The Alternative Number Ones: Jane’s Addiction’s “Stop!”

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.

On September 10, 1988, the day that I turned nine, Billboard announced the debut of a brand-new chart, Modern Rock Songs, which would keep track of the college and commercial stations that were playing left-of-center rock music. That announcement was on the front page of Billboard that week, and another story, on a group who would become hugely important to the direction of those radio stations, ran on the second page. (It was really the fourth page, after a two-page spread for the Summer Olympics album with Whitney Houston's "One Moment In Time.") The second story told of certain retailers who refused to stock Nothing's Shocking, the first studio album from "highly touted underground LA rock band" Jane's Addiction because the cover art showed a sculpture of two conjoined naked women.

Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell made that sculpture, and he claimed that it was a vision that came to him in a dream. In the Billboard story, Farrell dismissed any controversy that might come along with his art: "They're asking me if I would consider another cover, which I would not do... If McDonald's doesn't want my artwork, who the fuck cares?" But that artwork caused some chain stores not to stock Nothing's Shocking and others to bury it deep on their shelves. The story quotes one retail exec, who says, "It's the second-most-repulsive cover I've ever seen." (He doesn't name the most repulsive cover, which I would very much like to know.)