March 6, 1993
- 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.
Belly represented the '90s alt-rock dream in action. A bunch of musicians with long histories on the underground fringes get together to form a new band, and they bring a sparkling and accessible new sound that doesn't shy away from the weird, intense left-of-center tendencies of their previous bands. They sign to a major label, land in the MTV Buzz Bin, and sell a half-million copies of their debut album. Pretty soon, they've got a handful of songs that middle schoolers will sing while they're playing HORSE out on the playground. I know this because I was singing Belly songs with my friends out on the eighth-grade playground. We didn't think it was weird because it really wasn't weird, or at least it shouldn't have been. But the societal forces that could turn Belly songs into eighth-grade playground singalongs couldn't last.
We still have buzz bands, and we presumably still have eighth-grade singalongs, but those two things don't interact that often. If kids are out there right now singing together, it might be Chappell Roan or Kendrick Lamar or Morgan Wallen or something. That's not inherently worse than if they were all out there singing Mk.gee or Wishy or Friko or whatever, but it's different. If you happened to be in eighth grade during the great early-'90s alt-rock boom, then you might've grown up with some unsustainable utopian ideas about the way that this shit is supposed to work.