The Alternative Number Ones: The Cure’s “Never Enough”

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.

In the summer of 1988, British youth culture went through the kind of sea change that it hadn't seen since the early days of punk and Two-Tone. It was the fabled Second Summer Of Love, the moment when rave music, drugs, and fashion suddenly swept all across the UK. Over there, rave went from underground phenomenon to mainstream sensation so quickly that authorities couldn't mobilize to shut that shit down until years later. Out of nowhere, throngs of kids were getting high out of their brains, dancing to Detroit techno and Chicago house in fields and abandoned castles. Some of those kids started making their own versions of Detroit techno and Chicago house, and some of those tracks started crashing the British pop charts.

At the time, I was nine years old and living in London temporarily while my dad, a history professor, was on sabbatical. To me, these hyperactive and jittery digital tracks were pop music; I hadn't really known a world before. Looking back today, I can only imagine how strange that phenomenon must've been to anyone who was even just a few years older than me. The established rock bands of that moment, especially the ones who weren't all that close to the mainstream, must've looked on with fascination. I'm sure some of those bands saw rave culture as an existential threat. Others definitely saw it as an exciting new artistic possibility, a way to push into new sounds and feelings. Some others certainly saw it as a way to cash in and make a little extra money. Maybe the Cure saw it as all three.