I'm going to try something a little different this week. Much like television networks are now bombarding us with holiday programming I am going to do a special presentation of my own. However, I hope that mine turns out to be slightly better than forcing your family to sit down and watch The Santa Clause 2. That Tim Allen, he sure is...he sure is...something.
Anyway, last week VH1 released their list of the Top 100 Greatest Songs of the 90s and I feel that there is no better person than myself to go through the list and critique it. I'll do it 25 songs at a time and on Thursday I'll write up the songs that they missed and oh boy, did they miss a few. I have no idea what their criteria was, or how they considered something "great", and it looks like only one song per band was included. This should be interesting.
(And yes, you can go to www.vh1.com to see the full list, check out videos and I don't know, hire Kris Kross for your kids birthday party. Do so at your leisure.)
#100: Gerardo "Rico Suave": And we start off with an indication that we are really being loose with the definition of "Greatest". A song that is best known for the video featuring the rappers abs and a rather out of place mariachi band. That said, whenever someone says "Rico" I pretty much autonatically respond with "Suave".
#99: Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliot "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)": Don't know this song. Sorry.
#98: EMF "Unbelievable": To truly understand the early 90's you do have to include a song that features a sample of Andrew Dice Clay. He was just a 1990 type of guy. While I'm not a fan of the song it really was one of the first rave type songs to break out and bring the Madchester scene to America. Plus, the rumor that the band name stood for Ecstasy MFers is up there with KMFDM standing for Kill MFing Depeche Mode.
#97: Prince and the New Power Generation "Get Off": Thankfully for Blogger this was back when Prince was Prince. One of those videos that I appreciated greatly mainly because I was a freshman in college with basic cable. Not a bad song even if it will always be remembered for Prince's VMA performance of it in assless pants.
#96: Nelson "(Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection": So theoretically in all of the 90's there were only 95 songs that were better than this. Now I'll admit that the end of the decade sucked but I can name 95 songs in 1993 that were better than this one. Is this the one with the video featuring the indian and the feather and the kid dreaming that Nelson would save him? Yeah, this list sucks.
#95: Montell Jordan "This Is How We Do It": The song you heard at every party and/or dance club for a good decade. Until today I never knew who performed it.
#94: Fastball "The Way": In the late 90's there were about three dozen songs like the way a bunch of which show up on the list. It's the only song you ever heard from the band and you constantly go "Was that Semisonic or was it Marcy Playground?"
#93: Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories "Stay": First song that I think should be higher. This was so much a mid-90's staple and a classic story as well. Unsigned singer lives next to Ethan Hawke, gets him to put her song on the Reality Bites soundtrack and it goes on to become this major hit. Video was one of those brilliant one shot/no edits pieces featuring Lisa looking like every girl I wanted to date in college but could never figure out how to ask out.
#92: Public Enemy "911 is a Joke": I like Flavor Flav. He is an American original. But if you are going to have one PE song on this list how the hell can it not be Fight the Power. That is the song that made you sit back and go "whoa". This was more "why is he wearing a clock?"
#91: Sarah McLachlan "Building a Mystery": For the record, I never went to Lilith Fair. I listened to every single artist who performed but never actually went. Not my favorite song of Sarah's but it is a rather good one. Man, did she have a killer voice.
#90: New Radicals "You Get What You Give": Of all the one hit wonders in the 90's this is probably my favorite. Up beat, catchy and calls out Courtney Love, Marilyn Manson and Hanson at various points. It's still a great song today and that is saying something.
#89: Liz Phair "Never Said": Got to give VH1 some credit, I wouldn't expect Liz Phair to make the list. As with all Liz songs, it's not the song itself that matters it is what she is saying and how she is saying it. More than the Lilith Fair artists, Liz is the one who broke down the door for the female confessional song in which she has no qualms saying precisely what she feels. I'm still a fan even if she has gone pop.
#88: Duncan Sheik "Barely Breathing": Another late 90's wussy rock song. A nice song but nothing worth writing about.
#87: Billy Ray Cyrus "Achy Breaky Heart": It's because of songs like this that I have a hard time standing in the country section of a record store. I'm continually frightened by any song that has a well organized and intricate dance associated with it. I don't dance much but I've always assumed that it was to release your inner emotions and uniqueness. The "stand in a line and do precisely what everyone else does" really bothers me.
#86: The Cranberries "Linger": One of those songs that you forget about for years and then just the name makes you sigh. What a freaking beautiful song with a black and white video featuring Delores O'Riordan looking gorgeous beyond belief. This song went on many a mix tape back when I was in college. Hell, I'd still use it today if I had a reason to.
#85: Cypress Hill "Insane in the Brain": Insane in the membrane. It's insane got no brain. Insane in the membrane. Insane in the brain. Repeat as necessary. B-Real, truly a poet of our time. I'm still bummed I didn't go to the Lollapalooza tour where they performed.
#84: Snow "Informer": Because what would the 90's have been without a white rapper from Toronto performing vaguely reggae songs. To be honest, this wasn't even a hit back when it was a hit. No way it should be on this list.
#83: The Breeders "Cannonball": Hell yeah! My best example of why the early 90's were awesome as a music fan: this was a legitimate hit song despite the fact that it had almost no redeeming pop qualities at all. Just a bass loop, distorted vocals and the Deal twins screaming into microphones. This was also when Alternative Nation was its own nightly show on MTV and you'd deal with Kennedy just to see these videos nightly.
#82: Geto Boys "Mind Playing Tricks On Me": Best known for Bushwick Bill, the little person rapper shot by his girlfriend. For the album cover they used the actual picture of him being taken out of the ambulance. As a white kid from the suburbs this made me go "These dudes are seriously hardcore."
#81: Paula Cole "I Don't Want to Wait": I own this CD. I don't know when I bought it. I don't know how I bought it. I don't know why it is in my CD collection still. If anyone can provide any rationale behind why I ever thought this was a good song please let me know. Otherwise it will just have to wait until I complete my time machine.
#80: Right Said Fred "I'm Too Sexy": This is a top 25 song if there ever was one. Not of the 90's, of all time. He's too sexy for his cat for crying out loud! What do you think about that? I've spent more than a decade defending the awesomeness of this song mainly because everyone involved knew it was a joke and played it as such. They didn't use this to try to become serious artists, they knew they had written a brilliant, funny, nonsensical pop song and went for it. Some groups only have one song in them. For The Kingsmen it was "Louie Louie", for Right Said Fred it is "I'm Too Sexy".
#79: Meredith Brooks "Bitch": Not all of Lillith Fair was good. I'm not sure we needed this to be a hit song. Incredibly, Tori Amos isn't on this list (I'll add her on Thursday) but this song is. I'm not sure if many people even remember it.
#78: Lenny Kravitz "Are You Gonna Go My Way": More than the fact that this song rocks, I'll always remember the female drummer with the best afro ever. She looked so cool that MTV News actually had to do a bit where they showed that she was the actual drummer and not an actress portraying one for the video. Sure, it's just a Hendrix song but Jimi was awesome. Might as well copy from the best.
#77: Ice Cube "It Was a Good Day": They mentioned this on the special but can you believe that the guy who headed up NWA now stars in movies like "Are We There Yet"? That just seems so wrong. It's like having Johnny Rotten appear as judge on a reality show for rock bands. Oh wait, that happened too...
#76: Blues Traveler "Run Around": Closing tonight out with a non jam song by a jam band. I was happy when this song became a hit because I really felt that these guys deserved to be popular. When I finally saw them in concert a decade later I realized that a) they were better when the lead singer was fat and b) if they played another freaking bass solo I was going to hit someone across the back of the head with a chair.
Tomorrow, 75-51. And if I'm up to it, I might make up my own list as well.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Golden Smog "Blood on the Slacks"
2) Emmylou Harris "Red Dirt Girl"
3) Smashing Pumpkins "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness"
4) Spoon "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"
5) Kelly Hogan "Because It Feel Good"
1 comment:
"Fight the Power" was 1989, so not the 90s.
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