Modern Rock #1 Hits of 1994

"Vibin'", sort of?

also, "I Remember" sort of?

also "Can't Let Her Go"

the big problem was that in the wake of "End of the Road", no one gave a shit about their uptempo numbers, which encouraged them to sink deeper and deeper into the morass of treacly bullshit that led to "A Song For Mama"

abc > b2m

bbd > everything

all your alt-rock threads are belong to Michael Bivins

Yeah, I lost interest in Boys II Men so quickly after they morphed into the Mawkish Slow Jam All-Star Revue.

ABC >>> ABC

1995 through early '97 were my period of exile from the pop charts. I started paying attention again when boy bands and Hanson ruled.

I did not realize BIIM had a 2000 album called Nathan Michael Shawn Wanya

also didn't realize one of the dudes in BIIM was named Wanya

i knew that but it took me like 15 years to realize his name wasn't 'wayna'

wanya was the tenor with the really BIG voice iirc

i drive past wayna's house sometimes

it's big

he should've cut a solo single called "Wanyabe."

or a single called "Lemme Holla At Ya" which is just the screaming from the end of "One Sweet Day" looped for 5 minutes

"Water Runs Dry" is a rad song fuiud

"Water Runs Dry" only seems rad because it's surrounded in their catalog by "One Sweet Day", "A Song For Mama", "On Bended Knee", "4 Seasons of Loneliness" and two uptempo numbers that no one ever heard besides the people who bought Evolution

Other notable '94 alt songs:

I think I posted this somewhere else, but I recently made a Spotify playlist of songs from 1994 that's dominated by alt-rock stuff (just because it's what I was into at the time).

Seeing the video of "Longview" for the first time was one of my biggest WTF moments to that point, Green Day having been this squirrelly little punk band that breezed through my hometown once a year or so. A 7" band outside of the grunge scene on MTV…. it just seems so normal now.

Just drank a 40 of Mickey's and passed out in front of the NES. Thanks for the playlist, jaymc.

i think this is probably the last year radio music such as this had any sway on me. I like most everything here.

Yeah, not to sound like an old man, but same here.

I think though that along with my age, there came this toppling effect, the way Billboard organized its music charts and the way radio stations played music, right around this time. This was definitely the last time I could turn on the radio to a station with a current set list and recognize the songs.

in the mid-90s boyz ii men were neck and neck with coolio for my favorite musical act but my parents wouldn't buy me the latter's tapes

I wish ILX had, like, cross-polling fuctionality so that when we did these mid-'90s alt music polls we could also poll for voters' ages. I can certainly imagine where the spike would be in the latter results.

One of my early, abortive attempts to get into rap music involved buying the 1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin' New) CD single.

also this is their best non-"motownphilly" upbeat single

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnbdCzXtb6o

lol i love the thread this direction has taken but rev you should listen to and rank the poll options

i voted for "longview"

i bought the god single, and monster, and no need to argue, but i think i like einstein on the beach best out of all of them

i still consistently loathe beck

i'd take 4-6 of the songs on the list of non-#1s you posted over any of the poll options i know tho

i think i recorded the more you ignore me video

i was like "how has no one mentioned 'thank you'" and then rev came through

thank you rev

All apologies.

I wonder if younger people who've basically only been exposed to lame, half-assed Scientologist Beck realize that he was actually pretty rad at one time.

i thought he was rad when i was a little 14 y.o. shithead, realized he was lame before i realized he was a clam

i like some beck but i've always hated "loser"

give me any of the hits off odelay or even fucking "sexx laws"

Guero is still my favorite album by him

"God" is probably the song here that suffers most in comparison to the real biggest hit from its parent album, "Cornflake Girl," but it's still pretty fantastic, deserves more love itt

god >>>>> cornflake girl. feels both more direct and more interesting.

pretty awesome carl craig remixes too

although "cornflake girl" is probably my least favourite 90s tori amos single

oh no wait i forgot "past the mission" happened. 2nd least fav.

never trust cultists re: the hits

heh keith caulfield from billboard just posted the top 10 of the hot 100 this week in '94 to his twitter: http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100?chartDate=1994-05-21#/charts/hot-100?chartDate=1994-05-21

the Tevin Campbell song isn't bad.

'90s tori singles ranked

hey jupiter
professional widow
winter
raspberry swirl
bliss
silent all these years
spark
caught a lite sneeze
1000 oceans
cruel
in the springtime of his voodoo
glory of the 80s
crucify
god
pretty good year
concertina
jackie's strength
talula
china
cornflake girl
past the mission

maybe i will do a poll of these at some point

I'd say at the very least that "Caught A Lite Sneeze" should be higher up, but not a bad ranking overall.

I don't know why I thought "Putting The Damage On" was a single, but it apparently wasn't. That would've been top 5.

This list has my favorite Nirvana song (All Apologies), my favorite Green Day song (Longview), very close calls for REM, Pearl Jam and Gin Blossoms (though 'Kenneth' is prolley tied w/ Losing My Religion for second favorite REM single), plus my first Morrissey song, and "Mmm mmm mmm mmm" which I hadn't thought about in years until just recently, and sounds fucking amazing. 94 is not quite my favorite year in music (though it is for movies) but its likely to have been my favorite year to have lived through, music-wise.

"Loser" > "All Apologies" > "About a Girl" (pretending this is the original version) > "Basket Case" > "Come Out and Play" > "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" > "Into Your Arms"

loser is better than absolutely nothing.