The Alternative Number Ones: The Psychedelic Furs’ “All That Money Wants”

In The Alternative Number Ones, I'm reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it's for subscribers only. Thank you to everyone who's helping to keep Stereogum afloat.

Richard Butler, longtime leader of the Psychedelic Furs, has always come off both conflicted by and slightly embarrassed of his own rock stardom. I get it. Rock stardom is a fundamentally embarrassing thing, both for artist and for fan. If you're a deep-niche rock star -- the type who rules alternative radio but who rarely makes much of a dent on the wider consciousness -- then it's probably doubly embarrassing.

All through their prime, the Psychedelic Furs seemed to be in a push-pull relationship with anything resembling mainstream fame. They worked with big-deal producers, and they went for bold pop-radio sounds, but then they would retract, and they would make a display of their retraction. To this day, the band might be most famous for recording "Pretty In Pink," the song that gave the John Hughes classic its name. The Psychedelic Furs re-recorded that song for the Pretty In Pink soundtrack, and they got a minor hit out of it, but they never got tired of saying how the movie had nothing to do with the song and how John Hughes' whole vision went against the darkness of the song itself. It definitely never occurred to these guys that Hughes made a sick-ass movie, that they were lucky to be associated with it.