Finally we reach the pinnacle of human achievement. The following songs exemplify what the 90s were all about. The prime of my life, from my senior year in high school to my mid 20s are all encapsulated in these songs. According to VH1, this is what should be placed in the time capsule. I shudder to think what we will find here.
#25: Soundgarden “Black Hole Sun”: I never really liked this song. Liked the band of course but I never understood what was so incredible about this track. On the other hand, I don’t think that I could spend five minutes on a TV show explaining how awesome Spoonman is. At the end of the day, it really is just about a guy who plays spoons.
#24: House of Pain “Jump Around”: Most songs get worse as time goes by, especially one hit wonders. But this song has actually improved and has gone from being almost a novelty track featuring white rappers to a pretty common sports anthem. And as sports anthems go it is a pretty good song. It helps that Everlast went on to have an interesting career (and What It’s Like is missing from this list.)
#23: Salt-N-Pepa with En Vogue “Whatta Man”: Let’s pay some respect to Salt-N-Pepa here before we address the fact that they are now on VH1 reality shows. When rap was still outside the mainstream they became stars and add to that they were almost the only female rappers you could name. (Add Queen Latifah to the list.) Plus, you would have expected them to disappear after Push It. Instead, they really took center stage in the music biz in the early 90’s and this song was rather brilliant. Great collaboration between rap and R&B.
#22: Beck “Loser”: I’ve talked a lot the past couple of days about one hit wonders and how Beck didn’t become one is beyond me. Not that he isn’t talented, it’s just that he hit the scene with such an odd song that you would expect no one to ever pay attention to him. Everyone calls this song a slacker anthem but I don’t really agree with that notion. Mainly because I never identified with the song. I felt more anger than resignation to my fate at the time. Plus, I just thought the dude was wacko.
#21: Celine Dion “My Heart Will Go On”: Celine’s Vegas review ended this week. I had heard the following story about her show. When she would sing this song the stage would transform into the bow of a ship and she would sing from the edge. Meanwhile couples in the crowd would stand on their chairs and reenact the scene from Titanic. Yes, those people are allowed to vote though if Proposition 57 passes, as we all hope it will, we will be able to replace them with house plants.
#20: Hanson “MMMBop”: I’ve actually had several chances to see Hanson recently and skipped all of them. It might be the only bit of pride that I have left. However, on one of my hits of the 90s box sets this song is included and I have found myself washing dishes and humming this song. That wasn’t the lowest point in my life but it’s the lowest that I will admit to. Oh, and this came up in trivia tonight, is Hanson a boy band? I wouldn’t classify them as such but it is up for debate.
#19: Beastie Boys “Sabotage”: Another song that is better known for having one of the coolest videos ever. You can’t go wrong with a spot on homage to 70’s cop shows. The song also has some of the best pacing you can find as it just builds upon itself until just the right moment when all of the energy is unleashed. This should be even higher on the list.
#18: Metallica “Enter Sandman”: Metal was such a weird beast in the 90’s. You had the last remnants of the fluff hair bands while the hardcore bands kept going (and still are, changes in pop culture be damned. Slayer will always be Slayer.) Then there was Metallica, which went much more mainstream but you never questioned their credibility. I’m not even sure that if you threw Enter Sandman on the radio to someone who had never heard it before if they would consider it heavy metal. This isn’t when metal went pop, this is more when metal became hard rock.
#17: Destiny’s Child “Say My Name”: What does it say that I truly can’t recall hearing one of the top 20 songs of the 90s? Maybe I’m not as in tune with pop culture as I think. I never got all the interest in this act or Beyonce.
#16: MC Hammer “U Can’t Touch This”: Once again, what are we not supposed to touch? Is there a switch or a button of some sort that we should all be aware? Possibly a lever? Yep, this song was also played at my prom, in a mix that included Superfreak. Add this to the fact that our theme song for prom was a Bodeans song and it was a bizarre night all around. This song isn’t as musically offensive as you might think. One of those where you can’t really find anything wrong with it, just not much right with it.
#15: Red Hot Chili Peppers “Under the Bridge”: I quite possibly watched this video 700 times in college. Multiple times a day for multiple years. At one point MTV just had it on a continuous loop. I always watched it as it was post-apocalyptic enough that it was part of the inspiration for my first novel attempt (mercifully killed after 30 pages and more plot holes than actual plot.) Another instance of a band’s biggest hit being when they do something totally opposite of what they had been doing their entire career.
#14: Mariah Carey “Vision of Love”: Can we blame American Idol on Mariah? Not the show, I doubt that she was involved with it. But this whole singing style of “let’s show off how many octaves we can reach” on every syllable whether it adds to the song or not? It’s what I hate most about that entire style of music; it is entirely about the singer and not the song. She could be singing the phone book and that really bothers me.
#13: Dr. Dre (featuring Snoop Doggy Dogg) “Nuthin but a G Thang”: This might be the first video that I remember that had things blurred out. Not just naughty bits but entire t-shirts. It gave the message that these guys are so cool we can’t even show you what they are wearing. A song that made everyone want to hang out with Dre and Snoop despite the fact that we were so uncool we shouldn’t even had been allowed to listen to the song.
#12: Alanis Morisette “You Oughta Know”: I will never be able to listen to this song knowing that there is even a possibility that it might be about Dave Coullier. It brings up images that I just would rather live without. I’ve grown to respect Alanis’ music (and the fact that she was on You Can’t Do That On Television) but I’ve always had one huge problem with her. She never figured out that sometimes a whisper is more powerful than a scream.
#11: Pearl Jam “Jeremy”: I’m amazed this isn’t in the top five. I think it’s the best video ever in terms of legitimately crossing the line from promotional vehicle into art. Even if it led to months of arguing what happened at the end. It also changed the way that grunge was viewed by a lot of people. Nirvana and other Pearl Jam songs gave a lot of people the impression that this was just a new brand of punk. But this song wasn’t punk and it was undeniably powerful. It might not make you dance but it catches your breath.
#10: Sinead O’Connor “Nothing Compares 2 U”: I wish we could talk about Sinead without having to discuss politics and protests. Just take her music and her voice at face value and just marvel at it. Pretty impressive that a cover song makes the top ten and one that is truly a reinterpreting of the song. I don’t think this is what Prince had in mind, especially the video of Sinead singing straight on into the camera. About as emotionally bare as you can get in music and images.
#9: R.E.M. “Losing My Religion”: I’ve discussed this before but I don’t think this song has aged well. If you listen to it now you kind of wonder what the fuss was about. But as someone who listened to this incessantly as an 18 year old it was a huge breath of fresh air. It was a break from Bon Jovi and New Kids. Something that was new and different and man did I hate it when the guys who made fun of me started liking the band. As a song, I think it could be better but it gets this ranking just because of what it helped to usher in.
#8: TLC “Waterfalls”: Best known for being a bestselling record that puts the band into bankruptcy. No one seems to understand the points system or how that makes the labels a ton of money.
#7: Britney Spears “…Baby One More Time”: Jeez, even when I write about music I can’t get away from her. I said this at the time, I really never got the appeal. The music was pure bubblegum and I never found her to be that attractive. I know there was this whole Lolita aspect to her but she just always seemed like, I don’t know, someone who would marry some scummy guy, have two kids, then lose it and shave her head.
#6: Sir Mix-A-Lot “Baby Got Back”: Show of hands, how many people actually called 1-800-Mix-A-lot? The top rap track of the 90’s goes to an ode about big butts. 4 minutes that consist only of discussions of big butts. Hell, the song opens with “I like big butts, I cannot lie.” What amazes me is that there was outrage over this song. Given what is shown in the media today this song seems rather quaint. Like it’s sung at senior citizen homes or something. (I dream of when I’m in my 70’s the super oldies station will alternate between playing this and Tone Loc’s “Funky Cold Medina”.)
#5: Madonna “Vogue”: I know this was released in 1990 but I barely consider it a 90s song. It’s Madonna, we’ll give her credit for her image and her ability to commercialize herself but I don’t think we need to respect her music. Even if you view this as one of her best songs all it is about is waving your hands in front of your face.
#4: Whitney Houston “I Will Always Love You”: Another cover song except this time the original was better. Come on, it’s Dolly Parton. How are you going to improve on Dolly Parton? Can I just continue my claim of being a cynical bastard and say that I dislike this song? I never even put it on a mixtape.
#3: Backstreet Boys “I Want It That Way”: Yeah, the late 90s sucked in terms of music. This is why I ended up hanging out in the country section of music stores and buying CDs from artists I knew personally.
#2: U2 “One”: A fine choice for the number two song of the decade. Don’t know what I can say about it. Even given my much discussed hatred towards Bono this is about as perfect you can get for four minutes of music. Remember to that when this song came out we were still making fun of Rattle and Hum era U2. The bombastic to the point of parody band. This song (and Achtung Baby as a whole) was one of the best reinventions of the decade.
#1: Nirvana “Smells Like Teen Spirit”: There never was any real doubt about this one. Very seldom can you point to one piece of music and say “This is where everything changed.” The entire musical landscape shifted when this song became a hit. Even on a larger cultural scale, Gen X became important because of this song. This put us in the spotlight…for three years until we lost Kurt. But it was a great three years.
Smells Like Teen Spirit is the song that knocked hair metal to the ground. Come As You Are is the song that kicked hair metal’s face in. I’ll discuss the injustice of that song being left off the list and some other mind boggling exclusions tomorrow.
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