“What's The Frequency Kenneth?” by R.E.M.

"What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" kicked off R.E.M.'s ninth studio album, Monster, as its first single, released by Warner Bros. in September 1994, and it's the sound of the band stomping hard on the fuzz pedal. The odd title comes from a bizarre 1986 incident in New York City, when two attackers set upon the newsman Dan Rather while repeating a garbled question about Kenneth and a frequency.

Michael Stipe sings it with a sly, half-bewildered sneer, Peter Buck's guitar is thick with fuzz and glam swagger, and Mike Mills and Bill Berry push it along at a strut. All four wrote it, and Scott Litt produced it with the band. Peter Care's video keeps things simple, the band thrashing away under flashing lights in shifting colors.

It made history as the first song ever to debut at number one on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart, got to 21 on the Hot 100, and went to two in Canada, four in New Zealand and nine in the UK, with four weeks on top in Iceland. It was the only Monster song picked for both of the band's career-spanning compilations, In Time and Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage, and it became a live staple, played at every show of the 2008 Accelerate tour.

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