Billboard Number One Album Rock Tracks 1990

Burn them all.

This might be the only poll in which I ever vote for "Hard to Handle".

That or "Blue Sky Mine". My god did radio suck my senior year in high school.

ZZ Top had three? I can't recall a note of any of em

i don't like one of these songs

xp I remember "Doubleback," but I'm assuming (probably fairly) that all three are junk.

1990 did not suck, off the top of my head i would probably vote for this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6myNbk15sMs

Jeezus. I don't think I even liked any of these when I was 11.

though not really rock, read it as alternative rock.

Yeah, this is the Album Rock chart. Other charts had much better songs.

I was 16 in 1990, and didn't have a deep enough grasp on rock's past to understand yet why there were all these articles about the death of rock music and some about how The Black Crowes were the savior of everything rock (lol!). Looking at these #1s, I completely understand the contempt.

Not a great year by any stretch but What It Takes is a fine song

Voted for INXS.

In retrospect, the career of Billy Idol really seems like a matter of filling a void at a particular time.

"Doubleback" was the theme from Back To The Future Part III!

Haven't heard quite a few of these, but voted "What It Takes" over "Cradle Of Love" and "The Other Side"

also holy shit that Rod Stewart was still ostensibly getting rock play by "Downtown Train"

I remember hearing Rod's Oasis cover on the radio in '98.

it never ceases to amaze me that Little Feat once had a chart-topping single. Representing The Mambo is a pretty decent post-Lowell George album, too.

this thread is lol

probably most lol is that I'm actually debating between four songs at the moment

"Doubleback" was the theme from Back To The Future Part III!

― Uncle Cyril O'Boogie (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, July 27, 2013 2:05 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wowww this song was really buried deep in the recesses of my brain

EZ is pooh poohing this not three weeks after telling me how underrated Recycler was (and how much better it was than Afterburner)

Doubleback is def one of the fourfive I'm debating

INXS for me. I can hum three quarters of these.

Runners-up:

Downtown Train
Almost Hear You Sigh
Hurting Kind

Probably heard "Blaze of Glory" more times that year than any other song that I didn't listen to by choice.

the Winwood tune is one of his few from the ear with even a semblance of grit.

*era

lot of these songs, i'd easily vote for one of the other singles off the same album; "Disappear" instead of "Suicide Blonde," "Jealous Again" instead of "Hard To Handle," etc.

the only songs on this list I still hear played on the radio/as muzak are "Hard to Handle" and "Blaze of Glory," and VERY rarely "Cradle of Love"

this era is funny/fascinating to me because I was two years old & my dad listened to these radio stations, so this is the rock music I heard when I was just starting to develop long-term memory. I have a real soft spot for this kinda warmed-over light-beer rock; I get weird nostalgic chills when I hear "Free Fallin" & "Running Down A Dream," etc

"Free Fallin" & "Running Down A Dream,"

Both of those are vastly superior to anything in this list.

Full Moon Fever singles ("Yer So Bad," "A Face in the Crowd") still dominated earlier in the year btw.

"The Other Side" still gets spins. love all the Pump singles, fuck the haters.

I loathe "Black Velvet." Loathe it.

I really liked "Suicide Blonde" back then. That INXS album is one of the first 4 or 5 albums I bought. Probably haven't heard it in about 20 years. I wonder if it holds up.

I think that Robert Plant album is legitimately pretty great! It could go toe to toe with Jane's or FNM. "Hurting Kind" is one of the least interesting things on it, though, although I don't mind it. "Tie Dye on the Highway" is classic imo. From this list, I might vote for "Blue Sky Mine".

xposts "Black Velvet" is still inescapable in Canada.

here too!

Ugh.

Well, maybe the Plant sort of connects the dots between Peter Gabriel and Jane's or something.

The album, not necessarily this song or something.

I know five of these songs and the only one of them I like is 'Almost Hear You Sigh'.

I know it's an identikit period Stones ballad but it's really pretty and has unexpected chord changes.

Hm, I don't like "Tie Dye on the Highway" as much as "She Said", listening now.

They had us listen to "Black Velvet" in elementary school for some reason, presumably because Alannah Myles was the only musician working in Canada in 1990.

yeesh

EZ is pooh poohing this not three weeks after telling me how underrated Recycler was (and how much better it was than Afterburner)

Doubleback is def one of the fourfive I'm debating

― hard at work writing Beta Flight/Weapon PRIME fanfic (Drugs A. Money

Recycler is way better than Afterburner. Doesn't mean the singles from it sounded good on the radio in 1990. In fact, at the time of release it sounded dated. If you throw those tunes in a playlist with the others on here they don't fit the trends of the time, but they've aged better than most of this dreck.

I saw Little Feat in 1990 and they were incredibly good.

me too! that was my first concert ever :)

stream of conscious reaction: "jesus that's a lot of harmonicas...did Desmond Child review all the singles that year and say 'harmonica!'?...I remember that Robert Plant song being pretty good...or not....only appearance of a rickenbacker in hair metal?...I'm not sure that's even the 10th best INXS song...ok Blue Sky Mine had some sort of soaring thing that I like...yeah, that flanged guitar under it isn't holding up so well...ok, inner contrarian,it's gotta be Aerosmith...ah hell, not only did they not write it, their writer got sued for ripping off h/d/h...alright that's gotta be the Black Crowes one good song, right? apparently not...man Billy Idol does cocaine new wave better than anyone...hmm...I think you can make a pretty strong case that's the last inspired thing Rod Stewart did...listening...yeah hard to screw that up...even better in some places...though it's kind of like giving a beloved family recipe to Thomas Keller...all the strings....yep, Rod Stewart it is".

Nice first concert, some dude. They were smokin' on that tour.

xpost

I have a soft spot for "Black Velvet." Otherwise, these all suck. I spent 1990 listening pretty exclusively to Nirvana, Metallica, Voivod, and Ministry. Then in 1991 they all put out records that made me hate them (at the time).

WTF Allman Brothers Band in 1990? Voted for INXS, easily.

xpost oh snap I'm not the only one who isn't moved by Psalm 69?

xp (meaning I'd take both bands over the 'Box)

(prolley like both bands more than 3EB too)

(I was going to actually mention Journeyman in conjunction w the 89 charts. Is Henley on there too...?)

Balls u r wrong bcz u dont know the transcendental awakening that is Open Up your Eyes

can you help me I'm bent

sad state of affairs ilx finally gets a thread about real rock and it detours into indie

"big questions" Matchbox 20 asked: What is it like to be the rain-maker? What is it like to be the head honcho? What is it like to be a sup-er-HEER-o?

i wonder what it's like to be the head honcho, i wonder what it's like to know that i honched the heads

balls ain't crazy, balls just a little impaired

Lol @ Eve 6/Tonic being Indie (tho my point about Journeyman-Clapton/Henley was a small attempt to get this thread back on track)

i will take every song on that aor chart, even the jesus christ bad company? (not their last #1 btw), over whatever the best tonic song is. i will take train over tonic. i will take the shins over tonic.

Confession: "Coming of Age" still gets in my head a lot. I actually didn't notice it on here before. I'm kind of half-considering voting for it now. I still kind of like "The Other Side" and "Bad Love" too.

xposts I don't know if I've ever heard Tonic!

Oh balls, if you could only see.

Anyway, as for 1990 - this is before my radio-listening time and most of these vanished without a trace once alt-rock took over, so I don't actually know most of the songs. But I don't mind hearing "Hard To Handle" once every, I dunno, five or six months. The effortful tortures inflicted by the Black Crowes aren't enough to cancel out the strength of the Otis song/riff.

I sometimes feel like people who didn't live through this can never really understand alt/indie rock.

Like, this is what it was an alternative to.

I can almost hear you sigh

the reason I havent heard any of those songs is because they never crossed the atlantic

xposts

Never thought The Black Crowes would be the best of anything.

Ok, after re-listening to a bunch, this is definitely Clapton.

Alannah Myles, "Black Velvet"
Midnight Oil, "Blue Sky Mine"
Jon Bon Jovi, "Blaze of Glory"
INXS, "Suicide Blonde"

these are all good songs; voting Australian though (haven't picked which one yet)

the Plant track is in the Now and Zen vein, which is to say it's rather good hard rock (Plant's in great voice) but not S&S or The Principle of Moments.

A group of students from my high school held a lipsyncing "Putting on the Hits" fundraiser in early '91, and one of our young (mid-20 something) teachers performed "Blue Sky Mine" with a few of us. He had gone through multiple bouts of cancer since he was 7 or 8 and was bald from all the years of chemo, and would regularly bust out his Peter Garrett impression for us after class. He had Garrett's weird ass dancing down pat. For no reason I ever understood we all went out in boxer shorts and t-shirts with our torsos wrapped in blue cellophane. It was a blast.

If "Blue Sky Mine" wins I'll try to find a photo from this to post.

"Blue Sky Mine" got a lot of airplay on my college station. I remember a sense of disappointment that it didn't build on "Beds Are Burning." I was only in high school but was there much buzz about Midnight Oil as A Thing?

I think "Suicide Blonde" is a better-constructed song but "Blue Sky Mine" is much more emotionally satisfying, so I'm having real problems deciding which to vote for

besides

Suicide Blonde >>>> Desire

I think I actually listen to Manic Nirvana a little more than Now and Zen.

RE: Midnight Oil being a thing, I would say sorta kinda? I remember them playing 10,000+ seaters in the early 90s. It's crazy to think they've sold over 10 million records worldwide.

they might be worth a poll: international bands who were big b/w 1987-1993 before Nirvana (also: The Church, which also released a commercial disappointment in '90).

yeah blue sky mining didn't do badly, 'blue sky mine' and 'forgotten years' were kinda hits, not as big as 'beds are burning' obv but comparable to 'the dead heart'. it just didn't launch them to a next level of stardom that some critics probably hoped they were poised for. also at this point (two terms of reaganism and no end in sight) there was considerable/understandable yearning for musicals acts 'with a conscience' from critics. curious how that stuff holds up, i've listened to some church relatively recently (guess which one) but i haven't deliberately listened to midnight oil since before nirvana. i still hear 'beds are burning' (and still hear in my head my grandfather expressing befuddlement at garrett's voice) and i actually do hear 'blue sky mine' on a 'classic alternative' station but i haven't heard anything beyond the 'hits' in forever. wondering now what exactly prompted that australian moment in american pop culture - crocodile dundee wasn't the instigator (though it definitely benefited from and perhaps exacerbated the trend). was it fallout from america's cup?

I heard "Truganini" in '93 but haven't heard it since. Listening to it now, "Blue Sky Mine" glistens.

They recently released an excellent two-disc remastered greatest hits called Essential Oils. Worth a listen, that's for sure.

This might be the only poll in which I ever vote for "Hard to Handle".

I read the options in horror and then saw that Johnny had voiced my reaction perfectly.

I'd consider myself a pretty big fan of Midnight Oil and INXS both, but not these particular songs. That's why I had to go Crowes.

there is never a reason to go with The Black Crowes unless your only options are Macklemore, KAPTN and Death In June

hard to handle rules

re: Midnight Oil

Diesel & Dust is really the pivot in their career. Everything before it was pretty uniformly awesome. Diesel & Dust seemed to crystalize all their ambitions. But beginning with Blue Sky Mining, and all the way until the end, they were constantly struggling to figure out what was next. A few good songs pop up here and there, but it was over long before the band was.

my favorite Midnight Oil song is probably still "Read About It"

Good summation, JF. Which is why that Essential Oils release I mentioned is so stellar. Absolute cream of the post '88 crop and highlights of the earlier albums (there is too much good stuff on records like 10, 9, 8,... to cover it all). I wish they'd release the first decade of music in that sound quality.

I'll bet Death In June do some pretty mean Otis Redding covers

It's a shame the Essential Oils comp leaves off "Home" from the Breathe album. If you've ever wondered what a Peter Garrett/Emmylou Harris duet would sound like, the answer is "superb!"

Also from Breathe (and not on the comp) is "E-Beat" which has a really cool pedal steel hook.

Or whatever that sound is. It may not even be pedal steel.

I'd take either of those over "Surf's Up Tonight", which I've always sorta hated.

i think it's an e-bow on "E-Beat", hence the name.

lol I guess that makes sense.

I think you will be unsurprised to learn there will be a Midnight Oil track as a future Stacks pick.

what a shower

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

damn... ZZ struck out

Eric Clapton, "Bad Love" 1

Man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0TATbhvSu4