Modern Rock Tracks No. 1s - The Juliana Hatfield Three and "My Sister"
Juliana Hatfield builds a trio and kicks off a brief but successful run on the Modern Rock Tracks chart with "My Sister," a song that's not actually about her sister
The Juliana Hatfield Three - “My Sister”
Weeks atop the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart: 1 week (September 11, 1993)
Previous Modern Rock Tracks chart #1 hit: Red Hot Chili Peppers - “Soul To Squeeze”
Next Modern Rock Tracks chart #1 hit: Blind Melon - “No Rain”
Billboard Hot 100 chart toppers during this time:
Mariah Carey - “Dreamlover” (9/11/93)
I came into this week wondering what I was going to say about Juliana Hatfield. I recognize the name, though not from her very brief stint with drummer Todd Philips and bassist Dean Fisher as part of The Juliana Hatfield Three.
In the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, I was a college-radio disc jockey, and I vividly recall Juliana Hatfield’s solo albums winding their way through our diverse roster of alternative rock acts. I could be mistaken, but I do recall playing “Bad Day” on occasion in the earliest days of my radio career, a track that seemed to be capitalizing heavily on the post-Alanis Morrisette empowered female vocalist oeuvre of the time. I can’t say I didn’t dig it, but it definitely didn’t gain much traction and was quickly forgotten.
Of course, this was several years after Juliana Hatfield reached her commercial peak with “My Sister,” a song composed about a woman who wasn’t actually her sister.
Juliana Hatfield does not have a sister, but when she devised this song, she improvised as best she could given experiences she had being a sister to her two brothers, and calling upon her interactions with a friend who she considered a sister. Spin magazine did a pretty neat breakdown on “My Sister,” a fun oral history with the folks who helped produce and perform the song:
Picking apart the hopeful, brooding ruminations of the jangle-pop masterstroke could take hours because Hatfield, once and always a mystery, never had a sister. When Hatfield is calling her sister “such a bitch” or “the best,” she’s drawing from an amalgam of ideas — some real, like her friend who took her to her first all-ages show (the Violent Femmes and the “Del Foo-way-goes”), and some personal, such as wondering how others saw her.
Ultimately, “My Sister” became a sensation anyway: A spot in MTV’s coveted Buzz Bin, a No. 1 Modern Rock single, and the cover of SPIN’s March 1994 issue.
As the father of two teenage daughters, I have to admit I found the song surprisingly accurate in its depiction of one sister’s thoughts on the other. The first verse alone sounds an awful lot like my youngest complaining about her older sister when they’re the most at odds with each other, a consequence of a four-year age difference and wildly different perspectives on life. From that angle, Hatfield captured the essence of sisterhood.
I hate my sister, she's such a bitch
She acts as if she doesn't even know that I exist
But I would do anything to let her know I care
But I am only talking to myself 'cause she isn't there
That said, when the chips are down and there’s a chance that her older sister is feeling down and out or needs support, the little one will step up and try to make her day better in whatever way she can. Those moments are fewer and far between these days, as the younger manages the angsty up-and-down emotions of pre-teen life, but I think the subsequent verses also speak to the close connection sisters have with one another.
I love my sister, she's the best
She's cooler than any other girl that I have ever met
She had the greatest band, she had the greatest guy
She's good at everything and doesn't even try
This track falls just outside of my Musical Awakening™️ phase, so I can’t say with any certainty that I’d heard “My Sister” before I played it this week. Like most songs I cover in this chronological review, this track seems fit to be at the top of the charts, and had enough airpower to briefly dislodge Red Hot Chili Peppers and their juggernaut #1 Modern Rock Tracks hit “Soul To Squeeze” for a single week.
I can see why this one made it to the top. It’s a solid rock song from start to finish, an odd arrangement that skips from verse to verse without an actual refrain. What’s more fascinating is that this song’s album, Become What You Are, was produced by Scott Litt, who was fresh off producing R.E.M.’s Automatic For The People, an album which featured its own MRT chart #1 hit a few months prior to this. The DNA of previous R.E.M. albums is apparent in Become What You Are, so this pairing of producer and musicians feels right.
My favorite parts of the song are distinguished in the music video when the band switches from a red-curtained stage to a sparkly white background. The lyrics fade away and the band goes into full-on rock-out mode, the bass and lead guitars pulsing behind a percussive mix of beat drums and cymbals. Hatfield has a terrific voice, and she’s able to walk that fine line between sounding too angsty and too sweet, a performance that puts her up near the top of female artists of the era.
Juliana Hatfield rode this success for a solid year or two, though she was never able to reach the top spot again. The follow-up to “My Sister” was a track called “For The Birds,” which did not chart, though third single “Spin The Bottle” charted on the Hot 100, peaking at #97 after the song appeared on the “Reality Bites” soundtrack.
The Juliana Hatfield Three disbanded in 1994 following the release cycle for this album, and she would move back into the solo space going forward. The first single off her follow-up record Only Everything, titled “Universal Heart-Beat,” would become her highest-charting pop song, peaking at #84 on the Hot 100. Hatfield has not appeared on any U.S. charts since 1995, though she continues to release new material and also reunited with The Juliana Hatfield Three in the mid 2010s.
I’m sure many of you have vivid memories of Juliana Hatfield’s quick rise and fall from the summit of the Modern Rock Tracks chart, and if I’m being honest, I’m pretty sure I’ve also heard “Universal Heart-Beat” a couple of times over the years, so she’s not as unknown to me as I thought. Unfortunately, as it relates to my experience, Juliana Hatfield is an interesting footnote in the history of ‘90s alternative rock, an artist who I am sure I would have enjoyed if I had only been awakened to modern rock in the fall of 1993.
Rating: 7/10
Chart Check
Other notable MRT chart songs from this time period
Relatively few tracks to highlight when we have a one-week chart topper, but thankfully both tracks are highlight-worthy, including the chart peak for The Catherine Wheel and the Modern Rock Tracks chart peak for Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of Pet Shop Boys.
“Crank” by The Catherine Wheel (#5): The Catherine Wheel is one of those bands that I know exists, that existed on the periphery of the alternative/grunge mainstream, and probably has a series of decent alt-rock bangers, but just never made it into my personal musical sphere. That’s a shame, especially if “Crank” is indicative of the type of music the band produces. “Crank” peaked at #5 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart behind “My Sister,” and feels an awful lot like proto-Bush for some reason, even though their earlier stuff leans more shoegazey.
“Can You Forgive Her” by Pet Shop Boys (#10): I had to dig deep into Billboard’s archives just to be certain we were talking about THE Pet Shop Boys. But yeah, this is Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe notching their first and only top-10 Modern Rock Tracks chart with “Can You Forgive Her,” a solid electronic/rock-adjacent track that peaked at #10 behind The Juliana Hatfield Three. Tennant and Lowe remained fixtures on the U.S. dance charts all the way through the 2010s, including a couple of #1 hits on that chart, but this would be the high-water mark for the band on either the MRT chart or the Hot 100 going forward.
The other highlight in Juliana Hatfield’s career was her stint in The Lemonheads for the It’s A Shame About Ray album.
I loved this song when it came out but tbh was still salty that the Blake Babies had split up. Took me a long time to really appreciate Hatfield as a solo artist.