40. Suede – “The Drowners” (1992)
The first single from Suede’s widely-hailed self-titled debut is a sexy glam-rock raver, Brett Anderson’s flamboyantly stylized vocals rising to a shimmery falsetto before gliding headlong into Bernard Butler’s churning T-Rex guitar riff. Suede elegantly fuses the grandiose melancholy of the Smiths with the soaring theatrics of David Bowie and injects a dose of brash attitude. Suede’s sonic vibe is slicked with a tincture of decadence, an aura of wading through forbidden underground sex enclaves where depravity is celebrated and hedonism is religion.
For a debut single, “The Drowners” is particularly daring. It’s brazenly sexual and strongly suggestive of two men losing themselves in a primal torrent of lust. Like many Suede songs, “The Drowners” is somewhat enigmatic, but while the lyrics are open to interpretation, some dots are easy to connect. Lines like “we kiss in his room to a popular tune” and “well, he writes the line / wrote right down my spine / it says ‘oh, do you believe in love there?” don’t leave much to the imagination, especially with Anderson’s voice glistening with desire.
Anderson offers some level of resistance to giving into his partner’s dominant role: “and so we drown / Sir, we drown / Stop taking me over”. It’s no accident he uses the sexually-charged title “Sir”. By the song’s end, Anderson’s protestations of “stop taking me over” have changed to simply “you’re taking me over”, repeated ad infinitum until it fades out.
Sexy, a bit mysterious, a hint of danger — that’s Suede’s trademark sound, and they nailed it on “The Drowners”. It’s a confident debut, boldly invoking sexual power games over fiery glam rock that could be beamed straight from 1973. The single set the stage for a long string of primarily stellar releases leading up to their latest, the spectacular Night Thoughts, which hit in January 2016.
39. Mazzy Star – “Fade Into You” (1993)
The opening track and lead single from Mazzy Star’s second album So Tonight That I Might See, “Fade Into You” is a gauzy midnight waltz that eases the listener into a warm candlelit pool, the air thick with an aromatic cannabis haze. “Fade Into You” is languid and lush, with Hope Sandoval’s honeyed voice, kissed with reverb, casting a warm glow over the sultry brew of acoustic guitar, piano and dreamy slide guitar lines. Sandoval imbues her vocal with just the right amount of detachment and mysterious beauty. She flows with the music, a flowering branch of blue and violet drifting slowly down a lazy southern river.
Sandoval sings to a man she’s unable to reach and break from his haunted view of the world. She feels love and tenderness for him that he’ll never understand or reciprocate. “You live your life / you go in shadow / you’ll come upon and you’ll go black / some kind of night into your darkness / close your eyes with what’s not there,” she sings wistfully. Sandoval performs the song like she’s lost in a memory of something experienced years in the past, dredged up for a moment of bittersweet regret that occupies her mind before she sighs sadly and moves on to other concerns.
Beautiful, stately and romantic, “Fade Into You” sauntered its way to #3 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart. It even scored substantial airplay at mainstream radio and very nearly hit the Top 40 in the US, reaching #44.
38. Foo Fighters – “Everlong” (1997)
After the end of Nirvana, Dave Grohl took some time off and then retreated into the studio, emerging a week later with a batch of home-spun recordings with him playing most of the instruments. These raw tracks were released as the Foo Fighters’ self-titled debut. The album sold well thanks to tracks like “This Is a Call”, “I’ll Stick Around” and “Big Me”, and Grohl put an actual band together to tour. Instead of a mere side project, Foo Fighters quickly became a powerful force in alternative rock whose stature has continued to balloon over the ensuing two decades.
Foo Fighters’ second album, The Colour and the Shape, recorded with the band rather than as a solo project, was much tighter than the debut. Its lead single “Monkey Wrench” was a hit, but it was eventually overshadowed by the second single, “Everlong”, which reached #3 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart.
“Everlong” has all the parts necessary for a rock and roll classic: a melodic guitar riff, a hard-rocking chorus, and ferocious playing by Grohl and his mates. It packs a tight sonic punch thanks to Grohl’s pulse-pounding drum work. The song’s rush of energy is understandable given it’s about Grohl’s experiences with the first excited blush of new love, that period when everything about you and your partner seems perfectly in sync. Things only start to go awry later, but that’s a different song.
“Everlong” is basking in that glow, while at the same time harboring the fear it will ultimately end: “And I wonder / When I sing along with you / If everything could ever feel this real forever / If anything could ever be this good again.” It seems to be human nature that even when things are at their best, the nagging thought of “how long will this last?” is always there.
37. Deftones – “Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)” (1998)
The second single from California alt-metal pioneers Deftones’ pivotal second album Around the Fur, “Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)” is a blistering assault of white-hot guitars and brain searing screams. It’s unremittingly bleak and deranged with a twisted gothic bent, a nightmarish hell-ride that’s thrilling and disturbing to take.
Chino Moreno gives a deliriously unhinged vocal performance, and he clearly gives everything within himself. There’s nothing held back in the repeated anguished cries of “I don’t care where / just far!” The desperation to get away from something screams through every pore. What, exactly, Moreno is escaping is ominously vague.
However, it seems likely he’s leaving behind a fucked up situation (either of his own making, or not), and fleeing town pronto seems a pretty good idea. The lines “I dressed you in her clothes” and “it feels good that you are mine”, along with the obsessively berserk nature of the recording, bring to mind some sinister possibilities. Sometimes it’s best to just leave it up to the imagination.
Beyond just Moreno’s phenomenal performance, the band is literally on fire. Guitars blaze like spiderwebs of lightning flashing in a late-night derecho, and a barrage of drums pummel the skull like a four-alarm hemorrhage. “Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)” is the kind of song that makes you hit repeat a dozen times as you’re driving a highway late at night, screaming along at the top of your lungs until your voice is shredded beyond all recognition.
36. The Sundays – “Here’s Where the Story Ends” (1990)
The Sundays’ debut album Reading, Writing and Arithmetic is a sweet collection of shimmery alternative pop loaded with strong melodies and genuine heart. The album’s second single, “Here’s Where the Story Ends”, was the English band’s breakthrough hit. Set to an upbeat, jangly guitar-pop backdrop, Harriet Wheeler enchants listeners with her brisk, crystalline vocals and a crisp melodic hook. The song’s feel evokes a breezy, moderately cool yet still lovely autumn afternoon.
It’s clearly a wistful song, but the precise meaning is hard to pin down. It seems that Wheeler’s character regrets a love lost as she drifts through a world of hand-holding couples beaming with purpose. They remind her of what was and what could have been. Surely, she doesn’t always feel this way, but now she insists, “But the only thing I ever really wanted to say was wrong / was wrong / was wrong.”
A pang of regret that will fade, and return, and then fade again, as all of our emotions are in a constant state of flux. This song is simply a beautifully rendered snapshot. Perhaps the next day she’ll remember that it wasn’t she alone who accounted for that “terrible year”. Maybe the story ends with putting those regrets to bed for good, and moving forward.
The lyrics read like a poem, and the song speaks to different listeners differently. Perhaps that’s the point. It’s just impressions of thoughts and memories that Wheeler doesn’t want to spell out too precisely, maybe to enhance the song’s inherent air of mystery and wonder, perhaps because it’s too personal. Either way, the end result is beguiling. Alternative radio couldn’t get enough of the song and neither could fans, who sent “Here’s Where the Story Ends” soaring to #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart in May 1990.
35. Faith No More – “Midlife Crisis” (1992)
Alt-rock/metal alchemists Faith No More’s tortured masterpiece Angel Dust traces the contours of a deranged mind expressing inner demons and bizarre observations of the world around him. The first single was “Midlife Crisis”, a magnificent and harrowing track in which, over a densely rumbling rhythm section, Mike Patton spits the lyrics of the spoken verses like he’s expelling venom from his tongue. The chorus explodes in a cathartic release backed by jagged guitars.
Mike Patton once claimed to a reporter that “Midlife Crisis” is about Madonna, but it’s always wise to take such proclamations with a grain of salt, especially with someone known to fuck around with the press. The lyrics suggest that the song is, in fact, about a midlife crisis of sorts. A man is lost in a relationship that feels bereft of meaning, letting his life wane and fade because of a sense of normalcy and security that seems tenuous at best. In “True Love Waits” Radiohead wrote, “I’m not living, I’m just killing time.” Our guy here is also killing time and decides to shake the order of his world.
He abandons his family and leaves them behind much like his own father did. Lyrics like “sense of security / like pockets jingling / midlife crisis / suck ingenuity / down through the family tree” and “what an inheritance / the salt and the kleenex” strongly suggest a repetition of events he experienced in childhood, which, of course, generates the bitter self-loathing which is the song’s primary characteristic.
However one chooses to interpret it, “Midlife Crisis” is undoubtedly a powerful performance with striking lyrics, a malevolent spirit, and brilliant vocals by Patton. As the first single from Angel Dust, “Midlife Crisis” rocketed to #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart in August 1992.
34. Belly – “Feed the Tree” (1993)
Tanya Donelly, one of the 1990s most underrated singer/songwriters, found the perfect vehicle for her music in Belly. The first single from Belly’s outstanding debut, Star, “Feed the Tree” is about the relationship between an elderly person and a youth, and an admonition to the youth to show proper respect. “Take your hat off, boy, when you’re speaking to me” is proper manners of the kind that one hardly finds today. “Be there when I feed the tree” refers to death, and coming to the funeral to pay respect.
It’s touching to think about an elderly man imparting wisdom on a young person who shimmies around a big tree like a squirrel and grins with her silver tooth that replaced the one she lost in a tumble from her bicycle. More generally, “Feed the Tree” is about showing each other respect as humans and individuals, and understanding that with age comes wisdom (presumably) and experience.
In our cynical and confrontational information-overloaded world, a little respect and civility can go a very long way, but seems rarely to be found. Twenty-three years after first recording this song, “Feed the Tree” is more germane than ever. Simple respect goes a long way.
Tanya Donelly’s vocals, often double-tracked to create lovely harmonies, glide above a solid groove alternating between acoustic passages and edgy, motoric rock. Alternative radio and MTV wholeheartedly supported the song, and “Feed the Tree” topped the Billboard Modern Rock Chart for nearly a month. It will surely be a highlight of the band’s set when they play their first gigs in two decades later in 2016.
33. No Doubt – “Spiderwebs” (1995)
“Just a Girl” was the first salvo from No Doubt’s second album Tragic Kingdom. Still, their popularity really exploded with “Spiderwebs”, a frenzied repudiation of an obsessive fan who incessantly called Gwen Stefani to recite bad poetry until she finally had to start screening her calls (the advent of smartphones would kinda render this issue moot, wouldn’t it?) Not the most compelling tale to turn into a hit song, but Stefani and her ace bandmates knock it out of the park.
“Spiderwebs” is a high-energy fusion of pop, rock, and ska; it even has some hints of reggae. It’s jumpy and manic, with a blazing brass arrangement adding to the song’s highwire excitement. Gwen Stefani had not yet taken the leap to solo pop stardom, and she really lets loose here in a way rarely heard in her electro-pop solo material. Her frustration at the situation that inspired the song comes through loudly and clearly in her dynamic and expressive vocals.
The musicianship in No Doubt is sometimes overlooked. Still, one listen to “Spiderwebs” jumping out of the speakers all barrels blazing should render it obvious exactly how talented and tight this group was at their peak. Adrian Young is an unstoppable machine on the drums, and bassist Tony Kanal (who co-wrote the song) and guitarist Tom Dumont keep a frantic pace.
“Spiderwebs” hit #5 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart and set the stage for Gwen Stefani’s big star turn on the chart-topping ballad “Don’t Speak”. Like the rest of Tragic Kingdom, “Spiderwebs” was produced by Matthew Wilder, who scored a Top 5 pop hit of his own in 1983 with the reggae-tinged “Break My Stride”.
32. Manic Street Preachers – “If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next” (1998)
Opening with slivers of guitar that alternate between sides of the sound spectrum, the powerfully strident “If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next” by Welsh alt-rockers Manic Street Preachers has deep roots in European history. The song was inspired by the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 and the naive Welsh fighters caught up in sweeping anti-fascist fervor who flocked to Spain to fight for the leftist government against the rebellion led by Francisco Franco.
The song’s title comes from a Spanish government poster condemning the death of a young child killed by Franco’s forces. The chilling line “so if I can shoot rabbits / then I can shoot fascists” is actually an oft-repeated quote from one of the fighters battling against Franco.
The song is more complex than just a history lesson, though. The narrator’s enthusiasm for righteous battle fades as the song continues, and he’s exposed to unthinkable carnage. He eventually comes to the realization that neither side is particularly noble. By the end he’s an old man, alone with “newspaper cuttings of his glory days”. What did it all mean in the end? Human lives — real people with families, stories and dreams — used as kindling in the never-ending violent games of the powerful. Even if you survive, you’re scarred.
It’s ultimately all about the meaningless, endless cycle of violence and war, and how your child might indeed be the next soldier caught up in the fervor of a noble cause only to die a bloody death in battle or to waste away wondering what might have been. It couldn’t be more timely or relevant, given the perpetual state of war in which we are engulfed.
All of this is set to a highly melodic, hard-rocking anthem with strings like sheets of gilded metal glistening above the chorus. As a recording and a piece of songwriting, “If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next” rises far above what most rock and roll aspires to be, and it succeeds. The track became a massive success in the UK, becoming Manic Street Preachers’ first #1 single.
31. Jane’s Addiction – “Been Caught Stealin'” (1990)
In the realm of 1990s alternative rock, apart from the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Give It Away” it’s hard to find a more wickedly funky groove than Jane’s Addiction’s “Been Caught Stealin'”. Perry Farrell’s vocal is ballsy and mischievous and Dave Navarro unleashes a brief but absolutely savage guitar solo. All the players shine — drummer Stephen Perkins and bassist Eric Avery (who co-wrote the song with Perry Farrell) are ridiculously tight. “Been Caught Stealin'” is an audacious moment of levity on Ritual de lo Habitual, an otherwise serious album.
“Been Caught Stealin'” works on multiple levels. While it seems like a bit of a novelty on first listen, there is an unmistakable current of desperation coursing through the song, with the barking dogs raising the spectre of a police chase. After all, the simple act of shoplifting is sometimes necessary for survival (wasn’t there a Broadway musical about that? Something set in France?) Mostly, though, Perry Farrell seems to be encouraging the simple act of rebellion against authority, which has been a recurring theme in his songwriting.
“Been Caught Stealin'” features a surreally comical video that MTV played on heavy rotation, and the track became the most successful of Jane’s Addiction’s storied career, lodging at #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart for four weeks. It helped the absolutely brilliant Ritual de lo Habitual sell more than two million copies in the US alone.