Hello everyone, and welcome to 1992.

1992 was a busy year.  With the Cold War finally ending with the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, the world was opening up and we didn’t really know where we were headed next.  With the world seemingly at peace, we decided to drag George H.W. Bush across the mud when he was forced to raise taxes to combat a slumping economy and instead elected saxophone player Bill Clinton into the White House.  In April 1992, the acquittal of several police officers involved in the beating of Rodney King triggered race riots in Los Angeles, further proving not all was well in the world.  In the wider world, we signed the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, while both Somalia and the former Yugoslavia descended into civil war.  In sports, the Buffalo Bills lost Super Bowl number three out of four when the Dallas Cowboys laid waste to them in Super Bowl XXVII, and Michael Jordan won his second of three consecutive titles when the Chicago Bulls dispatched the Portland Trailblazers in the NBA Finals.  In film, Unforgiven won Best Picture, providing hope that the Western would come back.  Wishful thinking.

And most notably, October 21st happened.  After two years of living in blissful matrimony, the first year in Penfield, NY and the second year in Naples, NY, my mother and father’s happiness was eternally ended at 11:07 PM at Rochester General Hospital, when I entered the world.

So that’s why we’re here.  1992.  What was the year I was born like in the music world?

Well, before we begin, time for a heavily biased viewpoint.  The 1990s is my favorite music decade of all time, and likely will always be at least from the rock standpoint.  Especially from 1994 to 1997, rock and alternative music straight up could not miss.  Bands from Nirvana to Oasis to Radiohead put out classic album after classic album, featuring classic song after classic song.  The sheer quantity, quality, and variety of music released, especially from the alternative rock side, has failed to have been matched since.  In one decade alone, we began with the last stands of New Wave and Hair Metal in America, with Madchester setting off raves on the other side of the Atlantic.  Then came the most emblematic subgenre of the entire decade: Grunge, which revolutionized the rock music world for decades to come with its angry sound and subversive lyrics.  After hanging on with the neo-psychedelia of Shoegazing to counter Grunge, Great Britain came up with a huge counter in 1994 with the explosion of Britpop and the Cool Brittania movement, honoring British music from the days of the Beatles to the New Wave of the previous decade.  Even after the collapse of Grunge, America kept going as strong as it had been before with a garden of forking paths: the first wave of Post-Grunge and the surprising renaissance of ska music.  Finally, the decade ended with the peak of nu metal in the US, and the growth of more mature Post-Britpop music in England.

From what you’ve heard in all the histories written about music, 1992 is the starting point.  1992 is the year Grunge really took off, with Nirvana’s Nevermind stunning the music world by overtaking Michael Jackson for the number one album in America, with Pearl Jam’s Ten not too far behind.  Elsewhere, Soundgarden had their breakthrough with Badmotorfinger, released in 1991 making an impact, Alice In Chains released their magnum opus Dirt, and Stone Temple Pilots began the expansion of Grunge outside Seattle with Core.  On the other side of the Atlantic, Suede’s “The Drowners” and Blur’s “Popscene” marked the beginnings of Britpop with their very, aggressively British sound.  1992 was a year of revolution…

…So they say.

After going through the biggest rock and alternative songs on the charts in 1992 from both sides of the Atlantic, I’m here to tell you music fans one thing.  1992 is not the renaissance.  It is the transition.

Yes, this was the year where Nirvana and Pearl Jam took off, while U2 and R.E.M. began powerful second acts.  But it was just as much the year where the hair metal and monster ballad bands of the eighties just wouldn’t let go.  

U2 was the biggest rock band of the year, sure, but you know who was the second biggest, based on the number of songs eligible?  The Black Crowes.  Can you name one of their “hits” from 1992?  I thought so.  How about John Mellencamp, who had three songs eligible for this list?  Or Extreme?  What if I were to tell you that all of these acts had more songs eligible for this countdown than Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains combined?  How about we go to the alternative side.  Anyone remember Peter Murphy?  Ocean Blue?  Paul Westerburg?  Moodswings?  Bueller?  Bueller?

As a result of the massive amount of has-beens still hogging up the radio, 1992 is a disappointing year for the rock charts.  When I went into this project, I expected to come across a large number of songs signaling the start of a new era: specifically, the grunge movement in America and the Britpop and shoegazing movements in England.  But with no charts to work with, I had to come up with the charts on my own.  And I was about to come out very disappointed.

First off, it should be noted that the Billboard year-end charts in 1992 for the Modern Rock Chart (now Alternative Airplay) only featured 30 songs, while the Mainstream Rock Chart featured 40.  There have been unofficial “rankdowns” that have been posted on various places on the interwebs, mainly on Spotify, but no official chart.  In order to demonstrate that the nineties is “my” decade when it comes to rock and alternative music, I have always planned to go through far more songs than would normally be eligible for such a countdown.  Finally, I have long planned on incorporating the British music charts for my 90s alternative and rock countdowns.  Since Britpop lacked success in America outside of Oasis, a failure to incorporate the UK charts would mean we wouldn’t be able to go over Pulp, Suede, or a good part of Blur’s discography.  For that matter, we’d barely get to go over Primal Scream or Massive Attack.  As a result, I came up with the idea to go over the 100 biggest US alternative songs, the 100 biggest US rock songs, and the 100 biggest rock & alternative songs in the UK.  After realizing I’d never get these lists done with this many songs eligible, I narrowed it down to 75 for the US Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts, and 50 for the UK charts.

Before I could come up with my list of nominees, I had to construct all three charts by myself, since again there was no official source available.  And my advice to all of you reading this blog today:  DO NOT DO THIS TO YOUR CHILD.  I had to go through all 52 weeks of the Billboard year, tallying up the place numbers for both the Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts, as well as going through all artists that were listed on the UK charts for the Billboard chart year.  In order to come up with the list of eligible UK artists, I combined all artists that had charted on the Modern or Mainstream Rock charts this year, plus the UK artists I knew about from my days watching The Chart Show.  Seriously, watch the show.  There are several pop and specialist charts available for viewing on YouTube, and we need to preserve them because The Chart Show is a national treasure.  But anyways, I tallied up the final results using an inverse formula (#1 got the most points for its week, the lowest chart position got the fewest points, and so on).  Oh yeah, and I also had to do 1991, in order to eliminate songs that were initially made popular that year.  After months, I finally got the charts complete, with the UK chart done to my best knowledge.  

The end results just made me more disappointed, because 1992 removed quite a few songs that impressed me during preliminary listening, some of which I absolutely love.  Some of the final cuts that fell between #76 and #100 on the US charts, as well as #50 and #75 on the UK charts, included:

“Disappointed” – Electronic (T#84 Modern Rock, #59 UK)
“Twisterella” – Ride (#90 Modern Rock)
“What Are We Gonna Do” – Dramarama (#95 Modern Rock)
“Happiness In Slavery” – Nine Inch Nails (#96 Modern Rock)
“Lithium” – Nirvana (#77 Mainstream Rock, #54 UK.  Yes, really.  It won’t be eligible.)
“Wherever I May Roam” – Metallica (#85 Mainstream Rock)
“Boss Drum” – Shamen (#57 UK)
“Fifteen Years” – Levellers (#74 UK)

Just think about that when we go through this worst list.

Without these songs, and with the songs by artists who by 1992 were way past their prime that were eligible for this countdown, 1992 became surprisingly boring.  Of the over 150 songs that were eligible for this list, only about 19 were songs I seriously considered for this worst list.  Now, you’d expect that to be an improvement over my last project, where I did mention that I had to sever numerous bad songs in order to narrow down my 1977 worst list.  But here’s the thing.  With 1977, even though the songs were bad, at least they were memorably bad.  For 1992, the songs were so mediocre or average.  If the song was bad, it was often a 4/10.  If the song was good, it was often a 7/10.  Throughout both the Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts, there were too many 6/10 songs to count.  Furthermore, I just narrowed down my nominees for the list, and came up with a total of 40 songs – fewer than the number of best list nominees I had for 1977.  And I had nearly 50 more songs to choose from for this project than I did for 1977.  But with all that said, after nearly six months of research, in the end I was able to scrape together ten songs and six dishonorable mentions that were bad enough to represent 1992’s biggest rock and alternative music failures.

Usually when people release these types of lists, the worst list is the highlight.  It is the list where everyone gathers round to hear people bash on songs that have fallen to a point where they receive most attention in pop music circles.  But that is not happening on this worst list.  To those reading this, I assure you that the best list will be much more attention-grabbing this time out than the worst list.  Of the ten songs that failed the hardest, only one is a song you will probably recognize.  So this is not going to be a “Birthday Cake Remix” followed by “U.O.E.N.O.” followed by “Me Too” worst list.  Here, in the worst rock and alternative songs of 1992, class is now in session.

One thing I will say about these songs is: because 1992 as a rock music year was surprisingly bland, I actually have a weird respect for these worst list songs.  For how bad they are, they at least accomplished something.  They at least gave me something to write about.  And for that, I have to give a strange, awkward congratulations to these artists.  They at least made an impression.

Before we begin, here are the house rules:

1. The song must have achieved one of the following, based on my rankings of the top rock and alternative songs of 1992:
   1. The Top 75 of the Billboard Modern Rock year-end Chart
   2. The Top 75 of the Billboard Mainstream Rock year-end Chart
   3. The Top 50 ranked rock and alternative songs on the year-end UK Charts
2. If a song became big on both sides of the Atlantic in separate years (such as with “Just A Girl” by No Doubt and “Bittersweet Symphony” by The Verve), the artist’s home country determines which year it will qualify for.  
3. The song cannot have charted on a previous year-end chart.  This leaves four songs ineligible:
   1. “Move Any Mountain” – Shamen
   2. “Top Of The World” – Van Halen
   3. “Bohemian Rhapsody” – Queen

Usually I just list the songs that aren’t eligible, but the fourth example requires a paragraph.  1992 was the year “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana, the most iconic alternative rock song of all time and the #5 song of all time according to Rolling Stone, made the year-end lists for the Billboard Hot 100, the Modern Rock chart, the Mainstream Rock chart, and the UK rock chart.  But… the song also made the year-end chart for the Modern Rock charts in 1991, and as a result, the song is ineligible for the best list.  So “Smells Like Teen Spirit” isn’t going to show up on the best list.  Do not ask me to adjust the rules.  It’s not happening.  I will get to it when I do 1991.

With all that said, 170 songs were eligible for today’s countdown.  So get ready, because what the world needs now is real words of wisdom like “la la la la la la la la la” instead of these ten songs.  These were the ten worst birthday presents I ever had!  It’s time to count down…

THE TOP TEN WORST ROCK & ALTERNATIVE SONGS OF 1992

Today’s Transition Music: “Cruel Little Number” – Jeff Healey Band
(#11 peak, #130 year end on Mainstream Rock Charts)

She’s a cruel little number, wild little weed
Momma’s little princess, daddy’s bad seed
Mind of a maniac, breaking all the rules
Cruel little number, why do you have to be so cruel?

#10. “Not Enough Time”

#9. “Deeply Dippy”

#8. “Tears In Heaven”

#7. “Another Rainy Night”

#6. “God Gave Rock And Roll To You II”

#5. “Sax And Violins”

#4. “Good Stuff”

#3. “Roll The Bones”

#2. “Viva Las Vegas”

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS

#1. The Worst Rock & Alternative Song of 1992

I DON’T OWN ANY OF THE IMAGES (And I’m not profiting from them either!)

Black Crowes photo from AL.com

Peter Murphy photo from Billboard

John Mellencamp photo originally from VH1, reposted by Dailymotion