Modern Rock Tracks No. 1s - Porno for Pyros and "Pets"
Modern Rock Tracks No. 1s - Porno for Pyros and "Pets"
Perry Farrell and Stephen Perkins ride the wave of their Jane's Addiction success into their third Modern Rock Tracks #1 hit, "Pets," an ode to the fall of humanity
Porno for Pyros - “Pets”
Weeks atop the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart: 5 weeks (June 19 to July 17, 1993)
Previous Modern Rock Tracks chart #1 hit: Depeche Mode - “Walking In Your Shoes”
Next Modern Rock Tracks chart #1 hit: Tears For Fears - “Break It Down Again”
Billboard Hot 100 chart toppers during this time:
Janet Jackson - “That’s The Way Love Goes” (8 total weeks, 5/15/93 to 7/3/93)
SWV - “Weak” (2 total weeks, 7/10/93 and 7/17/93)
The story of Jane’s Addiction is not that different from many other bands who strike white-hot when they hit the scene, only to be undone by creative and social differences. What’s fascinating is that it’s still ongoing, even to the present day.
It was just a month ago that the band had to go on hiatus again after frontman Perry Farrell and guitarist Dave Navarro got into a heated exchange on stage. It’s clear that Farrell is fighting some ongoing personal issues, while still being chastised by former bandmates for being “difficult to work with.” Martyn LeNoble, who founded Porno for Pyros with Farrell and JA’s drummer Stephen Perkins, was particularly rough on Farrell in the fallout from the concert fracas, though he’s since deleted his comments from social media.
With a lot of bands, time tends to heal wounds, but it seems like the fractures that drove a wedge between members of the original Jane’s Addition lineup continue to be a problem in the present day.
The initial “wounds” that led to the first breakup of Jane’s Addiction in 1992 had a lot to do with drug use and, believe it or not, an onstage fist fight between Farrell and Navarro. During the first Lollapalooza show in July 1991, the two fought onstage at the end of their set, yet came back out and managed to play an encore. Ultimately, the band smoothed out the rift enough to continue the tour throughout the summer. Nevertheless, the animosity between the band members became too much to overcome, especially given a divide between members of the band who were into drug use (Farrell and Perkins) and those who chose to stay sober (Navarro and bassist Eric Avery). So, the band parted ways, with Farrell and Perkins joining up with LeNoble and bassist Mike Watt to form Porno for Pyros.
The breakup of Jane’s Addiction did little to cool the anticipation for the next release from any portion of that band, as JA’s Ritual de lo Habitual had long since cemented the band as one of the premiere acts on the now-exploding alternative rock scene. Indeed, both “Stop!” and “Been Caught Stealing” were huge hits for the band, and the Lollapalooza tour that followed these hits only expanded the band’s reach beyond alternative radio.
So it’s no surprise that Porno for Pyros quickly became a huge force in alternative music. The bands eponymous first album already spawned a hit with first single “Cursed Female,” which peaked at #3 behind Depeche Mode’s latest chart-topping hit, but it was the second single that took over both MTV and alternative-rock radio: “Pets.”
Compared to JA’s output on Ritual de lo Habitual, “Pets” is far more muted and reserved, but that doesn’t mean the new cast of musicians doesn’t rock out. Indeed, the bridge between the first refrain and the second set of verses has a sharp rock edge that captures your attention and drives you through to the end. It’s helpful that the song is strong instrumentally, as the lyrics tend to get repetitive and annoying after awhile.
How repetitive? Farrell sings “we’ll make great pets” 24 times over the song’s three-and-a-half-minute run time, and he doesn’t sing it the first time until a little over a minute into the song, so that’s 24 times over 150 seconds of song, an average of one “we’ll make great pets” every six seconds.
For the sake of illustrating this redundancy, I will now copy/paste the lyrics to the song:
[Chorus]
We'll make great pets!
We'll make great pets!
We'll make great pets!
We'll make great pets!
We'll make great pets!
We'll make great pets!
We'll make great pets!
[Verse]
[Chorus]
We'll make great pets!
We'll make great pets!
We'll make great pets!
We'll make great pets!
We'll make great pets!
We'll make great pets!
We'll make great pets!
[Guitar Solo]
[Chorus]
We will make great pets
We'll make great pets!
We'll make great pets!
We'll make great pets!
We will make great pets!
We'll make great pets!
We'll make great pets!
We'll make great pets!
[Instrumental Outro]
I guess, in fairness, two of the lines are “We will make great pets,” so there’s that. But my goodness, that’s a lot of the same line over and over again.
There may be something artistic behind the choice of repetition here. The verses of the song talk at length about the state of society and people, how teenagers are “fucked up in the head,” how adults are “even more fucked up,” and how Martians could come and take over for us. Maybe the repetition is Farrell and company reaching out to our future Martian overlords and pointing out how everyone can get in lock-step with the idea that we’d be great pets. I don’t know. I’m reaching here.
Arguably, the best parts of the song come when Farrell is not singing, the occasional breaks for wah-wah guitar riffs, the punctuated rhythm of the bass line, and the steady but syncopated beats of the drums all add necessary flavor to a song that I personally enjoy, but find bland after awhile.
The best excuse I can make for this song topping the charts as long as it did was to placate Jane’s Addiction fans (and radio programmers) hungry for more things from Jane’s Addiction. And while this definitely has some of that band’s signature sounds (Farrell’s voice is unique in its own way), it really doesn’t hold up as well against JA’s short but stacked catalog of hits.
The album Porno For Pyros did succeed in terms of sales, reaching as high as #3 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart, a substantial feat for an offshoot of a band that had broken up earlier in the decade. And the first two singles from the album did manage top-3 status on the MRT chart, which is not inconsequential. The album’s third single, “Sadness,” failed to chart, though, and the band would go on hiatus from the charts until they scored their last top-10 hit, “Tahitian Moon,” in 1996. We’ll likely talk about that one when the time comes.
As for the band Porno for Pyros, all bets are off in terms of potential reunions and future material. The band did release a four-track EP in 2023, and plans were in place for a reunion tour sans LeNoble, but based on Farrell’s physical and mental well-being in the aftermath of the September 2024 incident with Navarro, there’s no certain path forward for any of Farrell’s musical projects. We’re not done with Farrell in this space, though; sometime in the distance, we’ll see Jane’s Addiction front and center in “Chart Chat.” Just because.
Rating: 5/10
Chart Check
Other notable MRT chart songs from this time period
Lenny Kravitz gets dreamy, The Posies advocate for dreaming all day, and Suede brings its Britpop sound to U.S. shores in this week’s edition of “Chart Check.” Also, a return visit from a pair of guys who would walk hundreds of miles to your door, and the chart peak of my all-time favorite Stone Temple Pilots song.
“Dream All Day” by The Posies (#4): I have no memory of The Posies or their biggest Modern Rock Tracks chart hit, “Dream All Day,” which peaked at #4 behind Porno for Pyros. The song is decent, fitting into a genre of alternative-rock power pop that feels stylistically like Gin Blossoms or Goo Goo Dolls. The band has a prodigious catalog, and singer/songwriter Ken Stringfellow would go on to work with other bands such as R.E.M. and Big Star. Stringfellow fell out of favor with his bandmates in The Posies in 2021, when allegations of sexual misconduct with former girlfriends surfaced, so any future work from the band is on indefinite hiatus.
“Metal Mickey” by Suede (#7): Britpop darlings Suede (or, as they’re known in America, “The London Suede”) charted for the first and only time on the U.S. Modern Rock Tracks charts with “Metal Mickey,” one of the first singles off the band’s eponymous first album. Even though Britpop’s influence was limited in the U.S., the band has been a perpetual fixture on the British music scene since their 1993 debut. On the U.K. charts, Suede has notched eight top-10 singles, 3 #1 albums, and four other albums within the top 10. In the U.S., “Metal Mickey” peaked at #7 behind Porno for Pyros, and the band never made the U.S. charts again.
“I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by The Proclaimers (#8): Do you remember way back in 1989 when XTC topped the charts with one of my all-time favorite newly discovered songs, “Mayor of Simpleton”? Judging by my subscription numbers at the time, you don’t remember. But at that time, I noted that The Proclaimers made modest chart waves with the release of “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles), which topped out at #21 on that chart in 1989. Thanks in large part to the song’s inclusion on the soundtrack to the movie “Benny & Joon,” The Proclaimers got some additional radio airplay, and “I’m Gonna Be” bounced back into the charts, where it peaked at #8 behind “Pets.” The song also got to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“Plush” by Stone Temple Pilots (#9): Future Modern Rock Tracks #1 artist Stone Temple Pilots (though not for any of the tracks you’d think) make their MRT chart debut in the summer of 1993 with “Plush,” arguably one of their finest songs and absolutely my favorite in the band’s prodigious catalog. As grunge continues to push itself into the mainstream, songs from the band will continue to climb the charts moving forward. This track stalled out at #9 behind Porno for Pyros, which feels inexplicable in retrospect, but would soon be remedied with several top-5 finishes throughout the ‘90s. This song is an all-time banger.
The acoustic version still gives me chills:
“Believe” by Lenny Kravitz (#10): Following up the success of “Are You Gonna Go My Way,” Lenny Kravitz’s next single, “Believe,” managed a top-10 finish on the MRT charts behind “Pets.” The song has experimental-era Beatles vibes throughout, a dreamy, hazy ballad encouraging people to find their higher calling through belief in something otherworldly. It wasn’t as big a pop-crossover hit as his previous tracks, but still managed to peak at #10.
It seems inconceivable to me that Metal Mickey is the only Suede song to chart in the US. From the same album Animal Nitrate was a much bigger hit in the UK. 1996s Coming Up includes some wonderful songs - Saturday Night, Trash and Beautiful Ones are all worth checking out.
That bassline was infectious. I had it playing in my head before the email even opened. lol.