Here's to Norm: Revisiting the 1995 Alternative Charts When Better Than Ezra Hit Number One
The grunge b-wave was a wild time, peaking with this Weekend Update joke.
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As many of you can relate, the passing of Norm MacDonald has hit me like a real gut punch this last week. I’m not one to usually get caught up in celebrity deaths, but Norm was my first Weekend Update anchor, and for my allowance at the time, the best part of Saturday Night Live in his few short years on the show. Dirty Work was also a VHS staple for my friends and me. Ahead of its time, a couple of guys starting their side hustle to pay for their father’s medical bills while battling a ruthless property developer is so 2021.
He was always way more brilliant than anyone else in the room, which doesn’t always prove to be everyone’s favorite brand of humor. But him being five steps ahead of everyone else always had a huge payoff, whether it was a laugh from the gut, a groan, or both simultaneously. I’ve always been an Andy Kaufman fan, but that was before my time, and Norm is the only other person I would put on that level of particular absurdist humor.
Like thousands of others, I’ve enjoyed watching standup clips and his appearances on talk shows the last few days, but a particular Weekend Update joke sent me down a rabbit hole. Amongst the tributes was a tweet from the mid-90s alternative band, Better Than Ezra:
Not only is this clip prime Norm MacDonald, but it taps into a specific time in music where grunge mainly had moved on, and we were left with the b-wave in the form of alternative rock. Of course, I needed to find out just what else was in the top ten when Better Than Ezra’s “Good” hit the top of the Billboard chart, formerly known as Alternative Songs and Modern Rock Tracks. It’s been a few months since I’ve featured an old charts dive, so here’s some leisurely YouTube watching to ease you into the weekend.
And when you’re finished, give Dirty Work a rewatch.
1. Better Than Ezra - “Good”
There was a real specific scene in the mid-90s that I file under “band names so stupid that you couldn’t make them up” that includes Better Than Ezra, Gin Blossoms, and Toad the Wet Sprocket. While the names are dumb, the multiple hits for all of these bands are damn fine pop songs, and I’ll continue to defend any of them.
Long live the Empire Records soundtrack.
2. Live - “Lightning Crashes”
This five-and-a-half-minute melodramatic song eventually hitting number one for ten straight weeks is mind-boggling now, showing how different the industry was twenty-five years ago. Live is a definite regret in my music past, having owned Throwing Copper and Secret Samadhi. They showed up at a festival I was at a few years ago, giving them the five minutes before looking for anything else going on, like a bathroom line.
3. Elastica - “Connection”
Formed by former Suede members Justine Frischmann and Justin Welch, Elastica had one album in the 90s that was a massive part of the Britpop Invasion. Sure, this song is lifted from Wire’s “Three Girl Rumba” which led to a lawsuit, but “Connection” and their self-titled record still rip.
4. Matthew Sweet - “Sick of Myself”
I’ve never understood Matthew Sweet, no matter how many ex-girlfriends tried to explain him to me.
5. Juliana Hatfield - “Universal Heart-Beat”
On her album, Only Everything, former Blake Babies’ singer Juliana Hatfield harnessed the power of Hole in the 90s and hired the producers from their mega-hit record, Live Through This. Hatfield is still making great music, something that cannot be said for most on this list. Blood, her latest from earlier this year, remains in my heavy rotation.
6. Sponge - “Plowed”
Sponge is absolutely the product of a record exec yelling, “get me the next Stone Temple Pilots,” down to the Scott Weiland hairdo, but honestly, there was worse out there. You might remember their second single, “Molly (16 Candles),” which also was all over the radio at this time.
7. PJ Harvey - “Down By The Water”
Always memorable from whispering, "little fish, big fish swimming in the water, come back here, man, gimme my daughter,” PJ Harvey found herself in the hot seat with this devastatingly catchy song about the unpleasant subject of drowning a child. Ah, the 90s.
The video also got the Beavis and Butt-Head treatment, with commentary that would no longer be acceptable. Like Juliana Hatfield, Harvey is an exception to this list, still releasing some of her finest material.
8. Adam Ant - “Wonderful”
One of a handful of artists from the 70s and 80s who successfully transitioned into the new alternative decade, Adam Ant left behind his Barry Lyndon cosplay for an acoustic effort on “Wonderful.” If it sounds like Ant is lifting from The Smiths, it could be because Morrissey’s guitarist, Boz Boorer, is on the track. It’s a great song that was everywhere in the mid-90s, but I’ll take Johnny Marr any day.
9. Bush - “Little Things”
On Sixteen Stone, Gavin Rossdale swallowed a mouthful of gravel over Nirvana apeing power chords, and everyone couldn’t get enough, myself included. “Little Things” was the second of five(!) singles from the album, on its way to going platinum six times. Bush never hit these heights with diminishing returns on each album, but go to a hockey game or step into any townie’s F-150, and you’re still going to hear multiple songs from the record.
10. Our Lady Peace - “Starseed”
I honestly don’t remember this one, but I also didn’t grow up in Canada. It was on their next album, Clumsy that the Toronto-based band would take over the United States. Another five single success, the record would feature “Superman’s Dead” and the title track, while touring with Third Eye Blind, who of course feature in the opening to Dirty Work, along with hundreds of other movies and television shows in the late-90s and early 00s.
Have a favorite Norm MacDonald bit? Share it here, or let me know your thoughts on any of these alternative chart toppers!
R.I.P. Norm - this is a great tribute