Modern Rock Tracks No. 1s - R.E.M. and "Orange Crush"

R.E.M. crushes the MRT chart with its first single off of "Green"

R.E.M. - “Orange Crush”

Weeks atop the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart: 8 (11/26/88 - 1/14/89)

Billboard Hot 100 chart toppers during this time:

• Bon Jovi - "Bad Medicine" (11/26/88)

• Will To Power - "Baby, I Love Your Way/Freebird Medley" (12/3/88)

• Chicago - "Look Away" (12/10/88 - 12/17/88)

• Poison - "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" (12/24/88 - 1/7/89)

• Bobby Brown - "My Prerogative" (1/14/89)

When I started this weekly writeup of the top hits on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, I never expected (and still don't expect) some huge following or massive readership. It's more of a creative outlet for me to try to write about a musical subgenre I've always loved, something I've never broken down into a narrative form. As I dive deeper into the alternative music of the late 1980s, I'm stunned by how much I'm learning about new artists I missed the first time around. At the same time, it's allowing me to revisit some old favorites.

The biggest inspiration for my clumsy attempt to write some kind of review/recap column of a chart that had its roots far away from the mainstream of pop music was the "Hit Parade" podcast, hosted by Chris Molanphy from Slate Magazine. When I first encountered the podcast, I found it to be the perfect synergy between music I loved all my life and how it placed in the history of the U.S. Billboard music charts. By coupling these ideas, the listener not only gets a sense of a song's or band's place in history, but how those bands and songs impacted everything around it. Molanphy explores this better than most anyone I've read or listened to, and it was one of his podcasts that planted the seed for my weekly musings.

In an two-part episode of Molanphy's podcast titled "The Deadbeat Club," he goes through a chronological review of the careers of two bands (R.E.M. and The B-52s) who were instrumental in the growth and eventual mainstream success of "alternative" music, the type of stuff that defies classification and, in the end, led to the very creation of the Modern Rock Tracks chart in 1988. The MRT chart became a place where eclectic, unusual, cutting-edge music found a home, the kind of music that often is so far ahead of its time that it hasn't yet gotten its hooks into a mainstream audience. In his podcast, Molanphy talks at length about how the MRT chart became, in its earliest iterations, a place where bands like R.E.M. and The B-52s could grab a popular music spotlight outside of the Hot 100.

And it's not like R.E.M. wasn't already on the cusp of a successful breakthrough. Indeed, the band scored several minor hits on the Hot 100 early in its career. Their first single, 1983's "Radio Free Europe," actually cracked the main chart and peaked at a low but respectable #78.

"So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)," the first single off the album "Reckoning," peaked at #85 in 1984. Mainstream rock stations (adjacent to but not always in sync with the mainstream pop music) started to play more of R.E.M.'s music in the mid-1980s, and those formats drove the success of songs like "Driver 8" and "Can't Get There From Here," both garnering minor chart success on mainstream radio but failing to crack the Hot 100.

It wasn't until the release of "Document," the last album the band produced on the independent label I.R.S., that R.E.M. achieved its first crossover acknowledgement. "The One I Love," the first single off "Document," not only cracked the Hot 100, but it became the band's first top 10 hit, peaking at #9 the week ending Dec. 5, 1987. It reached this high-water mark at a time when the pop charts were dominated by acts such as George Michael, Belinda Carlisle, Debbie Gibson and Whitesnake, all great acts to be sure, but R.E.M. is clearly the odd one out genre-wise among their top 10 peers. In other words, R.E.M. broke through, but it would still be a while before they would come close to informing the zeitgeist in mainstream pop music.

The follow-up single to "The One I Love" -- a track you all probably know very well -- called "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," peaked significantly lower, hitting #69 on the Hot 100 in early 1988, but the band was poised to continue their momentum into the end of the decade and beyond. When they signed their first major label deal with Warner Bros. in 1988, the band quickly went to work on "Green," the album that would not only continue their march into the mainstream, but would set them up to be one of the earliest successes in the history of the Modern Rock Tracks chart.

"Orange Crush" was the first single off of "Green," released to modern rock radio in fall 1988. Right from the start, a listener attuned to the sound and inflection of both the band and lead singer Michael Stipe could sense a shift from the high-tempo rock riffs and sometimes-unintelligible lyrics of the band's I.R.S. label days. Indeed, when I think of R.E.M. and its career trajectory, I often divide it into three distinct time periods: the I.R.S. era, the early Warner Bros. era up until drummer Bill Berry left the band in 1997, and the post-Berry years until the band's dissolution in 2011. This distinction is evident right from the start of "Orange Crush," a driving guitar riff opening up into a slower, more passionate Stipe singing verses about how he "had his fun" but now it's time to "serve your conscious overseas." Strong supporting vocals from Peter Buck and Mike Mills underscore the urgency inherent in the song, and build to an impassioned crescendo with allusions to waves and blood.

It was no secret then, and certainly not now, that the song's title and theme centered on the Vietnam War and use of a particularly damaging nerve agent called Agent Orange. The weapon left many Vietnamese either dead or severely injured, with nerve damage and future birth defects attributed to its use in the war. Stipe, whose father served in Vietnam, grew up in a world where the conflict proved to be a divisive political and cultural subject for many years. Driven by that experience, he managed to use lyrical imagery and accompanying sounds (like the unmistakable drone of helicopters and the chants of soldiers marching in lockstep on the song's bridge) to reflect his own impressions of the conflict and, in his own way, speak out against such tactics.

It's a heavy subject, to be sure, but only for listeners looking for the deeper meaning. Mills reflected on finding enjoyment in the band's work in an interview in Classic Rock magazine in 2013: “'Orange Crush' was a great example of Michael’s genius as a lyric writer. As he became more assured, he had definite ideas about what the songs were about. That didn’t mean you had to necessarily figure it out, you could just listen for pure enjoyment. But if you wanted to dig a little deeper there was always something there."

I definitely appreciate Stipe's imagery; as we'll see in future R.E.M. songs, Stipe's poetic lyricism will run the gamut of emotions, evoking regret, anger, love, religion, and the afterlife, among many others. And while I understand the band's anti-war sentiment, for me, the song is just a solid rock staple. Regrettably, I didn't discover "Green" until a high school friend introduced it to me during R.E.M.'s mid-1990s heights, but it became a gateway to R.E.M.'s alt-rock past after spending so much time growing with them during their pop-rock peak. As I said, the sound R.E.M. finds with "Orange Crush" definitely highlights a turning point in the band's musical direction, but there's no mistaking how much their late '80s sound grew out of their independent label beginnings.

"Orange Crush" stayed on top of the MRT chart for eight weeks, breaking the record U2 had just set with "Desire." R.E.M. would hold that record for three years, and only one band would match that record in those three years: R.E.M. We'll get there eventually.

For now, as the calendar flips into 1989, we'll start to see more MRT chart hits trickle into the mainstream, thanks in large part to the continued growth of bands like R.E.M. during this period. And, if you’re looking for a far better review of the early career of R.E.M., take some time to listen to the “Hit Parade” episode I referenced above.

Rating: 8/10

Chart notes:

A rather eclectic mix of singles populated the chart behind “Orange Crush” as 1988 came to an end.

• “The Great Commandment” by Camouflage: This one stayed in the top 10 for most of December 1988 and into January 1989, peaking at #3 behind R.E.M. It’s not bad. It feels inspired by New Order (think “Blue Monday”), but the intro has a mid-’90s dance track vibe (think “Night At The Roxbury”).

• “I’m An Adult Now” by The Pursuit Of Happiness: For as long as we’ve had music, we’ve had songs of the pure bliss of adolescence and youthful indiscretions. This track, which peaked at #6 behind R.E.M., is a half-spoken, half-sung lament to adulthood.

• “Ana Ng” by They Might Be Giants: TMBG was around for a few years before the advent of the MRT chart, but this marks the first time they charted a single on the new chart above the top 20. This one peaked at #11, which would be the band’s second-best showing on the MRT, and features one of my favorite lyrics: “I don’t want the world. I just want your half.”