Inherently Different

jane says

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Few songs have meant as much to me as the 1988 Jane’s Addiction anthem, Jane Says. Apparently I am not the only one who likes that song. In fact, in the first six months of 2001, it was broadcast more than 12,000 times, according to Mediabase, a company that monitors radio airplay. Despite being almost 20 years old, to this day Jane Says is apparently irresistible to anyone flipping through stations.

I can’t be sure, but I think the main reason why “Jane Says” has enjoyed such durability has more to do with when it was released than with the song itself. The late ’80s saw a great deal of pop-oriented rock released by such bands as Bon Jovi, Whitesnake and Guns N’ Roses. Clearly, the music produced by those bands has its own level of durability, but not in the same way “Jane Says” does. For those bands, there is a campy cachet to their music, but “Jane Says” is much more and resonates to this day.