Favorite Songs of 1992

Throughout 1992, my main musical interest was in playing and replaying all of my favorite old Led Zeppelin songs. So it shouldn't be much of a surprise that my top favorite songs from that year were from the Led Zeppelin catalog: #1 Dazed and Confused (from Led Zeppelin I), and #2 No Quarter (from Houses of the Holy). But that's not to say there weren't plenty of great songs on the radio in 1992.

Speaking of Zeppelin, the band Soul Asylum had a hit I liked with their gloomy parody of that band in Somebody to Shove. REM came out with their incredible album Automatic for the People in 1992. Although I'd buy it later, at the time of its release I had only heard the intense lead-off track Drive. 1992 also marked the full invasion of the Seattle grunge rock movement, with several bands becoming famous. My grunge favorites were Nirvana's Come As You Are and Lithium (from Nevermind). Pearl Jam's album 10 featured tunes I liked in Even Flow, Black, and Jeremy. Later, I would purchase both albums, finding other great tracks from them (Stay Away from Nevermind and Oceans, my all-time #26 favorite song, from 10). The Australian group INXS, by this time beginning to wane in popularity but not in quality, produced my #21 all-time favorite song in 1992 with Not Enough Time. Spirit lifters from 1992 including Tom Cochrane's inspiring Life is a Highway and Snap!'s dreamy Rhythm is a Dancer. The Black Crowes, a promising band which ultimately disappointed me, did come out with two excellent, blues-laden pieces in Hotel Illness and Remedy. Richard Marx had a hit this year with the mysterious Hazard, while two real tearjerkers came out: Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You, and, of course, Eric Clapton's touching memorial to his lost little boy, Tears in Heaven.