Technically, it was called the “Modern Rock” chart until 2009. Billboard also had a “Mainstream Rock” chart which used airplay from AOR stations. Their #1s for 1991 looked like this;
Sting - “All This Time”
The Black Crowes - “She Talks To Angels”
The Rolling Stones - “Highwire”
Queensrÿche - “Silent Lucidity”
REM - “Losing My Religion”
Yes - “Lift Me Up”
Van Halen - “Poundcake”
Tom Petty - “Learning To Fly”
Van Halen - “Runaround”
Tom Petty - “Out In the Cold”
Rush - “Dreamline”
John Cougar Mellencamp - “Get A Leg Up”
Van Halen - “Top of the World”
Dire Straits - “Heavy Fuel”
U2 - “Mysterious Ways”
Same here. At first, looking through it, I thought, “Am I going to have to vote for fucking EMF?” I guess I could have gone with Prince in a pinch, but man - you can actually see the charts turn to shit as the '80s end.
Albums I was listening to then:
Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger
Pearl Jam - Ten
Hole - Pretty on the Inside
Smashing Pumpkins - Gish
Nirvana - Nevermind (sensing a theme here?)
Hopefully you guys might come up with some I’ve forgotten, but overall a year that felt fantastic while it was happening has reduced to albums I no longer listen to, except Gish occasionally.
I consider this time to be near the beginning of his wilderness years. And to me, it’s a damned shame that this pretty generic 4/4 pop-rocker reached number one while the likes of “Gett Off” and “Money Don’t Matter 2 Night” from the same album didn’t make it as high.
Albums I remember listening to that year (going through my iTunes library):
The Bats - Fear Of God
Billy Bragg - Don’t Try This At Home
Chapterhouse - Whirlpool
De La Soul - De La Soul Is Dead
The Feelies - The Good Earth
Matthew Sweet - Girlfriend
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Ned’s Atomic Dustbin - God Fodder
R.E.M. - Out of Time
Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians - Perspex Island
Slint - Spiderland
Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque
Too Much Joy - Cereal Killers
A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory
U2 - Achtung Baby
So it looks like it’s agreed then: Sampti will dump the top #1 single of the year poll as of 1991 since it’s become completely irrelevant, and then publish two polls going forward: top #1 Modern Rock and top #1 Mainstream Rock for the 1990s (as they used to say, “The Music of My Life”).
I think this plan will work best, doesn’t everyone agree?
Me too. I don’t see a single song that would not prompt me to switch channels or turn off the radio, not counting the ones I don’t recognize at all. In the other polled years there was always at least one or two nice ones to vote for.
At this time when I checked the poll, EMF’s “Unbelievable” was leading, with C+C Music Factory right behind.
Now back in my day, we considered bands & singers like EMF, Jesus Jones, No Doubt, Robyn Hitchcock et.al to be part of the New Wave/Alt Rock/Modern Rock genre e.g. whatever was played on WLIR (wait, early '90s, I mean WDRE) at the time. Most of the other songs upon hearing would induce finger-pushing of the radio-button to find a different station.
So, it’s fitting a new wave/alt-rock song is leading the #1 singles poll (for now).
And everyone knows Sampti is Smapti in Simlish…
I agree with Sapmti, Spamti, and their ilk that we should stick with the original plan. Even negative results (i.e., the crappy Billboard #1s from 1990 to something like 2005) are results, and might suggest interesting things, but only if we keep the original protocol.