32. The Creatures, “Fury Eyes”

Siouxsie and the Banshees were coming off of one of their biggest hits — the single “Peek-A-Boo” from the 1988 album Peepshow — when key band members Siouxsie Sioux and Budgie slipped away to a musical pseudonym they’d established a few years earlier. The Creatures’ sophomore album, Boomerang, was released in November, 1989, and “Fury Eyes” served as its second single. Based on the novel In the Eyes of Mr. Fury, the song uses a rollicking dance beat and typically oblique and archly poetic lyrics to get at themes of community intrusiveness into private lives. Although the single was following up a comfortable college radio hit — the album’s sterling lead single, “Standing There” — the band felt like “Fury Eyes” could use some punching up to make it more commercial, which led to the hiring of Pascal Gabriel to craft remixes.

This cut was making its debut on the chart.

31. Loop, “Arc-Lite”

At the time Loop released the single “Arc-Lite,” the British band was routinely forced to testily refute a comparison to another up-and-coming alternative band. Instead of the usual culprit noting soundalike qualities — the music press — it was the band supposedly echoed band leveling the charges. It was Peter Kempfer, better known as Sonic Boom, the leader of Spacemen 3, who came straight out and said Loop was stealing his band’s sound. “Arc-Lite” officially arrived between the band’s second and third albums, and stood independent from both, though it was eventually wrapped into the third full-length, A Gilded Eternity, released in 1990. That was also Loop’s final album. The band broke up in 1991, with the inevitable reunion occurring in 2013.

This cut was making its debut on the chart.

30. Psychefunkapus, “Jesus Crispies”

Psychefunkapus were park of the San Francisco punk scene in the late nineteen-eighties, playing a brand of music that mixed up mix with hard rock and even a touch of ska. The result was a little like Fishbone’s boisterousness melded with the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s bravado, and then hit doused with a Magic Shell layer of the anxious speed metal that flared up in response to the hair bands of the era. Unlikely to become true hitmakers, the band somehow got signed to Atlantic Records and released their self-titled debut in 1990. “Jesus Crispies” came from that album.

This cut was making its debut on the chart.

29. Nine Inch Nails, “Down in It”

Before Nine Inch Nails was considered one of the seminal acts of the nineteen-nineties, before songs became unlikely Top 40 hits, and before Trent Reznor was an Oscar-winning composer entirely deserving of the prize, there was just a band from Cleveland making caustic, confrontational dance music. “Down in It” was Nine Inch Nail’s introduction to the nation. Released as the lead single from the band’s debut album, Pretty Hate Machine, “Down in It” was, according to Reznor, directly inspired by the music of Skinny Puppy. The lyrics alluded to a recently dashed relationship, which undoubtedly fueled the intensity of Reznor’s vocals. Among the many other beginnings the track represents, “Down In It” is usually named as Reznor’s very first completed piece of songwriting. It’s a debut in every way.

This cut was down from 19 the previous week.

I wrote about the chart we’re tracking through at the beginning of this particular Countdown. Previous entries can be found at the relevant tag.

As we go along, I’ll build a YouTube playlist of all the songs in the countdown. The hyperlinks associated with each numeric entry lead directly to the individual song on the playlist.