How To Show A Friend (Or A Vague Acquaintance) That You Care: Send Him An Alice In Chains Or Two

Facebook, as you probably know, is a social-networking site that allows its users to basically fall down a rabbit-hole of whiling away time that could otherwise be spent outside, or curing cancer, or even, I don’t know, reading. One of the odd customs of the social-networking site involves bestowing presents upon others–sending friends virtual birthday cakes, martinis, that sort of thing. The presents sent from friend to friend have grown more esoteric as the site’s population has mushroomed, and one of my favorite gift-giving opportunities is Old School Seattle Rock, which involves the sending and receiving of bands from the golden age of Sub Pop Rock City. Yesterday I was thinking about maybe sending some Fastbacks to a pal, and I wondered, “Hmm, what could the most popular bands on this site be? Pearl Jam has to be No. 1, right?” Well, not really! The top five (as of this writing):

Alice In Chains* (2,411) Mother Love Bone* (1,998) Green River (1,578) Soundgarden (1,317) Nirvana (1,113)

It should be noted that the Staley-era AIC is the one that friends can gift to friends, so I doubt people will be more likely to gift their friends with AIC once the band’s new record, with Staley replacement William DuVall on lead vocals comes out this fall. But

So Mother Love Bone is No. 2… but where’s the band that rose from the post-Andrew Wood OD ashes, Pearl Jam? While they’re not at the bottom of the 56-band roster, they are not so high on the “other bands of note” list that I compiled (some names are starred, because they’re ones that I’ve either sent or received to my friends):

Malfunkshun (1,099) 7 Year Bitch* (1,095) Mad Season* (1,054) Mudhoney (625) Screaming Trees (541) Flop* (409) Tad (366) Pearl Jam (345) Fastbacks (283)

Nothing against Pearl Jam, who I do like, but there is something kind of awesome about there being one piece of the universe where Flop–one of the most unheralded powerpop bands of the early ’90s, you know!–outranks them in popularity.

Old School Seattle Rock [Facebook]