Max Picks …songs from 1990

1990

The La’s – There She Goes

This song played a key part in making me love the power pop genre. It’s one of my favorite power pop songs of all time. It was originally released in 1988 but wasn’t played over in America until 1990. So I’m cheating on this but I had no way of hearing it before then.

A song by a British band called The La’s. A very good pop song that has no verses…it just repeats the chorus four different ways four different times. It was written by the singer Lee Mavers and recorded in 1988 and remixed and released again in 1990. It only peaked at #49 in 1990 in the US.

Many people think the song was about heroin. Paul Hemmings an ex-guitarist for the band denies that rumor. Either way, it is a perfectly constructed pop song. It’s been covered by a lot of artists but probably most successfully by Sixpence None the Richer. I’ve always liked The La’s version the best.

The Black Crowes – Hard To Handle

When I heard this song in 1990 I was thrilled because it sounded like the Faces of the 70s. It was plain rock and roll and had a timeless quality about it. I waited the entire 1980s for rock and roll like this to be back on the mainstream charts. The Replacements were the other rock band but not in the charts. It happened occasionally (Georgia Satellites and Guns and Roses) but not much. This song was originally recorded by Otis Redding, who wrote it with Allen Jones and Al Bell. It was the only cover song on The Black Crowes debut album which sold over five million copies.

The album also had songs like Jealous Again and She Talks To Angels. I knew things were changing when I saw the success of their album.

The two other versions that I like are Otis Redding and Grateful Dead version with Pigpen taking the lead.

The Replacements – Merry Go Round

This one is off of their last studio album All Shook Down. I was going to conclude with this one having one off of their studio albums but there is one more coming next week.

This is not my favorite off the album but it did have a commercial sound for that time and it’s something that I thought would have charted in the Billboard 100. Merry Go Round did peak at #1 on the alternative charts. The album peaked at #69 in the Billboard Album Chart in 1990.

“Merry Go Round” was written about the lives of Westerberg and his sister Mary (“They ignored me with a smile, you as a child”).

The band went to Los Angeles to make a video for Merry Go Round. With Westerberg’s okay, Warner Bros. hired Bob Dylan’s twenty-three-year-old son Jesse Dylan, who was just starting to direct.

AC/DC – Thunderstruck

As much as I love Angus Young’s intro to this…it’s his brother’s rhythm guitar that makes this song go. Brothers Angus and Malcolm Young wrote this song.

A side note to this song. In 2012 a couple of Iranian uranium-enrichment plants were hacked and their computers shut down but not before blasting Thunderstruck at maximum volume like you are probably doing right now or will be soon.

The album was recorded with producer Bruce Fairbairn at his Little Mountain Sound Studios in Vancouver, where he also produced Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet and the Aerosmith albums Permanent Vacation and Pump. It was the group’s first time working with Fairbairn.

Sinéad O’Connor – Nothing Compares 2 U

This song was everywhere in 1990. Prince wrote this song in 1984 but didn’t release it. He gave it to a group called The Family that was signed to his label. The Family included it on a 1985 album but it never went anywhere. Five years later it became the biggest hit of 1990.  Prince recorded his own version as well, but it wasn’t released until 2018, two years after his death.

It was O’Connor’s manager, Fachtna O’Kelly, who suggested she record a version of the track. O’Kelly knew it would be perfect for her.

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

60 thoughts on “Max Picks …songs from 1990”

  1. Love The La’s track, and Sinead’s, memories of my parents going into a McDonalds as it was on the radio in the car in Florida. Not much of anecdote but I was keeping an eye on my niece and nephew in the car who are now 40 and 39! 6 and 5 at the time!

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  2. The La’s song could be just a love song where a admires a girl who is able to heal this his pain, but some people feel it is about using heroin. The Grateful Dead used to do Hard To Handle when Pig Pen was in the group. I read that Nothing Compares 2 U was inspired by Prince’s housekeeper, Sandy Scipioni, who left him to be with her family after her father died. That video creeps me out with Sinéad’s head looking like it is just floating in the air.

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  3. All winners here, Max. Nothing Compares 2 U is such a beautiful, haunting song. I like both Sinead and Prince’s versions. And yes, I just got done blasting Thunderstruck…but I gotta be careful as there is a quarry nearby…🔊

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  5. Oh you made Deke’s day there Max, with AC-DC and Black Crowes! I like ‘There She Goes’, pretty simple power-pop tune that’s very catchy. ‘Nothing Compares 2U’ is brilliant, and the only really, really big hit song I seem to remember from that year off the top of my head. I’d have to look over a list from that year, seems like a year when I must’ve been listening mostly to stuff from 1989 still.

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    1. Dave…it was the hardest year I have ever had to pick from bar none…. No REM to go along with The Replacments…some were easy but I liked the O’Connor song…but it wasn’t one I listened to a lot back then…
      The Black Crowes marked a change to me…the 80s started to end around this time.

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      1. you’re right about that . Now I remember, ‘Violator’ by Depeche Mode was big that year, and I liked it but not as much as their previous couple of records…. they were getting louder and more guitarsy, as if they had foreseen grunge taking off soon. Around that time was the last of Springsteen, Petty, Mellencamp having real huge success at home with new records , new wave was done inasmuch as we knew it in the ’80s and new stuff was coming around- some like the Black Crowes not bad , but rap was becoming ubiquitous I suppose in this country and boy bands were starting to take over from conventional pop bands (like say Crowded House for instance). Indeed, my memory suggests I agree with you, not a great year for music or easy to pick a lot of greats from.

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      2. You will know the reason I stop in 1995 if you haven’t guessed already lol.
        I did around 4 of these in advance…now I have to start on 1991…

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      3. Wot Dave says. My Gawd, I get up in the morning to comment and my words wither and die as my fingers stall at the keyboard as I look at what the other commentators have said. Only thing I’ll say is that nowadays I turn down ‘Thunderstruck.’ I’m pretty much Younged out. (Shhhhh, don’t tell DeKe.)

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  6. An excellent list and I agree with the comments about it being a tough year, it would be for me as well. Couple songs for the ages, on different ends of the spectrum, Thunderstruck and Nothing Compares to you.

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  9. This was, at least it seems to me and a few who follow this site, the start of turning away from the charts- slim pickings there- and literally finding Alternative music, at least something more fulfilling than the new damfangled chart topping tosh. (‘Oh, shuddup Grandad’ sez the new generation,’this is our turf now.’ No worries, chaps, I’ll grab a set of earphones and a Walkman and you can play your boom box all you want – just so I don’t have to endure it, everyone’s happy.)

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    1. Yes…and I have 5 more years…I didn’t think this year would be this hard but yes it was…I would say The La’s and Black Crowes were automatic…but the rest I searched for.
      I agree….the line was being drawn around this time.

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  10. You cannot go wrong with that Crowes album and I really still to this day enjoy The Razor’s Edge album even though the opening track has been played a billion times lol

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    1. LOL… I thought you would like this one… The Black Crowes were huge to me that year…this is when new wave started to die.

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      2. It is interesting from them…a little different from their other albums. For the first time I think they were at least trying to be a little more in the center of mainstream.

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    1. Yes it is…and….I love a British band called Ride…I don’t think they had any number 1s though…speaking of great pop songs…didn’t know if you knew them.

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      1. I know the band, but couldn’t confidently say I know any of their songs. Definitely no big hits! Though their guitarist Andy Bell joined Oasis in the late 90s, and had a few #1s with them.

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    1. Thats me also…I credit Big Star who an older brother of a friend introduced me to but when this came out it was love at first listen…and I started to follow power pop after this…or jangle or whatever.

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  15. Another solid set of songs, Max. While you may find it harder to identify songs you dig as you move along, I think this proves you can find great music in any year. That said, it’s going to get harder.

    I had completely forgotten about “There She Goes,” which I agree is a very seductive power pop tune. I never knew the name of the band. “Hard to Handle” is the Black Crowes” at the their best, IMHO. Thanks for continuing to feature The Replacements – another great song! After I initially didn’t think very highly of them, I’ve really come to dig AC/DC and their balls-out rock & roll. “Thunderstruck” may not be among among favorites, but I think it’s still pretty solid and classic AC/DC. And while it certainly hasn’t suffered from obscurity, I also still like Sinéad O’Connor’s powerful rendition of “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

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    1. This was the hardest year…the next year REM saves me and a few others.
      There She Goes…along with Big Star and Badfinger set me on my power pop way.

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