June 24, 1989
- STAYED AT #1:5 Weeks
In The Alternative Number Ones, I'm reviewing every #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.
Sometimes, the song overshadows the band. Love And Rockets, the trio birthed from the ashes of Bauhaus, would've earned themselves a spot in the history of alternative rock even without their one monster hit. They kept going without an iconic frontman, they developed their sound into something clean and sticky, and they cranked out a pretty decent succession of college-radio bangers before they made that one monster hit. But for those of us who weren't there at the time, the monster hit is the one real lasting legacy of Love And Rockets.
The monster hit was simple and memorable, and it really didn't need context to connect. When I started listening to alternative radio as a kid in the early '90s, Love And Rockets were not part of the starter kit. They'd had their moment, and the world had mostly moved on. But I still heard the one monster hit on the radio all the time. It never left rotation, and I was never sorry to hear it. The song made perfect sense to me: A guy gets completely hung up on a girl, even though he doesn't know her well enough to remember her eye color. She's a total mystery to him, and yet he goes into a dizzy reverie whenever he thinks about her. I could relate.