It Wasn't Alternative, But it Charted on the Alternative Charts

Is rap ok if suburban kids like it? (Eminem, Outkast)

I don't think I've ever thought of "Hey Ya" as a rap record tbh!

Katy Perry's there because Capitol initially broke her on Rock radio in the summer of '08 before shifting their promo $$$ towards Pop. She was even a featured artist on that year's Warped Tour.

Around the same Columbia did a similar thing (sans Warped Tour) with Adele, which extended to her second album and "Rolling In The Deep".

Cypress Hill made sense as it was (Rock) Superstar, which was to cater to the Rap Rock/ Nu Metal scene at the time, as opposed to other version which was (Rap) Superstar.

verses of Until It Sleeps is the closest Metallica got to your basic grunge/alt rock sound - so that one makes more sense than the rest of the list

Shaggy makes sense too since he was "world music"-adjacent until the "Boombastic" remix launched him into pop stardom

Until it Sleeps was Metallica's attempt to rebrand as an "alternative" band, including a music video directed by the guy that did "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3WIHtOmkBg

I wonder if their underwhelming #27 placement is just persistent radio promoters servicing Load to alternative radio

Also if we're voting on Best Song of these choices, it's probably "Hey Ya" in a walk.

Metallica also got some juice by headlining that year's Lollapalooza tour.

Also if we're voting on Best Song of these choices, it's probably "Hey Ya" in a walk.

I think “Cantaloop” and “All That She Wants” merit consideration

ha I actually was trying to decide between those two and went with Cantaloop

Cantaloop retains its freshness. I loved Hey Ya but I never need to hear it again.

Hey Ya is probably the better of the two tho

Feel the vibe from here to Asia

PM Dawn might fit this too? “Downtown Venus” hit #39 the week of 9/23/95.

omg thrift shop

I find the inclusion of a few of these kind of iffy in terms of what is or isn't "alternative," though it's fascinating that four of these hit #1 on the Hot 100 (I'm Too Sexy, Hey Ya, I Kissed a Girl, Thrift Shop).

Another one is "Nothing Compares 2 U," which was #1 on both the Hot 100 and the Modern Rock chart. Have any other songs done that?

i think a few have, including crazy town's immortal "butterfly"

xp Not saying that "Nothing Compares 2 U" should be in this poll, though, because Sinead O'Connor was clearly considered an "alternative" artist in 1990 -- she just had unexpected success with that song.

would have voted ace of base if it was the sign, for the key change alone

went for outkast

Shaggy makes sense too since he was "world music"-adjacent until the "Boombastic" remix launched him into pop stardom

Also, "Oh Carolina" was on the Sliver soundtrack, which was made up of nominally alternative music from when "alternative" still sorta meant "unclassifiable."

i think a few have, including crazy town's immortal "butterfly"

Yep. And these, too:

Nickelback - How You Remind Me
Coldplay - Viva La Vida
fun. - We Are Young
Gotye - Somebody That I Used to Know
Billie Eilish - Bad Guy
Hozier - Too Sweet

I think that's it, though I might be missing one or two.

Billie Eilish is an interesting example -- "Bad Guy" is her only Hot 100 #1, but she has five Alternative #1s.

Where are Sting and the Stones?

modern rock chart didn't start til 1990

"If I ever Lose my Faith in You" seems to have appeared on alternative airplay charts

"All This Time" as well?

definitely don’t recall Stones on modern rock charts 1991-1995 during my college radio staff years

"All This Time" as well?

― calmer chameleon (Ye Mad Puffin)

#1!

although they had nothing new then either. My WXCI (the gold standard of college radio) listening years 1989-1998 had no Stones either.

modern rock chart didn't start til 1990

― the manda-whore-ian and hoe-gu (voodoo chili)

1988, my friend! And the Stones' "Mixed Emotions" peaked at #22 in 1989.

It's "Hey Ya," but I went with "Cantaloop" and briefly considered "All That She Wants."

Tom Breihan's piece on "All This Time" begins: "Here's what I don't get: How in the fuck was Sting ever considered alternative rock? Or even "modern rock," the radio format that existed before the term "alternative" entered widespread use?"

He got Grandfathered in because was in The Police.

exactly

His solo career also must be considered a vanguard of "adult alternative", though? He's not James Taylor.

Is Toad the Wet Sprocket adult alternative?

Yes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_adult_alternative_artists#T

They're also played on my local AAA station.

That's a pretty ridiculous list, I don't know in what universe the Stooges and Jimi Hendrix are considered Adult Alternative, other than some arcane radio/streaming format.

Yeah, I dunno, I didn't really look at it. But I swear that my local AAA station plays Toad (and doesn't play Hendrix or the Stooges, or at least not regularly).

These songs I would consider in the broad swath of "alternative" in that they are/were contemporary, rock-driven, and kinda slightly left-of-center. And all of them have charted muptiple entries on Alternative charts, so it's not some random fad.

Nickelback - How You Remind Me
Coldplay - Viva La Vida
fun. - We Are Young
Gotye - Somebody That I Used to Know
Billie Eilish - Bad Guy
Hozier - Too Sweet

Eminem also had multiple entries, I just put the first in the poll. His crossover period was very specifically '99 to '02. The other songs were:

"Real Slim Shady" - #19 (7/8/00)
"Without Me" - #15 (7/13/02)
"Lose Yourself" - #14 (12/7/02)

And apparently it didn't chart, but I know "Stan" got airplay on KROQ, Live 105, and elsewhere.

there are 3 other alternative chart-toppers not yet mentioned that have also gone #1 on the hot 100

Barenaked Ladies - One Week
Lorde - Royals
Glass Animals - Heat Waves

shout out also these hot 100 airplay #1s that didn't hit the main chart (or belatedly entered after rule revisions) bc they bypassed the singles racks at retail

Goo Goo Dolls - Iris
Sugar Ray Featuring Super Cat - Fly

i voted "cantaloop" but probably should have voted "hey ya"

the most interesting/surprising/unique thing i've noticed about the massive across-the-board success of "nothing compares 2 u" is not that it was #1 on the alt chart and the pop chart but that it was #1 on the alt chart and the rhythmic chart, i.e. the format that has generally been the site for r&b/rap/dance crossover

as far as i know these dozen songs are the only ones to have peaked top 10 on both formats' billboard charts

Information Society - What's On Your Mind (Pure Energy) -- #3 rhythmic / #10 alt
The Escape Club - Wild, Wild West -- #3 alt / #8 rhythmic
Fine Young Cannibals - She Drives Me Crazy -- #5 alt / #4 rhythmic
Sinéad O'Connor - Nothing Compares 2 U -- #1 alt / #1 rhythmic
No Doubt - Don't Speak -- #2 alt / #9 rhythmic
Sugar Ray Featuring Super Cat - Fly -- #1 alt / #8 rhythmic
Crazy Town - Butterfly -- #1 alt / #6 rhythmic
Gotye Featuring Kimbra - Somebody That I Used To Know -- #1 alt / #10 rhythmic
Daft Punk Featuring Pharrell Williams - Get Lucky -- #2 rhythmic / #5 alt
Lorde - Royals -- #1 alt / #2 rhythmic
Lorde - Team -- #2 alt / #7 rhythmic
24kGoldn Featuring Iann Dior - Mood -- #1 rhythmic / #8 alt

and as you can see "nothing compares" is the only one to have topped both! i was a newborn when this song was popular so idk how it sounded next to everything else on such stations or what it was that made it 'work' there (i suspect it being a prince composition helped), but work indeed it did! (and in case topping those 2 charts and pop wasn't enough, it also nearly topped the ac chart at #2 for 3 weeks. a smash!)

i'm glad this wasn't a thread where we were supposed to laugh at enya, enigma and seal having been on the alternative charts

Enya and Enigma (and Deep Forest!) I would put as part of that “world music” catch-all category mentioned above. If it didn’t fit neatly anywhere else on the dial, it went to Modern Rock.

Seal I don’t get.. Crazy and Prayer for the Dying all went top 5! Even Kiss From a Rose charted. But I would hardly call him “alternative”

Lorde - Team -- #2 alt / #7 rhythmic

Never even heard of this song.

it's the one where she goes "so there!!" i don't fault you for not remembering (or noticing) it

Seal I don’t get.. Crazy and Prayer for the Dying all went top 5! Even Kiss From a Rose charted. But I would hardly call him “alternative”

― LimbsKing, Wednesday, June 3, 2026

my college station played "Future Love Paradise" and "Killer."

this is Metallica in a landslide - when i was first able to watch MTV this video was on just about every other hour. quintessential grunge-pop. it's like suggesting pearl jam or soundgarden didn't throw their hat into the metal arena.

She was even a featured artist on that year's Warped Tour.

In that vein I remembered Alanis Morrissette being put in the rock sphere but Jewel popping up in a 120 Minutes playlist or two caught me off guard.

metallica got to freebie a ========Hieronymus Bosch

freebie a Hieronymus Bosch painting for cred under a talented director

When Seal came out my alterna friends were definitely into him. Later he became MOR material

I played “Killer” on my radio show

It would be interesting to look at an old BMG/Columbia house catalog to see how they were categorizing these things at the time.

Jewel popping up in a 120 Minutes playlist or two caught me off guard.

Alternative was a big tent around that time. Just looked at the 1997 year-end countdown for the radio station I grew up listening to, and there's trip-hop, ska, folkie singer-songwriter fare (including Jewel), post-grunge, electronica, Britpop, etc.

Yeah, most of the early Lilith Fair clique where rooted Alternative artists.

Basically any rock group who popped up post-1995 was alternative until proven otherwise.

What was corny at the time hadn’t been sorted out. My buddies and I were digging “Life Is A Highway” at the same time as “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

It still seems weird to me how fast everyone turned on the Spin Doctors.

Not fast enough. Heard one of their songs in a store the other day and shuddered.

That's a good demarcation point, for me anyways. I had that Spin Doctors cd and loved it, within months I hated it and traded it in.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Do I recall that /Pocket Full of Kryptonite/ had a long period between its release and its charting? That maybe that turning point was a response to payola or something that got them charting?

that's what I say now

I heard "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" at least six months before "Two Princes."

I bet that album still goes. I really can’t think of another “alternative” band that got the uncool stink on them so hard and so irreversibly

They and Blues Traveler and Hootie seem cut of a similar cloth in that way. Not sure if that wave of hippiedom made it to the mid/late 90s.

Fans either recovered after a couple of years or eventually got into the harder stuff (Phish).

Yeah all that H.O.R.D.E. Tour rock was real jam-adjacent but never had the legs of the real jammers

First H.O.R.D.E. was Blues Traveler, Widespread Panic, The Samples, the Spin Doctors, the Aquarium Rescue Unit and Phish

Blues Traveler and Spin Doctors sold millions and millions of records but Phish and Widespread Panic are still selling out Red Rocks or whatever 30 years later

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