#1 at KUKQ/Phoenix: “Give It Away” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, perhaps their most outlandish hit (and video).
Other records of note on the Newstuff Alternative Music Survey (aka The Phoenix 50 Star Survey):
Robyn Hitchcock’s slice of pure power pop, “So You Think You’re In Love,” (#4) would be his biggest single with the Egyptians. Mick Jones’s post-Clash band, Big Audio Dynamite, is at #12 with “The Globe.”
Crowded House, featuring Neil Finn — and at this stage his brother Tim Finn — have another hit with “It’s Only Natural” (#5). David Bowie’s hard rock band Tin Machine is at #6 with “One Shot,” the group’s final single.
New Jersey’s Smithereens, a key influence on Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain (see below), hit #9 with “Top Of The Pops.” Another big influence on Nirvana was the Pixies, whose “Letter From Memphis” is at #21.
“Try A Little Tenderness” (#25) is an often covered Otis Redding song, this time by the Commitments, a band put together for the movie of the same name starring Colm Meaney (perhaps best known as transporter chief Miles O’Brien from TV’s Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine).
Of local interest:
- “Little Fluffy Clouds” (#17) by the Orb is an electronica dance groove featuring a narrative by former Phoenician Rickie Lee Jones (“We lived in Arizona and the skies always had little fluffy clouds…”).
- Critically acclaimed punk-psychedelic-country Phoenix band Meat Puppets (also famously influential on Nirvana) are at #19 with “Whirlpool” from the Forbidden Places album. The song was covered in 1994 in typically quirky fashion by They Might Be Giants, who themselves are at #29 this week with “Hey Mr. DJ, I Thought We Had A Deal.”
- Tempe’s Gin Blossoms are at #27 with a song about fortune teller “Mrs. Rita,” whose business still operates on University Drive. This is from their Up And Crumbling EP and would be remastered the following year on New Miserable Experience, their major label breakthrough album that would make the band national stars.
And finally, new at #46 is the record that “changed everything” in alternative rock: “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana — the ’90s equivalent of the Beatles’ breakthrough hit, “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” in terms of its impact on the music scene. Like the Fab Four, Nirvana successfully integrated various influences and launched a massively popular new sound for the next generation.