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120 REASONS TO LIVE

120 Reasons To Live: Jellyfish

Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.

#82: Jellyfish “The Ghost At Number One”

Who made a song about a heroin junkie rock star’s downward spiral sound so much fun? Who decided it’d be a good idea, in the era of Nine Inch Nails and Alice In Chains, to put in some Partridge Family harpsichords and Beach Boys harmonies? God bless you, men of Jellyfish and the floppy hats and colorful scarves you wore. “The Ghost At Number One” is from 1993’s Spilt Milk, and the San Francisco band split up a year later. Did MAGNET already publish a post-mortem and follow-up on a ’90s power-pop band with a cult following? Yes.