Wait... THAT song charted on the Modern Rock charts??

don't all your polls require at least some vague notion of an empirically-sourced sample

http://youtu.be/6vE5ewvxdfo?t=2m36s

#35 in 1995:
http://youtu.be/ateQQc-AgEM

"Kiss From a Rose" kinda DOES rock, tho

"Lullaby" is one of the worst things ever but I have no doubt it could be weirdly comforting to someone, somewhere

+ it will probably take brain-bleach for me to ever forget 'It's kinda like Nashville... with a tan'

Ha. No empirical evidence this time, just vague hunches.

And I voted 'All That She Wants.'

"lullaby" was supposedly first played by the alt/modern station in his city (atlanta) when he was releasing music on his own label. then columbia snatched him up and the song spread from there to become the unavoidable scourge it ultimately was. so goes the story anyhow, which conveniently helps paint the picture of the artist's sudden rise as credible/organic/etc. (which obv did not work for him in the long run). amusingly a near-identical story surrounded lfo's "summer girls" except it was washington dc's top 40 station that played it (an unmixed version of it) first before arista signed them and took over.

i think the only one of these that i didn't either hear on an alt-rock station or could've assumed were played on some of them when it was new is "I'm Too Sexy." also possibly my favorite song here, so by whatever criteria this poll is operating on, that's my vote.

My memory is that I'm Too Sexy got play on WHFS prior to global domination.

what is this poll about

what are we voting for

what

The one that surprises me the most is "I Kissed a Girl" so that's the one I voted for. Not sure if that's the right criteria or not.

I like either criteria... if you like it best or are most surprised to find it here

Not to be bitchy, but was the person who made this poll alive in 1990? Divinyls were definitely in the "modern rock" wheelhouse.

Also Katy Perry was totally pitched as an indie ingenue at first. Comme ca:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLgy3P11aXI

Katy Perry was on The Warped Tour as well.

Had no idea

sic otm

was the person who made this poll alive in 1990? Divinyls were definitely in the "modern rock" wheelhouse.

Yeah, I don't see why this would be surprising.

Granted, I was just a kid at the time, but I recall it as a kitschy (although good) pop hit, not an alt-rock hit.

Divinyls were like the goofy trashy Concrete Blonde

Granted, I was just a kid at the time, but I recall it as a kitschy (although good) pop hit, not an alt-rock hit.

I agree, as a kid not knowing their background I was surprised people would consider them alternative of modern rock. To me they sounded like Paula Abdul or Belinda Carlisle.

How did I not know that Chrissy Amphlett died last year from breast cancer? Or did I know and I just forgot? Anyway RIP, "Temperamental" > "I Touch Myself"

she did?! :(

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

There was a lot of weirdly out of place stuff on alt rock radio during the mid-'90s alternaboom in particular. It's like that thing where someone who's clearly the lead in a movie is submitted for a best supporting actress nomination because nobody believes they have a shot at beating Meryl Streep for best actress. I don't think anyone initially expected Hootie, et al to do as well as they ultimately did.

so Tom Petty is this list's Meryl Streep

Tom Petty (Meryl Streep) and Mike Campbell (Rosie O'Donnell).

RoboPetty

I also omitted the New Age crossover hits like Enya, Deep Forest, and Enigma.

"wild wild west" had a toasting breakdown which iirc made it modern rock-ish in 198something. pato banton, shabba ranks, and escape club. how many people did that one catch? woxy bam! in oxford, ohio was my main portal and i don't remember this being a thing there but the year-end chart says the album ranked no. 87, right behind divinyls' tempermental. also it felt kinda post-kick inflected, so it was a maybe. was "the honeythief" or "digging my scene" modern rock or just pop from somewhere else.

"pleasure and pain" got airplay in 1985 so grandfathered in plus like upthread said divinyls was concrete blonde (i see that now) plus benatar plus lovich hiccupppy so wheelhouse even if "i touch myself" seemed normal at that point.

hootie i dunno. phish and blues traveler were deemed alt in 199blurgh so i guess also.

digging YOUR scene, wtf

Honeythief and Digging Your Scene were definitely modern rock in my neck of the woods.
Honeythief is so good.

Divynils and Katy Perry songs could pass as rockist for their rebel sentiment. Feeling rebel for masturbating or being a lesbian tourist is sort of lame but here we are.

i'm guessing you weren't alive in 1990 either, since that was the summer madonna freaked people out with this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siowZ4V8xwo

like guys... can we please have some historical perspective? the world didn't hatch right before you came out of your mom

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I was quite alive and owning the Immaculate Collection VHS in 1990.

how can a song as good as "Digging Your Scene" boast a drum sound so tacky

Hang on you guys:

"I'm Too Sexy" is a rock song by Right Said Fred? What, did you guys get a remix or something?

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

of course

Haha. After all that.

Wikipedia lists Divynils as an Australian rock band.

Genres: pop rock, new wave, hard rock.

You chose wrong ILM.

However, it managed to reach the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at No. 4 and at No. 2 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, after receiving extensive play on modern rock radio, which was more accepting of the song's subject matter.

Told you it was considered "rockist" because it's about jilling off.

did steve earle, lyle lovette, and maybe dwight yoakam make twang cool enough for petty to be considered modern rock? did the wilburys belatedly incite modern rock into reclaiming petty as kind of a new wave pioneer in light of his canonization as part of the guthrie tradition or did that make him hipper? "won't back down "is just ok and even boilerplate petty idg why this is on the modern rock radio at this point.

Yea

he just seems so sardonic and laid-back and too

dammit.

he just seems so sardonic and laid-back and too tired to live up to the courage of his convictions in this song. maybe that's what's modern rock about it.

Chart was figuring itself out in "89. It has nothing to do with Petty's promotion as New Wave, although he was promoted as such in the seventies.

i phrased it awkwardly but that's what i'm saying. once upon a time petty fit right into the kroq playlist, and then he didn't for a long time, unlike the pretenders for example. why, for one desperate moment there, did he creep back into modern rock's memory?

also i figure petty originally being pegged "new wave" was more than "we don't know what to do with this guy, we'll put him with these other people" or even aor-dinosaurs-with-skinny-ties syndrome; he really owned that bleak, weird, dark, hollow late-70s vibe that hung poisonously over everything without having to borrow anything sonically from the spiky-haired brigade. he fit in without having to make any formal overtures. then eventually he got shelved with the earnest heartland farm-aid dadrock mellencamp, which i assumed you don't come back from but there he is, even if just for a second.

tbh i think i's the way he dressed. lookit the suit jacket and polka dot shirt! lookit benmont tench, he thinks he's in the tubes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2nbHpF7-qk

Idk I feel like Don't Come Around Here No More is p modern rock. Music video absolutely sets a precedent for where MTV would go during the grunge years

Petty was an MTV staple prior to Southern Accents. I remember the mournful, Mad Max-style "You Got Lucky" video being in almost constant rotation in the fall of 1982 and well into 1983. His music seemed to slot in just as comfortably with the ostensibly authentic retro-Americana of Bruce Springsteen and John Cougar Mellencamp as the cheerfully ephemeral pop modernism of The Cars and 80s-era ZZ Top, this adaptability a product of styling as much as substance.