The Alternative Number Ones: Better Than Ezra’s “Good”

In The Alternative Number Ones, I’m reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it’s for members only. Thank you to everyone who’s helping to keep Stereogum afloat.

"Ah-haw!" "Wah-hawww!" "Ahhh-hawooowoahh, ah-haw!" "Ahhh-hoo-good!" There's a grand total of one actual word in those lyrics, and it's the title of the song. That's too bad. It feels like a missed opportunity. The English language is a miraculous human invention, a system capable of transmitting all kinds of thoughts and feelings and images and bits of information. But sometimes, the English language isn't enough. Better Than Ezra's "Good" is a good song in search of a good song title. "Good" is not a good song title, and that word is not the part of the song that everyone remembers. But thanks to the vagaries of music marketing, you can't really have a song called "Wah-hawww!" So "Good" just became the Better Than Ezra song. There are lots of Better Than Ezra songs, but "Good" is the Better Than Ezra song.

This column will get into the Better Than Ezra story, which is both mundane and miraculous in the same ways that so many '90s alt-rock stories are. In the realm of '90s alt-rock, you've got your legendary, canonized figures, and then you've got your "remember some guys" guys. Better Than Ezra fit firmly into the second category. "Good" was the first Better Than Ezra song that the world heard. They went on to make a lot of other songs, some of which were actual no-joke hits, none of which were hits on the level of "Good." They're still a band today, and frontman Kevin Griffin, like Geggy Tah's Greg Kurstin and 4 Non Blondes' Linda Perry and Semisonic's Dan Wilson, is one of those figures who became successful for-hire songwriters after their bands' brief hitmaking runs ended. But for so many of us, Better Than Ezra will always be the "wah-hawww!" band -- the group with the weird name who made a great, evanescent summer singalong and who will always exist in that one moment, like a faded Polaroid that we sometimes re-discover buried in a junk drawer. There are worse legacies than that.