Billboard Number One Modern Rock Hits 1990

Also: does this accurately reflect the state of college radio in 1990, o college students of Christmas past?

it certainly reflects the state of 120 minutes in 1990, which i paid more attention to. (i could never get good reception of the college station on campus.)

lots of songs i like here, but not many i love. i sort of think "nothing compare 2 u" towers over everything, but it almost seems unfair to vote for a prince tune. so, maybe "stop!"

Cuts You Up, over Merry go Round.

Both Sineads and/or "Enjoy the Silence" by about a bazillion miles. Seriously think I can't stand anything else on this list (at least what I'm familiar with). I'd have led a much happier life never to have seen the title "Joey" for as long as I live.

i still be jammin Been Caught Stealing

Been Caught Stealing

Nothing Compares 2 U was a well-deserved #1 on the Pop charts that year... not voting for it here. Emperor for me.

joey vs. nothing compares...ok, it's totally nothing compares, though they both kill me ("all the flowers that you planted mother...")

This is better than most of the #1 pop singles polls I've been seeing. Had to choose among "Nothing Compares 2 U," "Cuts You Up," and "Joey"; went with the latter.

I voted "Blue Sky Mine" because I really like that song. It is the only Midnight Oil song that touches me emotionally.

I almost went with "Joey". That song is kind of hated, but it taps into my desire to have some one concerned about how drunk I am. The Pretenders "I'll Stand By You" does something similar, mostly because the video is some kind of AA soft porn.

although I'm heartened by the ahem silence on it so far, I want to say that if "Enjoy the Silence" even comes close to winning, I will personally give the gas face to each person who voted for it

I'm always surprised when I remember that Midnight Oil was briefly huge.

btw the song of the year on this chart was "Cuts You UP," number one for seven weeks in the spring.

This is an accurate representation of the modern rock station in Minneapolis circa 1990 (also an accurate representation of what I was listening to when not mired in industrial stomp music).

There are 14 songs I would consider voting for here.

You know what I voted for? "Way Down Now." That's right, "Way Down Now," a song of the boppin' good-time jangleosity that I could not stand in 1990. All that debt-to-the-60s stuff that L.A. Times critics thought was so awesome about KROQ music, boy did I despise it. Where was the goddamn darkness in these fuckin hippies souls? This was my question. Then last year Goodbye Jumbo popped up on eMusic and I grabbed it and hey what the fuck do you know, these guys were awesome and I'm a dumb punk.

You're forgetting about Karl Wallinger's fashion sense, JOhn.

You know what I voted for? "Way Down Now."

yeah that was not one of my 14 songs, sadly when it comes to this era I am either the mopey prince of darkness or a giddy 14-year-old girl

I have no memory of "Every Beat of the Heart." Dan, hum it for me.

You know what I voted for? "Way Down Now."

Put The Message In The Box was another good one.

lol I don't remember that one, either!

My magic 14:

Peter Murphy - "Cuts You Up"
Sinead O'Connor - "Nothing Compares 2 U"
Midnight Oil - "Blue Sky Mining"
Depeche Mode - "Enjoy the Silence"
Sinead O'Connor - "The Emperor's New Clothes"
Midnight Oil - "Forgotten Years"
Depeche Mode - "Policy of Truth"
Concrete Blonde - "Joey"
David J - "I'll Be Your Chaffeur"
Jane's Addiction - "Stop!"
INXS - "Suicide Blonde"
The Cure - "Never Enough"
Jane's Addiction - "Been Caught Stealing"
Sisters of Mercy - "More"

i'm sith Scott on this one. "The Emperor's New Clothes."

"Never Enough" is still underrated by Cure fans, isn't it?

I went with "Policy of Truth"; in 1990 I would have gone with one of the Sinead songs, JAMC, or one of the Jane's Addiction songs. I kinda hated Depeche Mode at the time for reasons I can't remember, probably something to do with girls.

I like "Way Down Now" just fine, like "Enjoy the Silence" way more, and voted for "Nothing Compares 2 U."

i'll second or third the goodbye jumbo respect. bunch of good songs.

Peter Murphy - "Cuts You Up" FOR CRYING OUT LOUD

I was very happy when "Never Enough" came out, because I was quite sad at the time over The Cure (supposedly) calling it quits after Disintegration, but "Enjoy the Silence" is the obv. winner here. As for "Cuts You Up", while I love it dearly now, I distinctly remember thinking that "120 Minutes" overplayed it back in the day.

Went with "Blue Sky Mining." (Another day older and deeper in debt! With kangaroos!)

Don't think I ever even heard of The Railway Children until right this second.

CUTS YOU UP. I am listening to it regularly. You LUV it.

Favorite to least

Enjoy The Silence
Been Caught Stealing
House
Blues From A Gun
Policy Of Truth
The Emperor's New Clothes
Never Enough
Merry-Go-Round
I'll Be Your Chauffeur
Cuts You Up
Suicide Blonde
Stop!
Joey
More
Way Down Now
Every Beat Of The Heart
Forgotten Years
Metropolis
Blue Sky Mine
Jealous

I'd probably put the wheat-chaff cut-off between "Never Enough" and "Merry Go-Round." Ironically, I haven't listened to "House" since I did my lil' countdown and I can't remember anything about it!

where's "Nothing Compares 2 U"?

Peter Murphy - "Cuts You Up" FOR CRYING OUT LOUD

My first instinct, too, but I went with "Policy of Truth."

One of the more wtf comments ever penned by Christgau is his insistence that "The Emperor's New Clothes" "cuts Aerosmith" on the radio.

ok yeah house is awesome

xpost buh woops, had that as 89---I can't believe how many singles I'd mislabeled! Put 2U between Enjoy and Caught Stealing

This was the post-Tattoo You phase of the P-Furs career.

The Railway Children - "Every Beat of My Heart." It sounds like The Ocean Blue, having seen the future, stole the Gin Blossoms' 12-string jangle.

K, WTF were these charts based on? It doesn't make sense to me. Can't be campus station airplay? (Or are/were campus stations actually like this in the US? The Buffalo one isn't.) And commercial alternative stations didn't really exist in a big way until after Nirvana, right? This is such a whacked-out mix of songs I knew really well at 11 because they were huge on mainstream pop/rock stations (Midnight Oil, Concrete Blonde, Sinead O'Connor, INXS), things that were on MuchMusic and kind of seemed important in an 'alternative' way, like that my friend's older sister would have listened to (Jane's, Mary Chain, DM, SoM), and a bunch of stuff that I can't even imagine how it reached #1 on any chart in 1990 (Psychedelic Furs, ex-Bauhaus members, etc.)

Anyway, the Jane's and DM songs are great, as is "Joey". Might lean towards "Policy of Truth".

Right, I see, sort of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Rock_Tracks

But, like, in 1990, was this based on something like 6 stations in California and the northeast coast?

Ha, I guess there was CFNY.

David J's "I'll Be Your Chauffeur" reminds me of Billy Idol's "Sweet Sixteen."

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Some great songs in there, but this has to be "Enjoy The Silence" no matter how good the rest are. And, yes, followed by "Policy Of Truth", which is also brilliant.

i am pretty sure i taped all of these songs off the radio at some point, so it's impossible to choose just one.
i voted for "metropolis" because of "there'll never be another quite like you", which i used to rewind and listen to over and over and over

i lived in ohio, so i don't know where they were getting their programming, but the radio station was 89.1 WAPS. the rest i got from the public library.

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