20 years on: March 30, 1991

As modern rock enters its (gulp) third decade, we're taking a look back at the charts of two decades ago.

This week in 1991: The #1 song in modern rock for the 3rd straight week was R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion." The charts for March are interesting to me because they contain four songs that are destined to turn up on pretty much any "best of the '90s" boxset in the future: "Losing My Religion," "I Touch Myself," "Unbelievable," and "Right Here, Right Now." But arguably, none of those songs reflect the direction modern rock radio would take in less than a year.

The top 10:

1. REM, "Losing My Religion"
2. Divinyls, "I Touch Myself"
3. EMF, "Unbelievable"
4. Material Issue, "Valerie Loves Me"

5. Morrissey, "Our Frank"
6. Havana 3 a.m., "Reach the Rock"
7. Daniel Ash, "This Love"
8. Simple Minds, "See the Lights"
Bet you didn't realize Simple Minds had a career beyond the Breakfast Club soundtrack, did you?
9. Jesus Jones, "Right Here, Right Now"
10. The Godfathers, "Unreal World"
Here's another band I'd never heard of. A British group whose sound was somewhat of a bridge between U2 and INXS and the later Britpop groups, this was the third (and final) charting single of their careers. They broke up not long after, though various members would use the Godfathers name to record throughout the '90s, with little success.


Don't you love the John Lennon sunglasses and mullet look that drummer's rocking?

20 years on: March 23, 1991

As modern rock enters its (gulp) third decade, we're going to be taking a look back at the charts of two decades ago.

This week in 1991: The #1 song in modern rock for the 2nd straight week was R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion."

The top 10:

1. REM, "Losing My Religion"
2. Divinyls, "I Touch Myself"
3. EMF, "Unbelievable"
4. Jesus Jones, "Right Here, Right Now"
5. Daniel Ash, "This Love"
Allmusic says this is the Love and Rockets lead singer's only solo hit. In retrospect, it seems evident that this song rode so high on the modern rock charts because of who sang it, because it's a little generic.


6. Material Issue, "Valerie Loves Me"
7. The Replacements, "When it Began"
8. Havana 3 a.m., "Reach the Rock"
9. Morrissey, "Our Frank"
The lead single from Morrissey''s second solo album creeps into the top 10.
10. Enigma, "Sadeness Pt. 1"

20 years on: March 16, 1991

As modern rock enters its (gulp) third decade, we're going to be taking a look back at the charts of two decades ago.

This week in 1991: The #1 song in modern rock, in only its 2nd week on the top of the charts, was R.E.M.'s biggest-ever US single, "Losing My Religion."

The top 10:

1. REM, "Losing My Religion"
2. Jesus Jones, "Right Here, Right Now"
3. Daniel Ash, "This Love"
4. Divinyls, "I Touch Myself"
5. EMF, "Unbelievable"
6. The Replacements, "When it Began"
As REM is on the verge of becoming one of the biggest bands in the world, the Replacements, seen by many in the college-rock scene of the '80s as an equally-plausible contender for success, are in the middle of their final tour, and their last hit single has begun sliding down the charts.

Down to only two original members by this point, the Replacements finally called it quits July 4, 1991. Cool video, though.

7. Enigma, "Sadeness pt. 1"
8. Material Issue, "Valerie Loves Me." A personal favorite of mine from 1991.
9. Havana 3 a.m., "Reach the Rock." This is one I'd never heard of. Apparently, Clash bassist Paul Simonon was in the band. This was their only hit.

10. The Fixx, "How Much is Enough."

20 years on: March 9, 1991

As modern rock enters its (gulp) third decade, we're going to be taking a look back at the charts of two decades ago.

This week in 1991: The #1 song in modern rock, coming to the end of its one-month run at the top, was Jesus Jones' "Right Here Right Now."


Reflecting the pre-Nirvana days of modern rock radio in the US, the rest of this week's top ten was a mix of holdover new wave bands (such as the Fixx) and people (such as Sting) that you would never hear on a KROQ or 99X today.
1. Jesus Jones, "Right Here, Right Now"
2. Daniel Ash, "This Love"
3. Divinyls, "I Touch Myself." (editor's note: REALLY?)
4. The Replacements, "When it Began"
5. R.E.M., "Losing My Religion"
Debuting at #5 and beginning its ascent: REM's "Losing My Religion," their biggest-ever single. It would go on to spend 2 months at #1.
6. EMF, "Unbelievable." I am not ashamed to admit I own a cassette copy of Schubert Dip.
7. Enigma, "Sadeness Pt. 1". Ah yes, the brief Gregorian-chant craze of the early '90s:

8. Sting, "All This Time"
9. Havana 3 a.m., "Reach the Rock"
10. The Fixx, "How Much is Enough"

Two more modern-rock stations bite the dust

Two more modern rock stations died this month: 94.7 the Buzz in Oklahoma City switched to a harder-rock format, while 99X in Atlanta went Top 40 on Friday.

I grew up in Oklahoma City, and I remember how excited my friends and I all were when we first got 95X in the mid-‘90s. It didn’t last long, and switched to a lite-FM format, then came back as 94.7 the Buzz around 2002. In its second reincarnation, it was a fairly generic station (at first, it didn’t even have DJs), but it did have the “March Bandness” competition, which was a good way to support local music. It also had the good fortune to be around when the All-American Rejects and Hinder were taking off nationally.

99X is a much bigger loss. Considered one of the “tastemaker” stations of alternative rock in the 1990s, along with WHFS in Washington DC and KROQ in Los Angeles, 99X broke the Cranberries and Silverchair in the U.S. and launched the careers of Collective Soul and Shawn Mullins, among others. They hosted some of the original all-day festivals, later copied by lots of other stations, called Big Day Out. When I was living in England in 1998-99, I listened to 99X on the Internet to get my fix of American-style alt-rock.

What happened to 99X is similar to what’s happened to a lot of modern rock stations; the ratings started to decline around 2000 as fans of ‘90s stuff were turned off by Limp Bizkit, Korn, and their followers. Then when those bands imploded, stations tried to get the old listeners back by playing more and more ‘90s songs. One of 99X’s last DJs estimated that by the end, only one-fifth of the songs they were playing every day were new: that’s roughly three new songs per hour. As this happened, the station became less and less known for breaking bands. In addition, Atlanta became a hip-hop city: Outkast, Ludacris, TI, Lil’ Jon, Usher, etc. The last superstar rock act from the ATL was Collective Soul, and the last rock acts to have any hits were Shawn Mullins and Sevendust, both almost 10 years ago.

Most of the DJs at 99X were fired summarily two weeks ago, but a skeleton crew kept the station going since then. It is staying on for now as a “visual radio station” on the internet. You can listen here. As the individual DJs signed off Thursday evening, they each played little “fuck you’s” to their corporate overlords: the afternoon guy signed off with REM’s “Radio Song”: “It’s that same same song, DJ sucks… Makes me sad. I tried to turn it off, but damn that radio song… hey hey hey.”

At 4:50 a.m., according to the excellent Radio Talk blog (‘cause I wasn’t up), the final DJ gave a nice goodbye to the station and 16 years of music. The final half-hour of 99X consisted of:

Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

U2, “One”

REM, “Radio Song”

Stone Temple Pilots, “Dead and Bloated”

Nirvana, “All Apologies”

Soundgarden, “Fell on Black Days”

Pearl Jam, “Black”

Jeff Buckley, “Last Goodbye”

At 5:25 a.m., they played Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of your Life),” then at 5:30 sharp, it went into Beyonce.

Atlanta joins Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., all of which have lost their modern rock stations in the last few years. If you live in Georgia, your choices now are an “active rock” station (think Linkin Park, Korn, or Flyleaf) or a “classic alternative” station (read: maybe you’ll hear the new Foo Fighters if you stick around long enough, but wouldn’t you rather hear “Big Me” again?).

Sigh.