WHAT'S THE MODERN ROCK equivalent of "Stairway to Heaven?" At KITS "Live 105" San Francisco, it's New Order's "Blue Monday," which took first place in the Memorial Day Live 1-0-500. At WDRE Long Island, N.Y., which ran a similar listener-voted countdown, the winner was a song you may not have heard of. Alphaville's "Forever Young" is 3½ years old. It charted at No. 93 as the follow-up to "Big in Japan" (itself only a top 60 hit). And it's WDRE's perennial top request as well as No. 3 on the KITS countdown.

Ever since KROQ Los Angeles surprised the industry in 1986 by running a solid-gold weekend, then switching, at least for a while, to a 50-50 gold-current mix, several modern rockers have been leaning more on their libraries - especially with about 11 years of material around.

Some of their staples are indie label obscurities like the Normal's "Warm Leatherette." Some are completely indigenous to the format, such as Depeche Mode's "Blasphemous Rumors," which finished 12th on WDRE. A few, such as U2's "Pride (In the Name of Love)" (No. 10 at KITS and No. 2 at WDRE), or Modern English's "I Melt With You" (No. 2 KITS, No. 5 WDRE) are still heard in other formats.

While the recently remixed "Blue Monday" built its cult status on five years of club play, "Forever Young" is so slow and creamy that Laura Brannigan could cover it (and did). While "Forever" was the top record of 1985 at WPST Trenton, N.J., where it is still played as an oldie, it hasn't been passed from one hip, top 40 PD to another. (Both "Blue Monday" and "I Melt With You" have.) It's not even played everywhere in its own format. It has shown up at various Long Island high schools as a class song in recent years. The song's popularity among teens may be due to its emphasis on mortality, a running theme in the bopper hits of the '70s.

Rounding out KITS's top 10 were No. 4, "How Soon is Now" by the moths (also No. 4 at WDRE); No. 5, "I Can't Get Enough" by Depeche Mode (No. 9 at wdre); No. 6, "Halloween" by Ministry; No. 7, "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell; No. 8, "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division; and No. 9, "Let's Go To Bed" by the Cure. On WDRE's list were No. 3, "A Question of Lust" by Depeche Mode; No. 6, "Just Like Heaven" by the Cure; No. 7, New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle"; No. 8, U2's "Bad"; and No. 10, "Oh L'Amour" by Erasure.

by Sean Ross and Yvonne Olsen