Pop quiz: What was the biggest Modern Rock hit from Pearl Jam’s Ten? The answer is “Jeremy,” which peaked at No. 5 in 1992. But if we brought the recent reissue of the 18-year-old album into the mix, the answer would not be “Jeremy,” “Even Flow,” or “Alive”—it would be “Brother,” a bonus track that was released to radio and has topped the Modern Rock chart for the past two weeks. Surprisingly, “Brother” is only the band’s fourth Modern Rock chart-topper, and it joins an odd lot: 1993’s “Daughter” (also a Mainstream Rock No. 1), 1996’s “Who You Are,” and 2006’s “World Wide Suicide.”
Pearl Jam’s four No. 1s are far behind the record (11, held by the Red Hot Chili Peppers); instead, they’re in the less impressive company of Incubus. But Pearl Jam are still one of alternative rock radio’s most ubiquitous bands, and there is one statistic that reflects that: The group has 33 charting titles on Modern Rock, a number bested only by U2, who notched up to 36 with their current single, “Magnificent.” At different points over the years Pearl Jam have taken the lead, and they may yet when their next album comes out. It’s purely an academic exercise to look at it like a competition, though, given Pearl Jam’s general sense of embarrassment about their own success and U2’s load of other, more impressive records and accolades.
Still, Pearl Jam’s own shyness about how popular Ten made them has, in a way, contributed to their enduring success at radio. Much like Led Zeppelin’s refusal to release singles of its most popular songs helped make their entire albums classic rock staples, Pearl Jam’s abandonment of music videos for most of the ‘90s—at the height of MTV’s tastemaking power—helped drive radio play for the band’s non-singles. Instead of video play dictating an album’s hits, radio programmers and fans figured out what songs they liked the most. Even today, four of the band’s 10 most-played Modern Rock recurrents were never released as singles: “Black” (from Ten); “Yellow Ledbetter,” (a B-side); and “Better Man” and “Corduroy” (from Vitalogy—both have proven to be more popular any of that album’s three official singles, “Spin The Black Circle,” “Not For You,” and “Immortality”). Nowadays, the band makes videos occasionally, and radio stations make less of an effort to champion deep cuts off their less popular recent albums. So it’s appropriate that “Brother,” recorded way back in 1991, has kind of brought them back to the days when a Pearl Jam song that was kind of offhandedly thrown to the public could become a massive radio hit.
It’s not often I go to bat for a painfully unhip band in this space; usually it’s enough just to defend an individual Nickelback song to forever mark me as an apologist for their entire existence. But right now I have to say I’m kinda riding for Papa Roach. I never liked “Last Resort,” their 2000 debut single and permanent contribution to the canon of lunkhead jock jams. But in the years since then, they’ve become a consistent purveyor of hooky hard rock singles, even if the band’s more guyliner-heavy image is no less embarrassing than it was before. In fact, they’re probably doing My Chemical Romance-style dramatically screechy rock anthems better than MCR at this point. “She Loves Me Not,” “Scars,” “To Be Loved,” “Forever,” and “Time Is Running Out” were all guilty pleasures for me. So I should just man up and admit that I love their new single “Lifeline,” which is currently at No. 3 on Modern Rock and No. 2 on Mainstream Rock; it seems destined to top both charts. Dig that riff:
As an aesthetic, “indie rock” has had a presence on the Modern Rock chart to some degree for years, but bands with no major-label ties are still few and far between. No matter how many records that, say, Arcade Fire sells on an indie, they’ll probably never get enough spins to get in Modern Rock top 20 without major-label radio promotion muscle. And usually the indie bands that get little bits of radio play are the kind of overexposed ones I don’t care much for like, well, the Arcade Fire. But lately I’ve been cheering on a humble chart run by Jersey punk band the Gaslight Anthem, signed to the tiny label SideOneDummy. They’ve spent the last 10 weeks in the lower reaches of the Modern Rock chart, peaking at No. 35 with “The ‘59 Sound,” the title track from their 2008 album that ended up on a lot of critics’ year-end lists, including my own. They’re just barely hanging on at No. 40, so I’m guessing their run is almost over. But it’s been exciting to find them hanging in over the past few weeks, and I hope they return with a real hit sooner than later. And whether they go major to do it or not doesn’t really matter to me; they deserve to be huge.
@Cos: heh. You said it before I did.
@2ironic4u: I’m not disagreeing with this, active rock and active/alt hybrid stations are definitely hanging in there way better than traditional modern rock stations and that’s helping to skew things. But even at the height of indie-friendly alt-rock radio there were not many major hits coming from actual indie labels.
@tim_loves_cats: tribute acts, then?
@Cos: I’ll concede to that. The tide will turn at punknews evetually, it always does.
Is it me or does that Papa Roach track sound a lot like Social Distortion?
I still have to give PJ mad props for managing their career better than pretty much any act of their class.
While Sony has to be given credit for their promo work, the band never allowed themselves to get all burnt out in terms of overexposure and doing dumb things. While other acts were busy milking that early ’90s teat for all it was worth, PJ took their time and often disappeared altogether. And their rabid fan base still loves them for it.
I still have to give PJ mad props for managing their career better than pretty much any act of their class.
While Sony has to be given credit for their promo work, the band never allowed themselves to get all burnt out in terms of overexposure and doing dumb things. While other acts were busy milking that early ’90s teat for all it was worth, PJ took their time and often disappeared altogether. And their rabid fan base still loves them for it.
I still have to give PJ mad props for managing their career better than pretty much any act of their class.
While Sony has to be given credit for their promo work, the band never allowed themselves to get all burnt out in terms of overexposure and doing dumb things. While other acts were busy milking that early ’90s teat for all it was worth, PJ took their time and often disappeared altogether. And their rabid fan base still loves them for it.
I still have to give PJ mad props for managing their career better than pretty much any act of their class.
While Sony has to be given credit for their promo work, the band never allowed themselves to get all burnt out in terms of overexposure and doing dumb things. While other acts were busy milking that early ’90s teat for all it was worth, PJ took their time and often disappeared altogether. And their rabid fan base still loves them for it.
I still have to give PJ mad props for managing their career better than pretty much any act of their class.
While Sony has to be given credit for their promo work, the band never allowed themselves to get all burnt out in terms of overexposure and doing dumb things. While other acts were busy milking that early ’90s teat for all it was worth, PJ took their time and often disappeared altogether. And their rabid fan base still loves them for it.
I still have to give PJ mad props for managing their career better than pretty much any act of their class.
While Sony has to be given credit for their promo work, the band never allowed themselves to get all burnt out in terms of overexposure and doing dumb things. While other acts were busy milking that early ’90s teat for all it was worth, PJ took their time and often disappeared altogether. And their rabid fan base still loves them for it.
I still have to give PJ mad props for managing their career better than pretty much any act of their class.
While Sony has to be given credit for their promo work, the band never allowed themselves to get all burnt out in terms of overexposure and doing dumb things. While other acts were busy milking that early ’90s teat for all it was worth, PJ took their time and often disappeared altogether. And their rabid fan base still loves them for it.
@2ironic4u: I did not, but I swear I’ve seen Matt Pinfield walking around my town before.
And I think it’s just the combination of the spirit that Gaslight resemble, mixed with terrific energy and musicianship.
I’ve yet to hear Brother on the radio, but when I do, you can bet your sweet sassy ass I’ll be grinning ear-to-ear.
But corporate rock? Huh? This aint corporate rock, man. Nothing at all about Pearl Jam’s past has so much as hinted at that idea.
@Firecloud: True. For a band their entire career on major labels, there’s not much of a corporate platform. Certainly not their failed–but highly commendable–fight with TicketMaster, whose side Billy Corgan is taking these days. Good grief.
I’ve always been impressed with the amount of airplay “Yellow Ledbetter” received (and receives, I assume). The idea that a B-side, in an era where full-length-album-CDs were the norm (at least in America), could become so popular is pretty impressive, both for the band and for the radio station DJ’s and programmers that were responsible for playing it, simply because it was a good song.
I’ll never be able to prove this, but vintage PJ tracks like “Better Man” and “Corduroy” had to have been getting some Sony promo muscle back in the ’90s, because stations like Z100 New York were playing the shit out of them at the height of alternapop’s radio dominance. Nothing gets played at major-market Top 40 radio unless someone’s payola’ing it. That said, I agree with your larger point re: Pearl Jam spreading out the radio love by deemphasizing their obvious “singles.”
And I’ll man up while you are: I like that Papa Roach single, too. They kind of run that riff into the ground by the song’s final minute, but it’s a good riff.
CUT MY PIE INTO PIECES
THIS IS MY LAST DESERT
Actually, Arcade Fire did manage one Modern Rock Top 40 hit, with - of all songs - “Keep The Car Running”.
Sadly, according to Mediabase [www.mediabase.com] “The ‘59 Sound” finally has dropped out of the Top 40 Alternative Airplay. On the bright side, Silversun Pickups (who are on another small indie label, Dangerbird) are on track to have their third Top 10 hit sometime in the next few weeks. Other than that, the only songs by bands on indie labels this week are “No You Girls” by Franz Ferdinand (on Domino, Epic handles the distribution) and “I’ve Got Friends” by Atlanta emo-prog band Manchester Orchestra (on Canvasback, Columbia handles distribution).
And why the hell are alternative stations playing Asher Roth?
@Chris Molanphy: “Better Man” just didn’t simply get “muscle”, it was the band’s biggest Top 40 airplay hit (in fact, it got more airplay than “Last Kiss” and “Daughter” combined).
Even today, four of the band’s 10 most-played Modern Rock recurrents were never released as singles: “Black” (from Ten); “Yellow Ledbetter,” (a B-side); and “Better Man” and “Corduroy” (from Vitalogy-both have proven to be more popular any of that album’s three official singles, “Spin The Black Circle,” “Not For You,” and “Immortality”).
Quick footnote to this that I forgot to mention: you can bring the number up to 5 for “Elderly Woman,” if you don’t count the version that was released as a promo single from Live On Two Legs in ‘98.
@DocStrange: Yeah, I know Arcade Fire cracked the top 40, but I said they’d never go top 20.
I would rather alt-rock stations play Asher Roth than rap stations, to be honest.
@Al Shipley: Don’t get me wrong, I love it when alternative radio plays off-the-beaten path alternative/underground rap artists like P.O.S., Aesop Rock and El-P, but Asher Roth’s terrible frat rap has no worth on the alternative charts. It has to be the least alternative song to ever chart on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, and i’m talking about a chart where Loreena McKennit had a top 20 hit and AC/DC had a Top 40 hit.
@DocStrange: Nah…there are way less “alternative” rap songs that have charted on MR, including AR’s idol Eminem. “I Love College” interpolates “Say It Ain’t So,” which basically puts it in the same rap + Weezer category that made Dynamite Hack’s “Boyz In The Hood” an alt-rock staple.
Al, “Scars” was the most unbearable thing I’ve ever endured on modern rock radio. Never expected that one day I’d meet up with somebody repping for it.
The power of this Monday has clearly launched me into a mirror universe.
I don’t know if it’ll boost them back onto the charts or not, but the Gaslight Anthem are on the cover of the new issue of Alternative Press…and I’ll rep for that Papa Roach single, too. Their new album is surprisingly strong. I think they’re one of those bands like Chimaira, where a d-baggy debut has permanently sabotaged what could otherwise be a respectable career.
@Brad Nelson: Well, “Scars” is probably my least favorite of the string of singles I mentioned, but it has a nice drum part in the verses, so I threw it in there.
@Chris Molanphy: Chris, you are correct. After the station I worked at was serviced with “Spin the Black Circle,” the Epic rep said as soon as the album was in our hands that “Better Man” would be their next “emphasis” track. They wanted to push it, the band didn’t, so Epic got around it by hinting “here’s the non-single single we want you to play.” Same with “Black” as well, as Epic told us they couldn’t push that song, but did so anyway using our indie promoter as a back door way of doing it.
@Marth: I can say that we got the tip about “Yellow Ledbetter” from a station out in the Midwest (Milwaukee I think?) that our PD at [redacted] was friendly with. The song was taking off there, so the PD told me (I was MD at the time) to go out and find the single if I could at one of the local record stores. I did (both the studio and live versions), played it that night and we added it into regular rotation that next day. I even had to reprint the logs for a couple of days because we wanted to get this “new” Pearl Jam track in there. At that time listeners ate up anything that we could give them that they didn’t have on their own copies of Ten. I never saw that kind of passion before, and never saw it again honestly.
“As an aesthetic, “indie rock” has had a presence on the Modern Rock chart to some degree for years, but bands with no major-label ties are still few and far between. No matter how many records that, say, Arcade Fire sells on an indie, they’ll probably never get enough spins to get in Modern Rock top 20 without major-label radio promotion muscle.”
It doesn’t really have to do with record sales. The real reason “indie rock” artists don’t burn up the Modern Rock charts is because the stations that choose to play them often end up dissapearing all the while stations that report as “Alternative” (but are really Active Rock) stay alive by pumping the constant mix of Shinedown, Hinder, Nickelback mixed in with the safe acts (Foo Fighters, RCHP, Linkin Park, Pearl Jam, etc.) It boils down to the fact that if you’re a radio listener in 2009 and you like rock music, chances are, you’re more apt to want to hear Shinedown’s “Second Chance” than MGMT’s “Kids”
I saw Gaslight Anthem Friday night at Webster Hall. Wowsers. This band is going to be massive soon.
Seeing as Bruce Springsteen never went away, I fail to see the excitement around The Gaslight Anthem.
Maybe I’m just saying that as a dedicated (still) punknews.org user, and I’m a little put off by how much hype the band gets over there for being much less than special
@SteveLepore: I was at the same show. Did you see Matt Pinfield (and his bald head) in the balcony?
@Cos: The boss doesn’t play in 800-person clubs, it’s nice to have something you can get behind from when it started. If I heard Springsteen for the very first time today I wouldn’t know where to start, he’s got so many albums.
I’d like to note that “Yellow Ledbetter” wasn’t just a B-side, but the B-side of a single that was only available (at the time) via import.
Al, surely it’ll be interesting to see what the first new single from Incubus’ Hits record, which premiered today on KROQ, does in terms of charting?
I’m late to this party, but it seems like ‘94-’96 saw a lot of non-album singles getting pushes from labels. REM’s “Wake-Up Bomb” charted in the lower reaches of the Top 40 despite never being a single; it was just the best song on that album when the band was insisting on pushing dirges like “E-Bow the Letter.”