Chart Chat celebrates its second birthday with a recap of the 49 songs covered in this space from the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart between Jan. 26, 1991, and March 12, 1994
This will probably be my favorite year's worth of songs in your series. It reads like one of my early 90s mixtapes, after I lost interest in hair band rock and before I reverted back to 70s/early 80s pop. All three Nirvana songs, These are Days, Feed the Tree, Cannonball, No Rain, Loser, Somebody to Shove, Right Here Right Now... (my tape would swap in Hey Jealousy or Hold me Down instead of Found Out, but that's fine). And the juxtaposition of these songs with what was topping the Hot 100 at the time reminds me why I steered into this direction. I've loved learning more about these songs from my grad school days.
Let me know if you start taking requests, there's a few from this period that didn't hit #1 that I'd love to learn more about. Meanwhile I'll just hope my favorites coming up either top the chart or come close enough to merit a mention.
First, thank you again for inviting me to guest post! That was a blast (and honor) to put together.
These are all such a fun stroll down memory lane. Some I remember vividly, some are kinda hazy, and some are brand new to me. And while I might quibble with some of the ratings (for my money, "Hit" is an all-timer by the Sugarcubes, and "Just Play Music" is the best track BAD ever put to tape), I love this project. I hope a bunch of people find these songs for the first time, and have their mind blown the way you did with Ned's. That's what music's all about!
Here's to an awesome year 3! I'm excited to read what's next.
It's all about finding something new, and even finding something new about something you already knew (like with Crash Test Dummies this past week, when I found myself diving into their back catalog for the first time and digging some of their other stuff)!
In 2025, I'll be covering #1 hits from March 1994 to about summertime 1997. This is *my* peak era, so I'm really excited to dig into the charts from these years.
Love this! So many great songs here that defined a lot of my 90s. While they didn’t make my Top Ten, I think I liked “Tomorrow” “Pets” and “Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead”more than you. I look forward to what you cover next!
I have a lot of nostalgia for "Pets" for some reason, maybe because I really liked "Tahitian Moon" by PfP and ended up digging into their back catalog for "Pets." Just seemed more obnoxious than I remembered with 30 years of hindsight.
Enjoyed the Blossoms reminder, Matt! Thanks! You're wanting something rational to explain my 9.8? Yeah......I got nothin'! As I used to tell my 4th and 5th grade math students for a handful of years earlier this century (at the start of each year), "I hope you enjoy this year of math, kiddos....I'm allergic to digits."
So, it's possible my eyes were swollen shut that day, and just fumbling around the keyboard led to an otherwise inexplicable number jumble! I reckon we're lucky I didn't come up with Z4a).H!
This overview, though, gives me a better feel for how and why folks rated other songs. I should've perused more than the couple of your past posts to get more of a feel! Gimme another chance, pleeeeeeeez?!?😁👍
If you're interested in another guest post, I'd be happy to have you back! I'm looking at #1 alternative hits from March '94 through the summer of '97, so if you see something you like, let's have you back on board!
Well, thanks, Matt....I'd like that, but #1 alt hits of the mid-'90s is an immense black hole in my popular music brain canon! I've discovered a couple generally alt songs from that era, but if they've gotta be #1s, I'm not sure I'd be much help from the standpoint of being familiar with them. Most of the acts I've heard of, but no way was I listening to hit radio in the '90s! If you'd like to DM me a list of possibilities like last time....or, I could send you a couple I've found that may not have been #1s, but might fall within that time frame!
This will probably be my favorite year's worth of songs in your series. It reads like one of my early 90s mixtapes, after I lost interest in hair band rock and before I reverted back to 70s/early 80s pop. All three Nirvana songs, These are Days, Feed the Tree, Cannonball, No Rain, Loser, Somebody to Shove, Right Here Right Now... (my tape would swap in Hey Jealousy or Hold me Down instead of Found Out, but that's fine). And the juxtaposition of these songs with what was topping the Hot 100 at the time reminds me why I steered into this direction. I've loved learning more about these songs from my grad school days.
Let me know if you start taking requests, there's a few from this period that didn't hit #1 that I'd love to learn more about. Meanwhile I'll just hope my favorites coming up either top the chart or come close enough to merit a mention.
I'm always good for requests! I like to make sure songs are on the charts, so if there's a special song or songs I can dig into, I'm happy to try!
In 2025 I'll be covering #1 hits from March '94 to the summer of 1997, so basically all of my high school years. It's going to be lot of fun!
First, thank you again for inviting me to guest post! That was a blast (and honor) to put together.
These are all such a fun stroll down memory lane. Some I remember vividly, some are kinda hazy, and some are brand new to me. And while I might quibble with some of the ratings (for my money, "Hit" is an all-timer by the Sugarcubes, and "Just Play Music" is the best track BAD ever put to tape), I love this project. I hope a bunch of people find these songs for the first time, and have their mind blown the way you did with Ned's. That's what music's all about!
Here's to an awesome year 3! I'm excited to read what's next.
It's all about finding something new, and even finding something new about something you already knew (like with Crash Test Dummies this past week, when I found myself diving into their back catalog for the first time and digging some of their other stuff)!
In 2025, I'll be covering #1 hits from March 1994 to about summertime 1997. This is *my* peak era, so I'm really excited to dig into the charts from these years.
Love this! So many great songs here that defined a lot of my 90s. While they didn’t make my Top Ten, I think I liked “Tomorrow” “Pets” and “Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead”more than you. I look forward to what you cover next!
I have a lot of nostalgia for "Pets" for some reason, maybe because I really liked "Tahitian Moon" by PfP and ended up digging into their back catalog for "Pets." Just seemed more obnoxious than I remembered with 30 years of hindsight.
Lots of good mid '90s stuff coming up this year!
Enjoyed the Blossoms reminder, Matt! Thanks! You're wanting something rational to explain my 9.8? Yeah......I got nothin'! As I used to tell my 4th and 5th grade math students for a handful of years earlier this century (at the start of each year), "I hope you enjoy this year of math, kiddos....I'm allergic to digits."
So, it's possible my eyes were swollen shut that day, and just fumbling around the keyboard led to an otherwise inexplicable number jumble! I reckon we're lucky I didn't come up with Z4a).H!
This overview, though, gives me a better feel for how and why folks rated other songs. I should've perused more than the couple of your past posts to get more of a feel! Gimme another chance, pleeeeeeeez?!?😁👍
Ha! Loved the 9.8! 😂😂
If you're interested in another guest post, I'd be happy to have you back! I'm looking at #1 alternative hits from March '94 through the summer of '97, so if you see something you like, let's have you back on board!
Well, thanks, Matt....I'd like that, but #1 alt hits of the mid-'90s is an immense black hole in my popular music brain canon! I've discovered a couple generally alt songs from that era, but if they've gotta be #1s, I'm not sure I'd be much help from the standpoint of being familiar with them. Most of the acts I've heard of, but no way was I listening to hit radio in the '90s! If you'd like to DM me a list of possibilities like last time....or, I could send you a couple I've found that may not have been #1s, but might fall within that time frame!