Top Alternative Rock Songs of 1988 (Partial Billboard List, See Description)

Описание: The chart began on September 10, 1988 and started with 30 positions.

This video counts down the top songs played on alternative rock (also known as modern rock) radio stations in the United States in 1988, as tracked by Billboard's Modern Rock/Alternative Airplay chart. The card at the beginning of the video shows what is defined as the "chart year". It's a little different from the typical calendar year.

The chart year is defined in the Dec 24, 1988 issue of Billboard Magazine, which can be found on the worldradiohistory website. For this one, you don't really need that because the chart began in September.

The labels "alternative" and "modern" can mean just about anything in the context of a corporate and ever-changing entity like radio. Think of it as a sort of redundancy, whatever's hot one year might not be played the next year. Whatever radio stations across the country played in large during the year is what's present here. You'll hear a lot of sounds, some of which may not even necessarily relate to rock music.

This chart is ranked weekly by the amount of spins accrued each week, from 1-30, 1 having the most spins and 30 having the least.

Usually, a year end chart like this would be ranked by the amount of spins accrued throughout the chart year. Because Billboard doesn't ever release these in full, some estimation is required. I made this list using my own calculations.

PK = peak, or the highest a song got on the weekly ranking in a chart year

WKS = weeks, or the amount of time a song spent in weeks in a chart year

So, this list is so short because Billboard officially started it pretty late into the year. I have no idea why they didn't just wait ten more weeks until the 1989 chart year to start this chart up. That makes this a very weird video, because the list is so short. I imagine most people aren't going to watch this one. There are only 38 songs here which did not appear in another list in some form. Still, this video exists for the sake of completion. And completion I plan on doing!

I've gotten approval from AAACharts to use his highly accurate full year end alt lists from 2016 going forward to make these videos! These lists are probably the most accurate out of all of the lists I'll upload, because from 2016-2021 or so he formulated them using the actual spin count data provided by Nielsen. Even after they stopped providing the data to the public, he's been doing it himself using his own calculations, and they are always pretty accurate. First comes 1996-2008 but expect these too within the next year!

These are the 65 songs that started out the alt chart! Most of them couldn't make it onto the ranking past 1994 or 1995, let alone the 21st century. There are three from this list that jumped the gap from the 20th century to the 21st century: U2, Jane's Addiction, and Debbie Harry! The other two are no surprise, but yes, we're going to see Debbie Harry again. If you can guess what year she's in, you get... a virtual cookie? I dunno.

It also goes without saying that if you want to hear the M. S. songs that have charted on Alt Airplay in full, find a way to contact me and I'll help you access them. The song named after Alaska's largest city is up here on YouTube but I think otherwise she has some sort of problem with her music being up on the internet. Seems like she DMCA'd all her work on the internet a year or two ago. I'm being stupidly vague in case somehow mentioning her name warrants this video being taken down. She is quite literally the only artist related to this chart that's had this stipulation, at least as of 2025. In some cases, it's easier than ever to access even the most obscure titles that charted. With her, not so much.