Modern Rock Tracks No.1s - Love and Rockets and "So Alive"

Love and Rockets explore the power of infatuation with "So Alive," fusing mainstream pop stylings with the goth-rock sound they honed as members of Bauhaus

Love and Rockets - “So Alive”

Weeks atop the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart: 5 (6/24/89 - 7/22/89)

Billboard Hot 100 chart toppers during this time:

• Richard Marx - “Satisfied” (6/24/89)

• Milli Vanilli - “Baby Don't Forget My Number” (7/1/89)

• Fine Young Cannibals - “Good Thing” (7/8/89)

• Simply Red - “If You Don't Know Me By Now” (7/15/89)

• Martika - “Toy Soldiers” (7/22/89)

I love songs about unrequited love, or the power of infatuation. Before my engagement and marriage, I lived many years on the unrequited side of unrequited love. For every girlfriend I had, there were so many others I recall adoring from afar, blown away by their beauty or confidence, but never mustering up the courage to engage in conversation.

My favorite example of this in alternative rock history is future Substack column subject Death Cab for Cutie, whose lead singer Ben Gibbard wrote a haunting and slightly dark interpretation of this unrequited love feeling in “I Will Possess Your Heart,” a Modern Rock Tracks #6 hit in June 2008. Granted, Gibbard’s narrator takes this aesthetic a bit too far, building his infatuation to a point that sounds more like a stalker and less like someone admiring a crush from afar. But the beat set by that bass guitar and the slow build-up to the lyrical portion of the story make the song great on its own; the feeling of infatuation that’s not reciprocated is both icing on the cake and a feeling that almost everyone’s experienced at one time or another.

I’ve covered a lot of subjects so far in my review of these chart-topping alternative hits, but I don’t think I’ve had a track that accurately captured that rapturous feeling of being immediately infatuated with someone. For the former members of the goth-rock pioneering band Bauhaus who came together in the mid 1980s to form the band Love and Rockets, they were able to harness that feeling into one of the biggest alt-rock and mainstream hits of 1989: “So Alive.”

Before I talk about this track, I want to touch briefly on the history of Love and Rockets, which begins with a history lesson on a band called Bauhaus. Here we have another alt-rock pioneering band, also formed in the 1970s, who are also considered one of the formative bands cultivating a particular alternative sound (this theme is pervasive in pretty much every piece I’ve written so far). I talked a bit about goth rock in my review of “Fascination Street” by The Cure, but one of the purest distillations of early goth-rock, eclipsing even The Cure, is Bauhaus.

I’ve been up front about how little I know about goth rock; it’s simply not my favorite subgenre of music. But even without the personal interest, I can absolutely respect artists who pioneer their genres, and Bauhaus certainly does that. The band’s seminal first single “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” is considered one of the most influential goth-rock tracks, due in large part to that ominous driving bass line, repetitive drum pattern, lyrics about the actor who starred in the 1930s “Dracula” movie, and imagery about his funeral, replete with bats and coffins. The band also strengthened its notoriety as goth pioneers with its goth-rock cover of David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust” in 1982.

The band was ultimately short-lived, and broke up in 1983, a mere five years after its inception. After pursuing numerous side projects, three of the band’s founding members (guitarist Daniel Ash, bassist David J, and drummer Kevin Haskins) formed Love and Rockets in 1985. That goth sound continued through the band’s career, though that sound would ultimately become less intertwined with the goth stylings of Bauhaus and slowly incorporate pop influences of the time period.

Chart success evaded the band with their first three albums, none of which had any charting hits in either the U.S. or U.K. That changed with the release of their eponymous album in March 1989, as lead single “Motorcycle” gained some traction on alternative radio and managed to peak at #20 on the MRT chart behind Elvis Costello’s “Veronica” the week ending March 25, 1989.

But it was “So Alive” that managed to both set the pace on the alternative music charts while also owning a solid run in the mainstream pop zeitgeist. Sandwiched around slower emotional fare like Martika’s earnest “Toy Soldiers” or Simply Red’s “If You Don’t Know Me By Now,” “So Alive” carved out a niche in pop music that would later be matched by bands like The Cure and even Prince, who scored an unlikely #1 Hot 100 hit with “Batdance” (see below). From this point until the rise of R&B and rap in the early to mid 1990s, alternative fare like “So Alive” would start to become a significant force in pop music leading into the explosion of grunge rock and the mainstream success of alt-rock pioneers like R.E.M.

The song itself is intense right from the outset, with the narrator commenting on the amazing hair and legs of a woman who caught his attention. What starts as a mellow recitation of the woman’s beauty becomes a full-fledged explosion of emotion and desire, the narrator expressing how alive this person makes him feel in that moment.

And there’s no doubt the narrator wants her, but it’s also clear that he can’t have her for reasons unknown. He hints at his dilemma, noting that although his head “is full of magic,” he “can’t share it” with the object of his affection. He wishes he could “switch off the clock” and “make it all happen” for her, but for whatever reason, he can’t.

In an interview with XS Noise in 2014, Ash talks about the experience that influenced the situation his narrator endures in the song, and the reasons why he couldn’t act on the feeling in the moment:

“I’d gone to a party on Saturday night, and I was married at the time, and I saw this woman over the other side of the room, and I was completely transfixed which is very odd because I was freshly married.

It was very weird, but I was completely infatuated by her and so much so that I couldn’t go near her to even speak to her, it was just this overwhelming thing.

I can’t explain it to this day. That’s why the first line is, ‘I don’t know what color your eyes are.’ Because I didn’t get that close, I just saw this person in the distance.”

This is slightly different from the more intense unrequited love I referenced earlier with Death Cab For Cutie, but an experience I suspect most everyone can relate to in one form or another. It’s highly likely this interpretation of the song, along with its catchy sound and unique vocal pieces (the “doo-doo-do” background singers) and shifts in intensity from verse to refrain, helped propel this song to success across all genres.

“So Alive” held the top spot on the MRT chart for five weeks. Two weeks after its last appearance at #1 on the MRT chart, the song peaked at #3 on the Hot 100 the week ending August 5, 1989, just behind two movie soundtrack juggernauts: Prince’s “Batdance” at #1 and Bobby Brown’s “Ghostbusters II” track “On Our Own,” which peaked at #2. “So Alive” was so ubiquitous that it earned Billboard Magazine’s honor of ranking as the #1 rock song for all of 1989.

As a musical act, Love and Rockets released two more singles from their self-titled album: “Rock & Roll Babylon,” which peaked at #29 on the MRT chart; and “No Big Deal,” which peaked at #19 on the MRT chart and topped out at #82 on the Hot 100. The band released three more albums in the 1990s without any significant chart success outside of their minor 1996 hit “Sweet Lover Hangover,” which maxed out at #10 on the MRT chart.

I vaguely remembered this song from my childhood thanks to the refrain and the background vocals, but I’m really glad I was able to revisit it now and add it to my short list of songs about infatuation and unrequited love. Given the ubiquity of people’s experiences with love and all the iterations it takes in human society, I’m sure it will be the subject of future songs I review in this space, but for now, it’s nice to have a solid track like “So Alive” to include in that rotation.

Rating: 9/10

Chart notes: Another five-week chart run, another eclectic set of songs that peaked behind Love and Rockets. We have bat dances, cosmic things, and … David Bowie as the leader of a hard-rock band? Let’s dive in…

• "Batdance" by Prince: I can’t believe this song topped the Hot 100. I mean, I guess I can, given how big a deal the 1989 Tim Burton movie “Batman” was at the time. What I really can’t believe is this song made regular rotation on alternative rock radio. I guess it’s weird in the way some alternative songs can be, and given its popularity, I suspect alternative radio producers enjoyed hearing it as well. This song peaked at #18 behind “So Alive” on the MRT chart.

• "Here Comes Your Man" by Pixies: I need to listen to more stuff from Pixies. I was surprised to discover they never had a #1 hit on the MRT charts, so my references to them will be confined to this space. That said, given their ubiquity among my more musically diverse friends and acquaintances, I expect I’ll feature them every chance I get going forward. This song sounds like what early ‘90s alt-rock would become, the mold by which acts like Matthew Sweet or Lemonheads or Blind Melon would find comparable success. This track is a treasure, and it peaked at #3 behind “So Alive.”

• "Under The God" by Tin Machine: I’m going to file this under “things I didn’t know about David Bowie,” which is a pretty big file. Did you know that Bowie fronted a rock band called Tin Machine? I sure didn’t. But this track freakin’ rocks, and peaked at #4 behind Love and Rockets. Bowie was amazing. I need to dive deeper into his works.

• "(Shake That) Cosmic Thing" by B-52’s: They’re coming, you guys. I’ll spill plenty of digital ink on the quirky Athens, Ga., alt rockers in the coming weeks, but their first appearance on the MRT chart preceded the release of their album “Cosmic Thing” (though the track would appear on that album as well). Released as a single to promote the movie “Earth Girls Are Easy” — a movie I wouldn’t have believed existed but apparently exists and also somehow stars Geena Davis, Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans and Jeff Goldblum — “(Shake That) Cosmic Thing” peaked at #7 behind “So Alive.” Not long after this single’s release, the band changed the channel to Z, which is when we’ll catch up with them again.