixed with:

Beck - Loser
Aaliyah - Back and Forth
Janet - Any Time, Any Place
Warren G- Regulate
John Mellencamp-Me'shell Mdegeocello - Wild Night

good list, clemenza. I often wonder whether that's my favorite Aaliyah song too.

(xpost) Thanks (he says as he ponders the deeper implications of that statement...)

P&J top 5 of that year:
1. Hole: Live Through This (DGC) 1552 (121)
2. Pavement: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (Matador) 859 (77)
3. R.E.M.: Monster (Warner Bros.) 634 (66)
4. Nirvana: MTV Unplugged in New York (DGC) 552 (50)
5. Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Sleeps With Angels (Reprise) 520 (49)

one album by Cobain, one by his widow, and two albums with songs inspired by his suicide

and at least one more, Vitalogy, down at #25

^^ maybe the only recent P&J top five whose albums I still love

Was Cannonball 93?

yep

those Last Splash singles got plenty of blanket airplay on college radio through '94 though

Other notable '94 alt songs:

Archers of Loaf - "Web In Front"
Frank Black - "Headache"
Blur - "Girls & Boys"
Jeff Buckley's Grace singles
Candlebox - "Far Behind" and "You"
Collective Soul - "Shine"
all those other Counting Crows songs
Deadeye Dick - "New Age Girl"
Flaming Lips - "She Don't Use Jelly"
Frente! - "Labour Of Love" and "Bizarre Love Triangle"
Grant Lee Buffalo - "Lone Star Song" and "Mockingbirds"
a bunch more Green Day stuff
Jesus & Mary Chain - "Sometimes Always"
L7 - "Andres"
a billion other Live songs
Love Spit Love - "Am I Wrong?"
Lucas - "Lucas With The Lid Off"
Luscious Jackson - "Citysong" and "Here"
Mazzy Star - "Fade Into You"
Morphine - "Thursday"
Murmurs - "You Suck"
all kinds of NIN stuff from The Downward Spiral
Oasis - "Supersonic" and "Live Forever"
more Offspring songs
more Pearl Jam songs
Liz Phair - "Supernova"
Possum Dixon - "Watch That Girl Destroy Me"
more REM stuff from Monster
Rollins Band - "Disconnect" and "Liar"
Sebadoh's Bakesale (to the extent that those songs got MTV/radio play)
Shudder To Think - "X-French Tee Shirt"
Smashing Pumpkins - "Landslide"
Sonic Youth - "Bull In The Heather"
the singles attendant to Soundgarden's Superunknown
Sugar - "Your Favorite Thing" and "Believe What You're Saying"
Toad The Wet Sprocket - "Something's Always Wrong"
Tori Amos - "Cornflake Girl"
Urge Overkill - "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon"
US3 - "Cantaloop"
Veruca Salt - "Seether"
Ween's Chocolate and Cheese "singles"
Whale - "Hobo Humpin' Slobo Babe"

Soundgarden, NIN, Sugar, "Seether," "Landslide," "Cantaloop," and those Frente! singles def part of the fabric of my '94.

fuck you alfred, "i swear" is a classic

http://www.harrycutting.com/graphics/photos/children/serious-black-boy-crossed-arms-J178-07-619.jpg

a classic example of a terrible song

i can't hate on the soundtrack to me getting run over by people 5 times my size at the skate deck

ugh i swear

was boyz ii men/mariah 94 too? that song was a fucking plague.

who skateboards to all 4 one??

They skated by the light of the moon, the stars, and the sun.

I am dying over here

rollerskates not skateboards!

All the cool kids had roller BLADES

yeah but i was not one of the cool kids

cos you listened to all 4 one

ollie kickflip to the tune of "I'll Make Love To You"

Boys II Men ballads remain my biggest hurdle.

ahh Toad the Wet Sprocket, with one of the last of the jangle-pop #1's.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, May 21, 2012 9:40 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the really remarkable thing to me about them is that in 1995 they scored a moderate radio hit off of a gold-selling rarities collection. Dulcinea is a decent album btw.

alternate universe where jodeci and jon secada are thrasher covet stars

"End of the Road" was a great song but it really ruined them

I started to loathe them whenever they would win their 32456th award at the Grammys and would thank God so unctuously that I wished God had aimed a skateboard at their heads.

did they release anything uptempo as a single after "Motownphilly"?

"Vibin'", sort of?

also, "I Remember" sort of?

also "Can't Let Her Go"

the big problem was that in the wake of "End of the Road", no one gave a shit about their uptempo numbers, which encouraged them to sink deeper and deeper into the morass of treacly bullshit that led to "A Song For Mama"

abc > b2m

bbd > everything

all your alt-rock threads are belong to Michael Bivins

Yeah, I lost interest in Boys II Men so quickly after they morphed into the Mawkish Slow Jam All-Star Revue.

ABC >>> ABC

1995 through early '97 were my period of exile from the pop charts. I started paying attention again when boy bands and Hanson ruled.

I did not realize BIIM had a 2000 album called Nathan Michael Shawn Wanya

also didn't realize one of the dudes in BIIM was named Wanya

i knew that but it took me like 15 years to realize his name wasn't 'wayna'

wanya was the tenor with the really BIG voice iirc

i drive past wayna's house sometimes

it's big

he should've cut a solo single called "Wanyabe."

or a single called "Lemme Holla At Ya" which is just the screaming from the end of "One Sweet Day" looped for 5 minutes

"Water Runs Dry" is a rad song fuiud

"Water Runs Dry" only seems rad because it's surrounded in their catalog by "One Sweet Day", "A Song For Mama", "On Bended Knee", "4 Seasons of Loneliness" and two uptempo numbers that no one ever heard besides the people who bought Evolution

Other notable '94 alt songs:

I think I posted this somewhere else, but I recently made a Spotify playlist of songs from 1994 that's dominated by alt-rock stuff (just because it's what I was into at the time).

Seeing the video of "Longview" for the first time was one of my biggest WTF moments to that point, Green Day having been this squirrelly little punk band that breezed through my hometown once a year or so. A 7" band outside of the grunge scene on MTV…. it just seems so normal now.

Just drank a 40 of Mickey's and passed out in front of the NES. Thanks for the playlist, jaymc.

i think this is probably the last year radio music such as this had any sway on me. I like most everything here.

Yeah, not to sound like an old man, but same here.

I think though that along with my age, there came this toppling effect, the way Billboard organized its music charts and the way radio stations played music, right around this time. This was definitely the last time I could turn on the radio to a station with a current set list and recognize the songs.

in the mid-90s boyz ii men were neck and neck with coolio for my favorite musical act but my parents wouldn't buy me the latter's tapes

I wish ILX had, like, cross-polling fuctionality so that when we did these mid-'90s alt music polls we could also poll for voters' ages. I can certainly imagine where the spike would be in the latter results.

One of my early, abortive attempts to get into rap music involved buying the 1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin' New) CD single.

also this is their best non-"motownphilly" upbeat single

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnbdCzXtb6o

lol i love the thread this direction has taken but rev you should listen to and rank the poll options

i voted for "longview"

i bought the god single, and monster, and no need to argue, but i think i like einstein on the beach best out of all of them

i still consistently loathe beck

i'd take 4-6 of the songs on the list of non-#1s you posted over any of the poll options i know tho

i think i recorded the more you ignore me video

i was like "how has no one mentioned 'thank you'" and then rev came through

thank you rev

All apologies.

I wonder if younger people who've basically only been exposed to lame, half-assed Scientologist Beck realize that he was actually pretty rad at one time.

i thought he was rad when i was a little 14 y.o. shithead, realized he was lame before i realized he was a clam

i like some beck but i've always hated "loser"

give me any of the hits off odelay or even fucking "sexx laws"

Guero is still my favorite album by him

"God" is probably the song here that suffers most in comparison to the real biggest hit from its parent album, "Cornflake Girl," but it's still pretty fantastic, deserves more love itt

god >>>>> cornflake girl. feels both more direct and more interesting.

pretty awesome carl craig remixes too

although "cornflake girl" is probably my least favourite 90s tori amos single

oh no wait i forgot "past the mission" happened. 2nd least fav.

never trust cultists re: the hits

heh keith caulfield from billboard just posted the top 10 of the hot 100 this week in '94 to his twitter: http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100?chartDate=1994-05-21#/charts/hot-100?chartDate=1994-05-21

the Tevin Campbell song isn't bad.

'90s tori singles ranked

hey jupiter
professional widow
winter
raspberry swirl
bliss
silent all these years
spark
caught a lite sneeze
1000 oceans
cruel
in the springtime of his voodoo
glory of the 80s
crucify
god
pretty good year
concertina
jackie's strength
talula
china
cornflake girl
past the mission

maybe i will do a poll of these at some point

I'd say at the very least that "Caught A Lite Sneeze" should be higher up, but not a bad ranking overall.

I don't know why I thought "Putting The Damage On" was a single, but it apparently wasn't. That would've been top 5.

This list has my favorite Nirvana song (All Apologies), my favorite Green Day song (Longview), very close calls for REM, Pearl Jam and Gin Blossoms (though 'Kenneth' is prolley tied w/ Losing My Religion for second favorite REM single), plus my first Morrissey song, and "Mmm mmm mmm mmm" which I hadn't thought about in years until just recently, and sounds fucking amazing. 94 is not quite my favorite year in music (though it is for movies) but its likely to have been my favorite year to have lived through, music-wise.

"Loser" > "All Apologies" > "About a Girl" (pretending this is the original version) > "Basket Case" > "Come Out and Play" > "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" > "Into Your Arms"

loser is better than absolutely nothing.

clearly

"Into Your Arms" is nice but i remember when that and "Mrs. Robinson" were their biggest songs the Lemonheads got dissed a lot as a 'cover band'

incidentally if you google Lemonheads and 'cover band' there have apparently been several Lemonheads cover bands over the years, which is just mind boggling

voted "Loser"

I was super dismissive of "Loser" when it first came out (it seemed like there were a lot of "look how dumb we are" minor alt-rock hits coming out around then, a la Butt Trumpet and Dead-Eye Dick), but I heard someone playing the album and I totally changed my tune on Beck in general (doubly so after I heard One Foot In The Grave and Stereopathetic Soul Manure). I subsequently reassessed the song as not too bad (although still among the lesser songs on that album).

Man, I'm gonna listen to some fuckin' Mellow Gold now!

yeah a lot of the kids who were heavy into Dookie and the first Weezer repped hard for Mellow Gold but i didn't check for it until after Odelay. there really was kind of a hard shift to a SoCal-heavy alt-rock world around '94, huh.

http://www.radiohitlist.com/KROQ/KROQ-1994.htm

very few duds on this list...at least in the top 50

and three Bad Religion tracks!

that's right, "Yellow Ledbetter" and the Cowboy Junkies version of "Sweet Jane" didn't really become a radio staples until '94, even though both were years old by then

thank Oliver Stone.

nah Natural Born Killers came out in '95, "Sweet Jane" had been on the radio a lot for a year or two already by then

My first reactions to these songs:

Lemonheads, "Into Your Arms" - Where's Juliana?
Pearl Jam, "Daughter" - What do you mean you don't have the CD? The vinyl is right here already.
Gin Blossoms, "Found Out About You" - Why would she put this as the first song on this mixtape?
Nirvana, "All Apologies" - Well, it's better than Something In the Way, at least.
Beck, "Loser" - is this on the right speed?
Crash Test Dummies, "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" - From the name, I was expecting some a bit more metal.
Tori Amos, "God" - She is so deep.
Green Day, "Longview" - I can't believe this is on MTV.
Offspring, "Come Out and Play" - I am officially old (said at age 20.)
Green Day, "Basket Case" - Was this originally on Lookout too?
REM, "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" - Dude, I remember that Dan Rather thing when it first happened!
Cranberries, "Zombie" - Welp, I guess Irish songstresses will be the sound of the 90s.

lol killer post

Crash Test Dummies first few albums are actually really solid. They do a nifty cover of The Replacements "Androgynous"! And a song about Superman! But, yeah, "Mmmm" became annoying after too much airplay.

They do a nifty cover of The Replacements "Androgynous"!

I just got a stabbing pain in my abdomen by imagining this.

Thank you for just reminding me that I actually have listened to those early Crash Test Dummies albums. Pretty sure my brain would've continued blocking that info out otherwise.

Basket Case

Top 5:
"Basket Case"
"All Apologies"
"Loser"
"What's The Frequency, Kenneth?"
"Found Out About You"

^^^ the plain and simple truth that has not been spoken enough itt

xpost

Basket Case is still the catchiest shit ever. In retrospect it's not hard to see how a band that could put tracks like that together would still be around, but who would have foreseen five more top 10 albums and two #1's in the 2000s...

At the time I thought Green Day was going to be another catchy pop-punk band that was going to flare up on the radar and then go away a la K's Choice. I do like them but in the back of my mind I still feel that way, so it's perpetually mind-boggling to me to see (for example) posters for the American Idiot touring show all over major marquees in town.

― I'M THAT POSTA, AAAAAAAAAH (DJP), Monday, May 21, 2012 10:45 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i just noticed how weird this post is, i assume he's confusing K's Choice with someone else?

you've been here how long and you're just now noticing that I'm weird?

to be fair, Dan, your line describes 95 percent of posters.

I was originally going to say They Eat Their Own but I figured no one but me remembers them.

This is definitely my favourite shreds of all time - was crying the first time i saw it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1IhhdsKXAQ

i'm just saying "Not Addict" was a downtempo song that broke 2+ years after Green Day's first hits, so i assume you meant a band other than K's Choice?

the Dummies have a song that alludes to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrick" and another about wanting to be David Byrne, both of which were impossibly cool things when one is 19.

i'm just saying "Not Addict" was a downtempo song that broke 2+ years after Green Day's first hits, so i assume you meant a band other than K's Choice?

I did not mean that at the time I was literally thinking "this band is going to follow the trajectory arc of this band that doesn't exist yet", I meant that at the time I thought people would play "Longview" for a while and call it a day, and then I gave an example of a band where that actually happened. I was not trying to say that Green Day was going to follow in the footsteps of K's Choice.

Tori Amos, "God"
Morrissey, "The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get"
Counting Crows, "Einstein on the Beach"

I have no memory of any of these getting played on the radio or on MTV.. I would guess they all quickly peaked at #1 and then fell off the charts soon afterwards. (I know "God" was a buzzclip or something but still I've never seen the video.)

I figured "Round Here" would've placed instead.

"Einstein On The Beach" did not have a video. "God" was i think a buzzclip or a 'breakthrough video' or at least was in a lot of MTV promos when it first came out? "The More You Ignore Me" at least got played on 120 Minutes.

oh right you said it was a buzzclip

i heard einstein and mozz plenty on a local station, which admittedly was alt as fuck, but "God" never

they were bigger on "past the mission"

"God" was a real quick flash in the pan of 'Tori's back! and this is more alt and guitar-y than the first album!' before "Cornflake Girl" replaced it on playlists

xpost

also not to labor the point but timeline aside it was the phrase "catchy pop-punk band... a la K's Choice" that i was raising an eyebrow at

too late, point labored

shit

ahh Toad the Wet Sprocket, with one of the last of the jangle-pop #1's.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, May 21, 2012 9:40 AM (Yesterday)

i know very little about this kind of music from this period, but i love jangle-pop and this! more jangle-pop please

yeah "Fall Down" rules

"Found Out About You" is jangly

I have very little perspective on how much radio/MTV play "God" received because it was roughly concurrent with my listening to Under The Pink a bazillion times.

My college station was playing this in 1993, three years before "Not An Addict" and a year before "Longview," so there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfTf2bURI9I

"Into Your Arms" is like "There She Goes part 2" except less awesome

ok, i had no idea K's Choice existed before "Not An Addict"

Weren't they bigger in the UK? I was also totally unfamiliar with them before "Addict".

1994 modern rock singles POX+2:

Mazzy Star "Fade Into You"
Ween "Freedom of 76"
Beastie Boys "Sure Shot"
Nirvana "Verse Chorus Verse" (I think this counts)
Gin Blossoms "Found Out About You"
Dinosaur Jr "Feel The Pain"
Liz Phair "Supernova"
Weezer "Undone The Sweater Song"
Green Day "When I Come Around"
Portishead "Sour Times"
Jawbox "Savory"
Jeff Buckley "Last Goodbye"

my college radio station played "God" and "The More You Ignore Me" around the clock; I would guess that by 1994 Billboard and college radio stations finally achieved something close to parity.

I actually heard "God" more than any Amos single before or since.

Wasn't K's Choice also, like, Belgian?

itt alfred muddies the waters again by talking about college stations when everyone else is talking about commercial alt stations

Not on purpose -- I missed the distinction. If that's the case, then, yeah, Counting Crows and Moz def played (never heard "God").

(The first K's Choice song I heard was "I Smoke a Lot," because it was on a bargain-bin label compilation in 1995.)

My alt-rock station played "God" and "Cornflake Girl" plenty.

yo remember when tori covered "teen spirit" and everyone was all like :O

Tori will have to answer for that Coldplay cover of the Beastie Boys one day.

You know it's all I think about
I write your name
drive past your house
Your boyfriend's over
I watch your light go out

I'm all about "Found Out About You," even if Robin Wilson's voice never quite did justice to all the hurt in the song

I was originally going to say They Eat Their Own but I figured no one but me remembers them.

― that is a weird thing to bring up over lean cuisine (DJP), Tuesday, May 22, 2012 11:19 AM (11 hours ago)

I remember them!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJc7F3vhx4U

As for the poll, 1994 me would have voted Tori Amos without hesitation. Today? It would be a close race with Morrissey.

My alt-rock station played "God" and "Cornflake Girl" plenty.

I grew up in MD so HFS played her all the time as a localish celeb or whatever, way before i realized she was a homo icon

Man, do you remember an HFS soundbite of her saying something like "Johnny Riggs...ungh!"?

"I'M JOHNNY RIGGS" yess

sad he went down in the pedophile porn thing

woah, i did not know that. guess that explains why he's not on the new rebooted HFS.

Iiiiii did not know that either. Jesus.

i dj on a pirate unlicensed community radio station in dc that cuts in on the new hfs' signal 97.5 (which isn't strong in the first place coming from baltimore so i don't feel bad)

I didn't even know there was a new hfs.

I keep reading "HFS" as "FFS," which is hilarious. To me.

ah marc that must be your station i occasionally hear when i'm near d.c. but accidentally go through my baltimore radio presets! when do you dj?

i do mostly spanish hip-hop fridays 5-7 then uk/"future" bass stuff fridays 9-11

i listened to the new hfs for a bit when it first came back a few years ago and it just sounded like dc101

also the final song on the old hfs being buckley's last goodbye *tear*

i am occasionally pleasantly surprised by stuff the new hfs plays, but yeah obv it's not the same

The last song on WHFS was "After Hours" by the Velvet Underground. The station at 99.1 that switched to Spanish-Language had been garbage for at least the previous decade.

yeah yeahzzzz

(although i really appreciated the switch to el zol it was about damn time we got a spanish fm station)

anybody own that Soul Asylum record? A '95 example of ship's list of commercial failures.

oops wrong thread

Would have picked "About a Girl" or possibly "Kenneth" at the time. Not completely sure now. Had no idea that Morrissey song made #1 on any US chart!

"Tomorrow" did too in '92.

plus five other songs that charted in the top 3

didn't chart on US rock radio again for a decade after "More," though, really just disappeared

Morrissey's mid nineties profile was so bewildering. He'd been going from peak to peak, then a year later the (British) hits were middling, even after the Bros Gallagher couldn't stop yakking about him and the Smiths.

like I had no idea Morrissey was getting US hits before "The More You Ignore Me" (and had no idea that went #1)

college radio hits

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrissey_discography

oh my bad

Rumor has it he styles his pubes in a mullet.

Speaking of 1994 OMG you guys look what I saw in my local alt-weekly today can't wait so excited

http://s02.imageupper.com/1/5/L1337861850348606_1.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s320x320/319842_3720375324667_1134308060_3466100_808101273_n.jpg

http://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s320x320/319842_3720375324667_1134308060_3466100_808101273_n.jpg

oh ffs nevermind

also on my playlist of mediocre modern rock!

haha i had rotting pinata. "plowed" RULES

like I had no idea Morrissey was getting US hits before "The More You Ignore Me" (and had no idea that went #1)

― thillrer (loves laboured breathing), Wednesday, May 23, 2012 6:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

college radio hits

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, May 23, 2012 6:38 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not just college radio #1s, mainstream modern rock radio #1s!

I was distinguishing between college/modern rock and Hot 100 hits.

but college and modern rock charts are as different from each other (in terms of listenership #s) as modern rock is from the hot 100!

i'm curious what it took to get a #1 in the pre-nirvana years of the modern rock chart because holy fuck robyn hitchcock got one

like at some point alt-radio got to a point where lou reed could no longer dominate it

I'd have to check old CMJ playlists but I heard those pre-Nirvana singles ("Balloon Man," "Madonna of the Wasps," "So You Think You're in Love") all the time on college radio, enough to say that there was overlap between it and the modern rock chart.

like at some point alt-radio got to a point where lou reed old men could no longer dominate it

yeah i'm sure there was a lot more overlap/ambiguity between the 2 formats before the explosion circa 1992

I doubt that even if Peter Gabriel had recorded more albums instead of growing a Fu Manchu he'd have scored another couple of modern rock #1's.

Plowed is an awesome song. fuiud. Molly was also pretty great.

looking over the charts, 1994 is like the last year where there's a chart-topper that wasn't a hit-hit

until the "rhcp, foo or gtfo" era i mean

gtfo was rhcp, weren't it?

The only way I make sense of the pre-91 modern rock charts is by imagining that they were all made up by one randomly chosen English TA.

English TA's are dim creatures but they wouldn't own Ian McCulloch solo records.

posting so that I remember the day I found out that the Counting Crows actually called one of their songs "Einstein on the Beach"

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MPv-kMF0MGo/TYf1CSowDBI/AAAAAAAAADM/i5whBN-G7M8/s1600/albert-einstein-1945.jpg

they took it from a philip glass opera. the song was pretty good

i'll have you know the full title of the song is "Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)"

Albert's always sincere, he's a sensitive type
His intentions are clear, he wanna be well-liked
If everything is nothing, then are we anything?
Is it better to be better than to be anything?
And Albert's vision is blooming uncontrolled
All his wings are slowly sinking
The world begins to disappear
The worst things come from inside here
All the king's men reappear
For an eggman, on and off the wall
Who'll never be together again
Einstein's down on the beach staring into the sand
Cause everything he believes in is shattered
What you fear in the night in the day comes to call anyway-ay
We all get burned asone more sun comes sliding down the sky
One more shadow leans against the wall
The world begins to disappear
The worst things come from inside here
And all the king's men reappear
for an eggman, on and off the wall
Who'll never be together again
Albert's waiting in the sun
On a field American
For the cause of some inflated form of hit and run
One more sun comes sliding down the sky
One more shadow leans against the wall
The world begins to disappear
The worst things come from inside here
And all the king's men reappear
for an eggman, fallin' off the wall
Will never be together again
Albert's fallen on the sun
Cracked his head wide open
The world begins to disappear
The worst things come from inside here
And all the king's men reappear
for an eggman, falling, falling
The world begins to disappear
The worst things come from inside here
And all the king's men reappear
for an eggman, fallin' off the wall
Will never be together again
No never be together again
No no never never never again, uh huh
What you fear in the night in the day comes to call anyway

Definitely the Counting Crows' best straight pop (read: non-mawkish) song.

why not write a song called "Einstein (Wearing Mandles)"?

English TA's are dim creatures but they wouldn't own Ian McCulloch solo records.

Ha, who was buying Ian McCulloch records?

(And, yeah, I was surprised too to know that Counting Crows wrote a song named after Einstein on the Beach.)

they took it from a philip glass opera. the song was pretty good

I know they did, that's kind of my point

it's like if Avril called a song "The Kreutzer Sonata"

i'll have you know the full title of the song is "Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)"

so you live to torture me is basically what you're saying

found out about you is so good and it is what i am voting for

it's like if Avril called a song "The Kreutzer Sonata"

how do I explain that she's got a song called "Father Sergius"?

aero, have you checked out the Counting Crows' 20th Century Masters disc?

1. Mr. Jones
2. Einstein On The Beach (For An Eggman)
3. Right Here
4. Angels Of The Silences
5. Hiroshima, Mon Amour
6. A Long December
7. Accidentally In Love (Love Theme From Shrek)
8. Werckmeister Harmonies
9. Ode To Robert Wilson (The "Yeah Yeah" Song)
10. Rain King
11. Big Yellow Taxi feat. Vanessa Carlton
12. Hangin' Around (Watching Giallos)

<3

wait why is the 95 poll already over and this one still has a month to go?

ask einstein

Because it was my first post and I didn't know what I was doing.

Look forward to 1996 on Friday...

what song should I hate on so it can win the poll

"Ironic" hit #1 in '96 so start yer engines

what song should I hate on so it can win the poll

skeptical that you aero can bring yourself to vote mmm mmm mmm mmm even ironically

mookie otm :(

found out about you is so good and it is what i am voting for

― call all destroyer, Thursday, May 24, 2012 1:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol you LOVE the Gin Blossoms so much.

that is a great song tho

It's OK, I guess. CAD is really the GB #1 fan though.

i voted gin blossoms as well ftr

Carly Rae Jepson - "My Prepared Piano"

I was in grade.. 5 I think, and I used to bring a portable boombox to school(!) for us to listen to The Top 12 At 12 at lunchtime in the school yard. I remember one day all of a sudden Basket Case jumped onto the chart, possibly at #1, and we were all just FLOORED by what we were hearing. I still feel that magic even though I'm all grown up and I have dug deeper into punk and rock. Voted Basket Case.

Interesting that you say that because I had a similar OMG THIS BAND moment with Green Day but it was late one night watching 120 mins in my parents' basement with a friend who was staying over. Longview came on and we were both sort blown away. I remember saying that they were gonna be huge and this was several months before Dookie blew up. I think I voted BC in this poll though cause it's the song I like better now.

Funny enough, though I adored the song I never bothered to buy Dookie nor did I ever really get into another GD single the way I did with Basket Case. My brother (ten years younger, so, about 2-3 when BC came out) became a huuuge Green Day fan in his teens/the American Idiot years. It was pretty cute. :*)

Oh I also really liked ummm the double single. Jaded/Geek Stink Breath? I've forgotten the name. Green Day! Who knew one day I'd vote you over Oasis twice!

lol I voted them over Morrissey for Christ's sake but TMYIM has never been a favorite of mine.

it's such a fun karaoke number though!

xp yeah, I'm not much a fan of that either. Tbh I can barely remember how it goes except the chorus - but I could sing *every line* of Basket Case if I felt like it (in fact.. I think I sang a good third of it the other night to annoy Andrew)

I can't forgive rhyming bar with . . . bar.

lol you LOVE the Gin Blossoms so much.

― wolf kabob (ENBB), Friday, May 25, 2012 10:57 AM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's funny because i couldn't stand them during the actual 90s but a couple years ago it hit me that at their best they were a REALLY good pop band.

it's funny because i couldn't stand them during the actual 90s but a couple years ago it hit me that at their best they were a REALLY good pop band.

OTM

Oh I also really liked ummm the double single. Jaded/Geek Stink Breath? I've forgotten the name. Green Day! Who knew one day I'd vote you over Oasis twice!

― she started dancing to that (Finefinemusic), Friday, May 25, 2012 11:10 AM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Brain Stew/Jaded -- you can guess how i feel about the torturously slow song vs. the fast one

Ahhh yes! Thanks SD.

Lemonheads, "Into Your Arms" - great. Not much to discover as time goes by but well-done.
Pearl Jam, "Daughter" - good, i like the lyrics on this. "Breakfast table in an otherwise empty room." The gnashing vocal still feels affected in places though.
Gin Blossoms, "Found Out About You" - great. #3 after "Allison Road" and "Hey Jealousy."
Nirvana, "All Apologies" - good, i like it but never really related to it or loved it or anything.
Beck, "Loser" - this has always been just this side of boring me to tears. Coming in from Odelay this felt like an unfinished demo of this later, more varied and exciting music.
Crash Test Dummies, "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" - ponderous and dull but kind of nice cause they hardly ever play it anymore. I have a weird affection for "God Shuffled His Feet."
Tori Amos, "God" - baffled by the idea of this as a #1. "OOH HOO"s aside it's a little bit shapeless, it's no "Cornflake Girl" that's for sure.
Morrissey, "The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get" - never heard this in my life
Live, "Selling the Drama" - actually one of their better singles, not too pompous. Also great for how many syllables the word "before" can get.
Green Day, "Longview" - okay, kind of over this at this point.
Toad the Wet Sprocket, "Fall Down" - don't know this.
Offspring, "Come Out and Play" - a little too gimmicky for its own good. Weird how by a couple years later playlists seemed to have totally ditched this in favor of "Self Esteem," which was a muuuuuuch more annoying song.
Counting Crows, "Einstein on the Beach" - never heard.
Green Day, "Basket Case" - hard to really knock it, great pop-punk, boy have i heard it WAYYYYYYYY too many fucking times though.
REM, "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" - good! I'm a big R.E.M. fan, never been a die-hard for this but it's a legit grower.
Cranberries, "Zombie" - world-wide karaoke staple and a real hoot (with real hooting). Ehhh, I give it a pass.
Nirvana, "About a Girl" - can't remember how this goes
REM, "Bang and Blame" - moodier than "Kenneth," and better, too, although I think the solo sucks and the chorus feels underwritten by their standards.

Voting Gin Blossoms on the basis of what feels like it'd be most refreshing to hear right this second.

oh man you gotta check out "Fall Down"

and Morrissey.

he's getting closer and closer! stop ignoring him!

We'll be at the bar.

you're wasting your time

You're asking for it.

I couldn't believe that "Fall Down" was a hit until I realized that I was remembering "Hold Her Down" instead.

Crash Test Dummies first few albums are actually really solid. They do a nifty cover of The Replacements "Androgynous"! And a song about Superman!

And that song about Superman was actually a bigger hit in Canada than Mmmmm Mmmmm Mmmmm was.

I'm still a bit baffled as to how "Mmmmm Mmmmm Mmmmm" managed to be a number one hit.

You don't remember how "About a Girl" goes? That is their most Beatleseque song (and rendition).

"About a Girl" is great but the Unplugged version less so. "Loser" and "Kenneth" obv also classics but I get nostalgic for the Lemonheads on hot days like today so here's a vote for "Into Your Arms".

Although Gin Blossoms were terrible, "Found out about you" was a pretty fine song. But it's gotta be "All Apologies." Great song, great recording by Albeenee

This poll was so long ago (my first one... screwed up the date) that I can't remember who I voted for. But I think it was also "All Apologies."

Like I'm not going to vote for the grudge-bearing stalker.

you have a restraining order out on Ed Kowalczyk too?

Well done

Although Gin Blossoms were terrible

does not compute

Boringly voting All Apologies.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

voted for Toad.

The only things here I'm really sick of are the Offspring and maybe Bang & Blame.

I kind of don't mind any of these songs but I'm not excited by any of them.

can't remember if I voted for "Kenneth" or Counting Crows' "Einstein on the Beach' which I seem to remember liking when I was 12 but maybe I don't anymore. Recall it being quite jaunty.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

guess i voted for Kenneth

wait NOBODY likes philip glass?

well in theory everybody does, i think

y'know "All Apologies" is maybe the one Nirvana song i wouldn't mind never hearing again

it's kind of awesome imo; I'm like the dude that things the chorus of "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" is a turd in a punchbowl, so the "in the sun" part of AA should really piss me off, it has no real right to work, and it works magnificently

like I see how lots of it (the q&a verses, that overinvoluted endchant) can come across as horrifically trite upon overexposure, but I think it sounds even more original than it did back then

i just don't really fuck with slow/midtempo Nirvana i think, am almost as weary of "Come As You Are" and "Dumb" and "Pennyroyal Tea"