February 9, 1991
- 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 members only. Thank you to everyone who's helping to keep Stereogum afloat.
Remember optimism? You might not. You might've been too young. You might not have even been born yet. Or maybe you were so secure in your foul opinion of the world, of humanity as a whole, that the brief tide of good feelings passed you by entirely. I barely remember, and I don't know if I bought it even then, when I was like 10 years old. But for a brief moment around the turn of the '90s, it became popular to believe that things were looking up -- that we might've even reached the vaunted "end of history," as an incredibly dumb 1992 Francis Fukuyama book put it.
In November 1989, the Berlin wall came down. In the months that followed, the Iron Curtain quickly crumbled, which led to the USSR finally dissolving in 1991. For the first time in generations, it seemed like maybe you wouldn't be instantaneously incinerated in a nuclear fireball. Nelson Mandela was freed from prison in 1990. The Gulf War ended fairly quickly and quietly, as these things go, in January 1991. Western intellectuals started to embrace the idea that the whole world would soon be united under a liberal democratic order, and plenty of regular people bought in. Also, generational shifts were happening, and baby boomers were starting to rise to positions of power around the world. For a minute there, people actually thought this might be a good thing.