A few weeks ago, VH1 aired another one of their never-ending series of “Greatest of X” lists. This time around the victim was the songs of the 1990’s. Because I am an idiot, I watched all five parts of the top 100 list. Immediately afterwards I declared that the list was mostly garbage; the number one choice was unimaginative (yet undeniable), alternative rock wasn’t all that well represented, and “Weird Al” Yankovic was ignored altogether.
This nonsense has to be stopped, I thought to myself.
It is to VH1’s credit that the list did what it was supposed to do: foster debate among music fans. No list is actually definitive and VH1’s attempt is no different. But their list is not without its faults.
Fault number one, and the biggest in my book, is that it appears VH1 left this list up to its viewers. Of course the list is going to turn out to be shit! Who couldn’t see that one coming? Now, I wouldn’t want a list that was composed by strictly professional critics, musicians, or magazine editors either; a nice amalgam of all those groups (including fans) would have been best.
Fault number two lies within the scope of the list. I can’t say that I actually voted on the web site for any of the songs, but it appeared – through the screen shots they showed between commercials – that the choices were limited to the biggest single released by a certain band or artist. Not only that, but it was obvious as the show went on that a band could only appear on the list once. I wouldn’t ask the producers of the show to open up the list to any song on any album released in the 90’s; that would be a task not even a music dork like me would want to undertake. But “Man in the Box” instead of, well, any of the singles from Dirt? Really? The list suffered greatly by being limited to only the biggest of the big singles. As for only one song per band, that is pure insanity. I am all for a music list being balanced with a wide variety of acts, but some bands simply put out more captivating material than others over a certain period of time, and I feel a good list should show that.
As you may have guessed by now, I have set out to make my own list of the top 100 songs of the 90’s. I will not say that it’s definitive but I do believe that it’s far superior to VH1’s list in almost every way.
I picked out nearly all of the songs on my own, though some oversights were brought to my attention by a fellow music enthusiast and were duly noted. For guidelines I, like VH1, limited the list to only singles (with two exceptions). This is because otherwise the list would become even more unwieldy than it already was. I also decided that bands could have up to 3 songs on the list. I didn’t want a band, say Nirvana, to dominate a list of only 100 songs because it had 14 hit songs on the radio. But I also didn’t want to distill the legacy of the band’s material into one measly song. It’s unfair to the band (not that they actually care) and fans alike.
Coming up with songs for the list wasn’t hard at all. Whittling the 160 or so down to 100 was another story entirely. Because I just couldn’t let most of these songs go unnoticed, I present them to you here unranked, with a You Tube link, but with little or none of the proper description the top 100 songs will have.
Some of you will hate this, some will like it, and I bet most will be indifferent. But it was still kind of fun to make, and I hope, if anything, that this list will bring back memories of a decade that’s still rather fresh in my mind.
Note: I take no responsibility for the audio and video quality of the videos. I took the first clip I saw on YouTube and listened for 10 seconds to make sure it was the right song.
Artist - Song - Comments (if any)
4 Non Blondes - "What's Up?"
Bare Jr. - "You Blew Me Off"
Barenaked Ladies - "One Week"
Better Than Ezra - "Good"
Blues Traveler - "Run Around"
Bush - "Machine Head"
Butthole Surfers - "Pepper"
Candlebox - "You"
Chumbawamba - "Tubthumping" - I liked this song a lot when it came out, then it got old fast.
Cornershop - "Brimful of Asha" - "Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow…"
Deep Blue Something - "Breakfast at Tiffany's"
Dr. Dre - "Nuthin' But a G Thang" - I'll catch hell for this, but I like the songs from 2001 better
Dynamite Hack - "Boys in the Hood" - White guys + gangsta rap cover = goodness
Eve 6 - "Inside Out" - This was the first mp3 I ever downloaded.
Fastball - "The Way"
Folk Implosion - "Natural One"
Fuel - "Shimmer"
Fun Lovin' Criminals - "Scooby Snacks"
Geggy Tah - "Whoever You Are"
Green Jelly - "Three Little Pigs"
Jewel - "Who Will Save Your Soul"
Jill Sobule - "I Kissed a Girl" - I think Beavis and Butt-head enjoyed this song more than we did.
Korn - "ADIDAS"
Lit - "My Own Worst Enemy"
Live - "Lightning Crashes"
Marilyn Manson - "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" - Much better than the Eurythmics original.
Matchbox 20 - "Real World" - Liked this song more than the popular singles.
MC Hammer - "U Can't Touch This" - Cool for a year or so, kind of a joke now.
Meat Puppets - "Breakwater"
Nine Inch Nails - "Hurt" - Johnny Cash took this song to the next level.
Oasis - "Champagne Supernova"
Offspring - "Come Out and Play"
Pavement - "Cut Your Hair" - Almost sounds like the theme song to PTI.
Poe - "Angry Johnny" - Best line: I wanna kill you, I wanna blow you.......away.
Prodigy - "Breathe" - Remember when electronic music was gonna be the next big thing?
Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Otherside"
Refreshments - "Banditos"
Save Ferris - "Come on Eileen"
Semisonic - "Closing Time"
Seven Mary Three - "Water's Edge"
Soul Asylum - "Black Gold"
Sponge - "Molly"
Superdrag - "Sucked Out" - My attempt at being kinda indie on this list.
The Flys - "Got You (Where I Want You)"
311 - "Down"
Toadies - "Possum Kingdom"
Tonic - "If You Could Only See"
Tori Amos - "Cornflake Girl"
White Zombie - "More Human than Human" - Gotta love the orgasm-y intro.
This was way, WAY more trouble than it was worth. Fuck you, Blogger.
3 comments:
i'm fascinated to see what the rest of your top 100 holds. [i randomly found your blog by doing a blog search for Wesley Willis...one of my favourite artists of all time.] i'm also a pretty big 90s music aficionado.
although...it will be hard for me to provide any criticism for what you include or neglect until you've published the entire list!
Indeed. And whether the criticism is negative or positive it sure as hell beats being indifferent!
Oh nice list! It's nice for there to be stuff like this for people who weren't actually conscious of the 90s XD
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