Best Modern Rock Hit 10-9-1991

Inspired by a post of croup's in one of the 2000's polls.

Songs I've never heard:

The Smithereens - Top of the Pops
Northside - Take Five
Squeeze - Satisfied
Voice of the Beehive - Monsters and Angels
The Cult - Wild Hearted Son

The peak of modern-rock approved jangle, no? My finalists:

She's a Girl and I'm a Man (underappreciated link to Matthew Sweet's later college radio success)
So You Think You're in Love
It's Only Natural
Sexuality (it's the ACT UP era!)
Smells Like Teen Spirit

Just so there's no confusion later, I'm the weirdo who voted for "The Globe."

going to try to find these all on Spotify because i sure as shit don't want to vote for RHCP, Nirvana or Blur

I thought you of all people would recognize that Cult song.

i love "Fire Woman" and "She Sells Sanctuary" and "Love Removal Machine" but i don't think i would recognize any other song by them

I have a soft spot for "The Globe" even though it's completely derivative and kinda stupid.

Voted Blue Aeroplanes because they deserve some recognition, and it's a great choon.

give it away

i once owned a cult greatest hits album and the only song I'd recognize that SD didn't mention is "Spiritwalker"

just checked it out, and if I heard it in a bar, I'd know it was the cult pretty much at first bellow, though Astbury doesn't enunciate enough on the chorus for me to be sure I'd guess it was named "Wild Hearted Son" and not something like "Wild Are The Young" or "What Are We On?"

i was kinda absurdly fond of 'rush' at the time (occurs to me that 'rush rush' also came out around the same time, was absurdly fond of it also) but kinda despised 'the globe' at the time and more so even now, when it has somehow lingered in rotation after all these years. that robyn hitchcock is good, i remember there were some kinda crazy breakthrough hopes pinned on that record. that summer i remember 'higher than the sun' being one of the two huge jams local college radio couldn't stop playing (the other was 'roller skating jam called saturdays' - it was a good summer). by the time 'movin on up' hit it felt like the addendum to a moment that had just passed. it is an interesting snapshot of what modern rock radio had been and was at the moment nirvana hit, still mining anglophilia and college rockers that plausibly could cross over. at the time college radio played much of this, i can definitely recall hearing late siouxsie, robyn hitchcock, bad II, even blur on local college radio. i don't recall ever hearing 'smells like teen spirit' though, 'sliver' sure, 'nirvana' by juliana hatfield most definitely, but 'smells like teen spirit' crossed over so quickly and hit so huge that it (and the subsequent alt-deluge) prompted some identity crises in college radio. some went the route that soto's apparently took, parroting modern rock radio, some went the route our local college radio went, so indier than thou that sebadoh and pavement were borderline allowed on air (pre-nirvana they would still play depeche mode and the cure even when those acts were near the top of the top 40), some (like either wras or wrek i forget) would try to go head to head w/ modern rock radio and then flip to standard indie. as much as everyone notes how nirvana decimated active rock and aor radio they completely reformatted modern rock and college radio as well. anyhow voted 'smells like teen spirit'.

you dudes wouldn't recognize 'edie (ciao baby)'?

i didn't hear any of the Cult when it came out, though I vaguely remember the opening shot of the native american in that "wild hearted" clip as an MTV Exclusive I only came across once. learned "Fire Woman" from classic rock radio, "Sanctuary" from VH1 classic, and "Spiritwalker" from when I was debating whether to keep any other tracks from their comp.

of what I know on the list, I could easily vote for Blur, Nirvana, RCHP or Bragg and probably couldn't vote for Primal Scream, Hitchcock or BAD II.

curious how high 'give it away' peaked w/ its initial release in fall 91 vs how high it peaked w/ its rerelease post-'under the bridge'/nirvana/the birth of god knows how many commercial altrock radio stations. i can imagine it actually peaks higher the first time around - smaller pond - but it definitely was a bigger actual 'hit' w/ the rerelease.

Don't think I've ever heard a note of Lloyd Cole, the Blue Aeroplanes, The Ocean Blue, House Of Freaks or Voice Of The Beehive. Never heard of Northside before finding this chart. Bought a 2CD of the first two golden palominos albums in high school/early college and did not really hear the REM/PiL/Feelies supergroup vibe I was hoping for.

i know 'song 2' is now and forever blur's biggest hit in america (disregard whatever chart positions), but is 'there no other way' the second biggest blur hit? i know that guitar riff has been in a dozen car commercials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DYONIpKGtI

awesome band they were only on top of the pops cause a mix up on barcodes cost them top 40 so by way of an appolagie done totp first band out side top 40 to ever feature on top of the pops should havebeen bigger but the arival of grundge cut the madcheser scene short so instead of real english bands we got whinie scruffy americans cheers for that

thecat79 3 years ago

queen's english

I have a soft spot for "The Globe" even though it's completely derivative and kinda stupid

I voted for "The Globe" too though it's 1/10th the song "Rush" is. What would you say it derives from?

(Lots of other great stuff on this list too of course, could easily have voted for Nirvana or Primal Scream or RH)

well it's built on a sample of 'should i stay or should i go'

good god do i have a lot of memories of these songs. i was 16, in my junior year of high school, sullen, standoffish, bored out of my mind. Listened to a lot of music by myself in my room.

LOVED She's A Girl and I'm a Man, So You Think You're in Love, Sexuality (I was one of those annoying politically active teens who loved Billy Bragg but also it was a goofy song about sex), Teen Spirit, and all the Cult songs mentioned, but I can't say this one rings a bell. Some others I liked (that Golden Palominos song with lol Stipe on it, Voice of the Beehive, but not enough to listen to it over and over like the others)

Now there are really only one or two choices. I'm going with So You Think You're in Love because I liked it then, and I like it now too. The silent majority, they all will agree with me! You know it.

Also, the Cindy Crawford workout video from that same year, or the year after, uses a bunch of Primal Scream songs, including this one. I had the album too, and it was always so weird to see Cindy doing leg lifts on the beach to those songs. You can imagine.

nah, makes sense. i can totally see someone in a pink leotard doing leg lifts to "movin on up". maybe a beach in the background.

"so you think you're in love" is the only song i might have picked over "give it away". i certainly would have chosen it in 1991. only went with RHCP in the here an now cuz i'm in the mood for something funkier than robyn (or primal scream) can provide.

oh man "The Globe" is the one Big Audio Dynamite joint I used to hear as much as "Rush"! real talk, that song used to be on the radio so much i think i heard it before i was familiar "Do I Stay Or Do I Go" -- i might have even known BAD before The Clash. lol 1991.

The Ocean Blue's "Cerulean" is exactly the kind of bland jangle-fest of which modern/college radio was made. This was exactly the band and song that eventually went extinct.

and lol a friend bought that album for me as a b-day gift in November.

Haha, I won that boring album for free from the radio, among others from this very list.

Here's a relic from the Sept issue of Seventeen, just one month before Smells Like Teen Spirit was released

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7271/7507676502_7aa6864829.jpg

Voice of the Beehive - Monsters and Angels

Alfred, have you heard this yet? It's fantastic

Northside - Take Five

To this day I will still sometimes get Take Five as an earworm because it is *extremely* annoying and but also somewhat catchy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9BWz8q0ojs&feature=youtu.be

Anything that's that annoying stays with me.

That was supposed to be a youtube link to the song, not sure why that didn't work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9BWz8q0ojs&feature=youtu.be

Alfred, have you heard this yet? It's fantastic

I just sampled it on iTunes and, yes, I have. It's like arena-rock Cocteau Twins.

I missed Blur before I voted! Definitely would've gone that way. Love that song. In addition to "She's So High," "Bang" and "I Know" are some other lost gems from that otherwise lame debut album.

crowded house and robyn hitchcock are the only things here that are in my music rotation really. voted robyn

I wondered what people's feelings were about Hitchcock'ss A&M years. "Madonna of the Wasps," "Balloon Man," "Oceanside," and "Chinese Bones" got enough saturation play for me to never dismiss them.

Robert Quine on the Cole song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2hGy7cBRNM

xp was Eye part of that run? because that's a great record, and the full band ones are all good-not-great to me

I love Madonna of the Wasps! I liked all of Perspex Island, really. Another Michael Stipe cameo too on "She Doesn't Exist"! That guy was all over the place, wasn't he.

This was my year of Lloyd Cole -- Don't Get Weird On Me, Babe made me feel older and ~sophisticated~.

I was infatuated with Perspex Island for years. I relistened to it not long ago and it still held up despite the terrible drum sound.

...catch me, BAYBEEEEE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GfOy5miUf4

that song was pretty good if you don't mind michael stipe listening singing about himself for almost SIX MINUTES
he seriously was everywhere

yeah there's some good tracks in that period.. besides the above mentioned singles, search "One Long Pair of Eyes", "Flesh Number One (Beatle Dennis)", "Ultra Unbelievable Love", "She Doesn't Exist", etc etc

normally I'd be voting Lloyd Cole in a heartbeat but this is one of his very few songs I don't like at all so idk

Madonna of the Wasps is great. That is all.

yeah, robyn's A&M are uneven and often badly produced, but they've each got a clutch of brilliant songs:

vibrating
flesh #1
madonna of the wasps
one long pair of eyes
so you think you're in love
she doesn't exist

^ highlights, though i have to admit that i can't remember anything good about respect. and most days i'd take i often dream of trains, eye or moss elixer over any of the egyptians studio albums.

The last Egyptians record, Respect, gets overll=ooked far too often. Easily the most consistent of the A&M records, though it lacks some of the highs from the prior ones (pretty much all the songs everyone's mentioned, plus "The Devil's Coachman" and "Tropical Flesh Mandala").

Still, I've always kinda hated "So You Think You're In Love" so I'm voting for Lloyd Cole.

Respect had a song called "Arms of Love" that I once liked and a single called "Driving Aloud" that sucked bongwater

"Driving Aloud" is sorta weak, but "Railway Shoes", "Wafflehead", "The Yip Song", and "The Wreck OF The Artur Lee" more than compensate.

Was anyone paying attention to Squeeze at this point?

last Squeeze song I distinctly remember was "Hourglass". When was that - 88? 87?

Yep. "Everything in the World" (with Carrack back on organ) was the last new Squeeze song my college station played.

That doesn't ring any bells at all. Time to hit youtube.

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

Listening now and it's completely new to me. Huh.

It's not bad! Better than "If It's Love" and "Hourglass."

I have a soft spot for "Hourglass" but it's nice. It's nice to know there's a rich vein of Tilbrook and Difford waiting out there if I ever get around to it.

just listened to everything on this list that i hadn't heard before (so not nirvana, RHCP, siouxsie or primal scream

what a bunch of uninteresting unremarkable weak music!

hey but thx for stopping by

well i had a bunch of individual reax written out but they all kind of turned out the same

except for take five which was pretty good

and the voice of the beehive!

am listening to Wild-Hearted Son, right now on Spotify.

do you know: the Cult had a song called "Nirvana" in '85?

There are a lot of major league stinkers on this list, I'll say that. (Looking at the Smithereens, for starters)
Not only that but I think "Sexuality" has some of the most hiliariously awful lyrics I have ever heard. I used to make my friends laugh and laugh by bellowing "STRONG and WARM and WILD and FREE" in my loudest BB voice.

it's goofy in a cute way. "Your LAWHS do not ap-PLYYY tah MEEEE" could refer to his lyrics (or Johnny Marr's production).

...but "Sexuality" has that wonderful Johnny Marr guitar line!

And Robyn's A&M material is best represented in live form on disc 5 of the "Luminous Groove" box set and in BBC versions on "The Kershaw Sessions".

I agree with The Kershaw Sessions. I don't like much of the live stuff from the box set, unfortunately.

Why not? Is it Andy's somewhat-dominating bass?

There's also an official boot called "Where Are The Prawns" which documents live gigs from the early 90s, I quite like that even more than the disc from the box.

It's not the performances for the most part. I just don't think a mish-mash of tracks from different sources arranged randomly makes a good live collection. I would have rather had a solid or even average complete show than the bits and pieces that have no flow or feel.

I like the Blue Aeroplanes and all, but I do think Yr Own World is a little bit rubbish. The album before was a smasher, but this go round they seemed a whole lot blander and less ambitious to me.

you could have told me the squeeze track was by crowded house and the crowded house track was by squeeze and i'd have believed you

which act recorded a single about the excess of fat on American bones being the reason why their album sales tanked?

Crowded House.
Not sure that's why it tanked though. The album before that didn't catch on in the US either.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

imagine how well "you can't always get what you want" would have done

I can't believe Take Five got three votes!

Like I should talk, I'm too embarrassed to admit what I voted for and it isn't even Primal Scream.

god save the queen i guess

Madonna of the Wasps is great. That is all.

― LimbsKing, Thursday, July 5, 2012

this x 1,000,000

Interesting cover by Neko: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsLwKkn_xEo

it's good, but can't touch the original