“Valerie Loves Me” by Material Issue

"Valerie Loves Me" was the calling card of International Pop Overthrow, the 1991 debut from the American power pop trio Material Issue, and Mercury put it out as a single that same year. Jim Ellison, who sang and played guitar in the band, wrote it, and he builds it the way the form demands: a girl's name in the title, a tune that never loiters, and guitars bright enough to make you squint.

It's a sugar rush with a backbeat, unashamed of its own sweetness, and the modern rock crowd bit hard: the song climbed all the way to number three on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart, a long way up for a trio selling melody instead of menace.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.