Modern Rock #1 Hits of 1996

It was a sleeper hit, not taking off until after the Kirkwoods' guest shot on the Nirvana "Unplugged".

or you could spend a couple years listening to "air mixes"

Acceptable, but you'll outgrow them once you really listen to some Bizkit.

I did gloss over another reason why someone would write and publish top 100 lists - being OCD and bored - a much less interesting diagnosis to discuss than vane or attention/approval-seeking (something there certainly isn't a lack of in the hipster community).

The result of hipster publications earnestly tooting these lists is always the same though - elitism at its finest.

OCD... hm yeah I guess that's me to some extent. I guess it could be worse... I notice a lot of the elitist "my dick is bigger than yours" overtones in the writing on a lot of blogger's "top 25/50/100 albums of the year" lists.

Not necessarily noticing this on some dude's 1996 post... I'm thinking of stuff I saw last December for the "best of 2011" stuff.

I voted for "Swallowed" because "1979" will probably win.

Great thing about a top 100 vs a top 10 at least is time capsule extensiveness of coverage...some dude pulled out stuff like "I Was Wrong" that actually really define how 1996 sounds in my head even though that's not a song that I would have brought to mind.

You really don't have to defend some dude's list with anyone but the guy who paradoxically was really self-righteous about how making & posting lists is a really self-righteous thing to do. Meaning you really don't have to defend some dude's list.

"Backwater" is definitely better than every song in this poll.

i voted for "1979" but only because i didn't see the tracy bonham song. i hope that gets some votes.

yeah I actually didn't hate Mother Mother; iirc it used the soft-loud kind of thing in a way more extreme fashion than most alt-rock radio anthems did.

1979. everything else here is straight garbage.

oh wait i didnt see pepper. that was enjoyable for the wtf-ness of the buttholes on the radio and it's not half-bad in and of itself.

"pepper", half out of affection for the butthole surfers that were, half cuz i really do love it (even now)

also dig "wonderwall", "1979" and the reprise version of "what i got"

despite that, these polls have done a lot to disabuse me of the notion that i enjoy modern rock hits

modern rock #5s through #20s >>>>>>>>>>> modern rock #1s

" I would hardly equate music elitism to a pissing contest. You would rarely ever find a nerd or hipster engaging in something so plebian."

you don't actually know any nerds or hipsters, do you ― that is a weird thing to bring up over lean cuisine (DJP)

I was literally referring to a pissing contest. Not some metaphorical bull shit but some guys whipping out their schlongs in a bar. Maybe you know some nerds and hipsters that do this. I must be going to all the wrong bars.

Or maybe I'm missing out e everytime I avoid an Animal Collective concert

I'm glad you specified, because it's so hard to tell when people use the phrase 'pissing contest' whether they're using it literally or metaphorically. Because both usages are equally common, I find.

You're right Deric. I realized that I'd probably needed extra specification after the fact. But I would never have said hipster/nerds do not engage in metaphorical pissing contests, especiallly since I was referencing Some Dude's jokey post about whipping out his music collection.

Also, Some Dude, your list didn't irritate me in the slightest. I just used it as an opportunity to editorialize hipster nerds and their pitchforks. I can't even remember what's on your list.

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

I was confused as to why you chose this thread in particular to do your editorializing, but I understand now: the presence of a list.

Dad Lied von der Erde

slept-on typo by me btw

Drummer for Gay Dad Lied von der Erde.

Was gonna say. Not familiar with the piece, but it sounded like a collaboration between some neoclassical composer and Bright Eyes.

Butthole Surfers, "Pepper" 15

worst song on the list

what a fall from (dis)grace

"Pepper" is actually a good song, it just doesn't sound like the Surfers. It's one of the best Odelay-era Beck tunes.

Ha, I mistook it for Beck the first time I heard it.

x-post - otm

I don't even remember Pepper.

Really? I remember it being on the raido a lot that year. I even remember the video.

they were primarily doing it in texas

pepper has a sneaky-good chorus which is obscured by tedious verses. i still like it ok.

Ok, just looked it up on YouTube. Immediate response: "oh yeah, THAT song."

It was a sleeper hit, not taking off until after the Kirkwoods' guest shot on the Nirvana "Unplugged".

― Hare Kinsey (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, May 27, 2012 2:43 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

i never really felt like this was true, if only because i heard "Backwater" on the radio before noticing that it was also the Meat Puppets on the Unplugged episode, but it probably is to at least some extent: "Backwater" debuted on the Billboard rock charts in Feb '94, and the Nirvana special aired in November '93. i think given the direction radio was going on in (vs. the commercial prospects of the MPs' pre-Nevermind major label debut), and the fact that "Backwater" doesn't much at all resemble "Lake of Fire" or anything else played on Unplugged, it probably would've done pretty well anyway.

i straight up hate "Pepper," prob more than any other song that year.

listening to Pepper for the first time ever now

this is not worse than "Ironic"

The name Butthole Surfers seemed infuriatingly supid to me even at 16.

i only had the slightest familiarity with BS from "Who Was In My Room Last Night?" being their previous closest thing to mainstream exposure a couple years before that and by even that standard "Pepper" seemed like the lamest corniest thing ever for them to do

what do we think of Too High to Die generally?

pretty good, underrated album imo, i rate it only slightly below their best '80s LPs

yeah I think so too. Like Monster this was a used-CD bin perennial

yeah Too High to Die took me a long time to get into, but once it clicked I saw it truly as a thing of beauty. I love how the "We Don't Exist" chorus is just "Cayenne" sung over and over

Also no way is "Pepper" (or "Ironic") the worst song of the same year that inflicted "Crash Into Me" onto the world.

"sharon got sharice, she was sharin' sharon's outlook on the topic of disease" is the kind of horseshit that will bounce around my brain cells til the day that i die that i can usually blame dexter holland or gavin rossdale for putting in there

yeah "Pepper" is kinda there's-money-to-be-made-and-we-know-how-to-do-this-so-let's-get-paid stuff but it has one Gibby line that's so much in his classic mode that it got a pass from me - "they were all in love with dying/they were doing it in Texas" is BH Cream Corn era acid-evocative, though I consider it you-had-to-be-there stuff; if that band came to your town circa '86/'87 and you saw the show, it left marks on your brain, they were something special for a minute there so when they lost the plot it sort seemed like "pay these guys, they've been working long hours for ten years now"

I dug both Too High To Die and No Joke!. Haven't listened to either in years, though.

I thought I was "supposed" to like the Butthole Surfers and tried to for a long time before I realized that I didn't much. Occasionally decent songs but that's about it.

"Pepper" has some lines here and there that would be good in the right context but that deadpan-staccato-through-a-telephone-receiver-over-shitty-loops mid '90s alt sound makes everything banal and worthless

http://i.saucesome.net/PZ7.jpg

"Pepper" has some lines here and there that would be good in the right context but that deadpan-staccato-through-a-telephone-receiver-over-shitty-loops mid '90s alt sound makes everything banal and worthless

That's the point. Surfers achieved their greatest commercial successes by taking the piss.