February 1, 1997
- STAYED AT #1:4 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. The column is now biweekly, alternating with The Number Ones on Mondays.
LA punks Bad Religion have made a lot of albums over the years, but there's only one that'll remain out of print until the end of time. In 1983, Bad Religion were coming off of their raw and scrappy debut How Could Hell Be Any Worse?, which came out the previous year and which is now justly remembered as a hardcore classic. Most of the guys in Bad Religion were still teenagers when they made their second album, and they didn't want to make the same record again. Instead, they started playing around with proggy keyboards and plush harmonies, and they went someplace weird.
Bad Religion's forever-disowned 1983 record Into The Unknown is a fascinating little curio. The band, unsure where to go next, combined the barreling, stentorian punk of their debut with the kind of yuppie studio-rock that was hugely popular in those days, the Journey/Asia/REO Speedwagon thing. Maybe that wasn't what the band meant to make, but it's where they found themselves. The punk underground immediately and forcefully rejected Into The Unknown, and the band, chastened and stung, immediately broke up. When they got back together a couple of years later, they signaled that they would never do anything like that again. Their next record was called Back To The Known.