April 21, 1990
- STAYED AT #1:3 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 members only. Thank you to everyone who's helping to keep Stereogum afloat.
Funny thing about mass-market alternative rock in the pre-grunge era: It really didn't have to rock at all. Modern rock airwaves were full of guitars, but those guitars only rarely indulged in blazing power-chord heroics. More often, those guitars were employed as textures -- machines that could jangle, fizz, groan, sputter, or sigh on command. Sometimes, the guitars were just a barely-there accessory. This was the peak era of sallow Brits emoting over blippy sequencers and sad-trombone synthesizer bits, and Depeche Mode were the absolute undisputed kings of that shit.
When Billboard first introduced the Modern Rock chart in 1988, the magazine cited the tremendous success of Depeche Mode as one of its reasons. For decades now, Depeche Mode's synthetic glacial brood has been part of the generally accepted mainstream-rock language; it's hard to imagine a band like Linkin Park or Imagine Dragons being able to function without the DM example. In their day, though, Depeche Mode were time-traveling soldiers from a sensitively debauched future. Nobody knew what to do with them.