Well, since you’re not cheating, i’ll spoilertext this;
[SPOILER] Nirvana came the closest, and only then long after the fact. “Pennyroyal Tea”, the planned single release of which was cancelled due to Kurt’s death, was rereleased in April of this year and reached #1 on the sales chart, and would have been #1 on the Hot 100 if not for the fact that its rerelease didn’t net it any significant airplay. Other than that, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” peaked at #6.
In Beck’s case, “Loser” peaked at #10.
RHCP’s “Under the Bridge” peaked at #2, though it made it to #1 in Australia and the Netherlands; “Dani California” made #1 in Canada, but peaked at #6 in the US.
Radiohead peaked at #37 with “Creep”. “Knives Out” and “There There” made #1 in Canada.
None of the rock bands of the grunge generation ever scored a #1 in the US - by that time, alternative rock and mainstream pop had become so completely divorced that the former had no chance of reaching the latter. The closest thing I can find is “Some Might Say” by Oasis, which reached #1 in the UK in 1995.
[/SPOILER]
I can definitely tell from the last few installments in this series where I stopped listening to pop radio. At least half the songs from the last two years are completely unfamiliar to me from the titles, although I might recognize a few more if I heard them. It’ll be interesting as we go forward on these to see just how much more out of touch I get.
For this year, I really liked both of the FYC tunes and I voted with a slight preference for Good Thing.
“Like A Prayer” was the relatively easy choice for me,but there’s a good number of songs on this list I like but aren’t necessarily great. I like the Roxette, the Janet Jackson, the Paula Abdul (particularly "Straight Up "), the Milli Vanillia (too bad about the scandal, the songs were decent.) But none of those I find great, while I think the Madonna is a perfect late 80s dance dong, and I e never gotten sick of hearing it.
Paul’s Boutique and The Stone Roses, but agreed, not a vintage year. There’s a lot bubbling under the surface in 1989 though, guitar-wise and dance-music-wise.
I will out myself as a Batdance voter, as I was completely obsessed with the song and movie that year, and I still enjoy listening to the song from time to time. It was likely going to be We Didn’t Start The Fire otherwise.
Thanks for the spoil tagging, Smapti. I admit I sneaked a peek…confirmed my suspicions. How pathetic! I think there will be few #1s I’m familiar with in the 90s. With Latin America’s top hits, where I lived from 1996 to 1999, I’d have better luck – Ricky Martin, Cafe Tacuba, Maná, Shakira, Lynda…
Soundgarden - Louder than Love
The Sugarcubes - Here Today, Tomorrow Next Week!
Nirvana - Bleach (ya know, the good record)
Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste
Melvins - Ozma
NOMEANSNO - Wrong - the best record of the year, maybe the decade
This is the first year since 1962, even after I YouTubed some songs, had no memory of hearing them at any point in my life - especially that Sheriff song.
Also the first year where nothing really stands out… even in some years where the songs were weak, there was usually one or two that leaped at me as an obvious choice. This year? Not really.
So I’m going to vote for Madonna one more time, with “Like a Prayer” getting the vote as it’s one of the better songs in her catalog… and there’s the entire Pepsi fiasco, which adds some interest in it.
I almost (shockingly, for me) voted for Billy Joel until common sense took over and I remembered that I hated this song because it seemed like a ripoff of “It’s the End of the World…” by REM.
Is it me or are there a lot of covers on this list?
A random collection of samples from Prince’s library of unreleased music. Not quite the same as a totally random collection of samples. Still, I voted for Like a Prayer. One of my favorite Madonna songs. FYC and the Bangles were the only other real contenders.
