Top 100 Songs of the 1990's: #80-61

In this batch of songs we have an old guy, the son of an old guy, an ex-rapper, and a band who received a Grammy nomination for “Best New Artist”…in 2003.

80. Digital Underground – “The Humpty Dance” (1990)
From Sex Packets

Though NWA and Dr. Dre as a solo artist brought a sea change to the nature of rap music in the late 1980’s and early 90’s, most rap music at the time was about having a good time. Bitches and hos and bling – or homosexuals and Vicodin if you’re Eminem – weren't as mainstream as songs like Digital Underground’s “The Humpty Dance.”

79. Hole - "Violet" (1994)
From Live Through This

I was really excited to get Hole on this list because it would give me the opportunity to trash Courtney Love once again. I remember how I heard that Kurt Cobain had essentially written most of the debut album – including “Violet” – for her, but that bastion of truth and knowledge known as Wikipedia says those rumors are unsubstantiated. Well, that makes things a little bit harder for me but we can start by pointing out the obvious: This song nor any song that Love ever wrote would be well-known if it weren’t for Kurt Cobain. It’s not that it’s terrible – for terrible rock-star lover music we’ll refer to Yoko Ono – it’s just that, from the singles I have heard, it’s undistinguishable from grungy rock music of that time period. Breaking this song down to its simplest component, it’s essentially Nirvana with tits.

78. “Weird Al” Yankovic – "Amish Paradise" (1996)
From Bad Hair Day

Anyone who’s read anything about Weird Al’s career knows that he generally has a good working relationship with the artists he chooses to parody. This was not the case with “Amish Paradise,” as Coolio took offense to the song even though his record label gave Al permission to record it.

The reason Yankovic is so popular is the lyrics, obviously, but even more apparent in this song is the humor in the video. One of my favorite scenes is when the Amish teens are looking at an Amish porno mag, and the centerfold is a picture of young lady lifting up her skirt to show a leg with a long stocking on it. As usual, cleverness abounds on this track, just like pretty much everything else Yankovic has ever released.

77. Dinosaur Jr. – "Feel the Pain" (1994)
From Without a Sound

Unbeknownst to me, Dinosaur Jr. has been around since the mid-80’s, but didn’t find a whole lot of commercial success in the States until “Feel the Pain” came out in 1994. Apparently a lot of rock critics like this band, but I never got into them. But if this song is indicative of some of their other work, I’d have no reason not to. The guitar work on the track is pretty sweet, and sometimes that’s all you need for a hit song.

76. Offspring – "Self Esteem" (1994)
From Smash

I was wracking my brain trying to decide which Offspring single would make the list. They’ve made some consistently decent music through the years, but there’s not a whole lot that I would consider “outstanding” by them. Their breakthrough album “Smash” was the most consistent as far as singles are concerned, 1996’s Ixnay on the Hombre contained songs that were okay but not memorable, and 1998’s Americana found Offspring releasing what amounted to novelty songs (“Pretty Fly (For a White Guy),” “Why Don’t You Get a Job?”).

So it came down to “Come Out and Play” or “Self Esteem,” and I chose a song about low self-esteem and low standards with women over one about fighting and gangs. Gee, I wonder why.

(Note: Video is from Woodstock '99)

75. The Wallflowers – "One Headlight" (1996)
From Bringing Down the Horse

Much like Courtney Love, it would be easy for one to assume that Jakob Dylan’s band, The Wallflowers, only made it big because of someone else with much high name recognition. In this case, it was Jakob’s father, Bob Dylan. I’m sure comparisons between the two ensued, but I don’t really see any reason for them. The Wallflowers are purveyors of earnest pop rock, and “One Headlight” was definitely the highlight of their breakthrough album, Bringing Down the Horse.

74. Tom Petty – "Mary Jane’s Last Dance" (1993)
From Greatest Hits

How in the hell does an old dude most famous for his work in the 70’s make in onto a top songs of the 90’s list? Well, as I was just getting into music at the time, Petty’s classic roots-rock sound was very appealing to me as it kind of bridged the gap between what my parents listened to and what was popular at the time. So I was used to him in a way that I couldn’t quite put my finger on in 1993. Then again, being 12 at the time a lyric like “Lookin’ down on Market Square / She’s standin’ in her underwear,” is going to hook me every time. Unfortunately for fans of the song, I’ve heard that it’s in their contract that they cannot play it at Super Bowl 42 because America has turned into a nation of pansies following the Janet Jackson incident of a few years back.

73. Corrosion of Conformity – "Clean My Wounds" (1994)
From Deliverance

“Clean My Wounds” is a testament to the ability of a killer guitar riff to take a song to another level. Really, that’s the whole reason it’s on this list and probably why it was played on modern rock radio. I bought this CD thinking that it would have more songs like “Clean My Wounds” on it, but was sorely mistaken. That, and Corrosion of Conformity was such a bad ass name for a band, I figured it would have to be about the riffs. Perhaps it had its moments, but nothing I heard even came close to “Clean My Wounds”

72. Blind Melon – "No Rain" (1992)
From Blind Melon

Yeah, it’s the song with the video of the dancing bee girl. I’ve heard in later years that “No Rain” wasn’t even the best song on the album, much less the best of their short career. I don’t know if that’s true, but there is no denying that catchiness of this tune with its (ironically?) sunny sounding acoustic guitar and the finger-snapping intro. The video is probably the most famous thing about the song, which is sad considering that “No Rain” is a great chunk of 90’s pop.

71. Everlast – "What It’s Like" (1998)
From Whitey Ford Sings the Blues

Everlast is one of the guys from Irish-rap trio House of Pain. Apparently he decided he had enough of that and reinvented himself as some kind of modern folk-rap hybrid, at least as far as “What It’s Like” is concerned. Obviously, the message of the song is a big deal – Put yourself in their shoes before you judge someone, for those of you that need help – but what I found most striking was the imagery presented in the song. The verse about the scared woman going to the abortion clinic (“they call her a killer / They call her a sinner / They call her a whore”) is the most vivid to me. The only thing I can find wrong with this song isn’t even Everlast’s fault; he can’t help it that we’re so paranoid over gun violence in this country that the words “Colt .45” are censored.

70. Our Lady Peace – "Clumsy" (1997)
From Clumsy

Maybe it’s because they’re Canadian, I don’t know, but it seems that OLP are really underrated or not known at all. This is a shame because the band has never released a mediocre album. “Clumsy,” however, did a little to dispel the notion of Our Lady Peace as alt-rock unknowns. Once again, it’s becoming harder and harder to write about songs I’ve heard a hundred times. All I can say is that it’s good and that you should listen to it. Fair enough?

69. Fiona Apple – "Criminal" (1996)
From Tidal

Do you have a foot fetish? A thing for young, nearly-anorexic women with sultry voices? If you answered yes to one or both of these questions, then the video for “Criminal” my be for you. I say this because I have always loved this video and probably would even if the lyrics were about Fiona Apple kicking puppies.

Side note, perhaps one that should be discussed more: I’ve noticed in writing this so far that I spend just as much time talking about the music videos as I do the music itself. Is that because I’m just a shitty music writer who doesn’t have anything to say about this music, or is it just a sign of the times when these songs came out? In the 90’s, videos went from just promotional tools to an art form all its own, and maybe my obsession with them reflects that.

I can only give you a link to the video, because it's the only one I found of the studio version and that's the one I want you to see.

68. Fountains of Wayne – "Radiation Vibe" (1996)
From Fountains of Wayne

Younger fans may find it hard to believe that Fountains of Wayne made music before “Stacy’s Mom” became a smash hit in 2003. But that’s exactly what they did, with their debut self-titled album spawning a few singles, one of them being “Radiation Vibe.” Admittedly, I had forgotten about this song for a period after it came out, but fell in love with it all over again when I bought the album a few years later.

“Radiation Vibe” is your typical power pop fare – comparisons to Weezer were out there for a while – but you could do far, far worse than Fountains of Wayne. If you like smart, quirky pop rock, for the love all that is good in the music world, buy a FoW album.

67. Smashing Pumpkins – "Muzzle" (1995)
From Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

The Smashing Pumpkins are one of my top five favorite modern bands and ‘Mellon Collie’ was one of my favorite albums. So it is no surprise that the double disc should have not one but two songs on this list.

I think I always had a soft spot for “Muzzle” because no one else I knew seemed to think the song was anything special. Maybe being a radio-only single had a lot to do with it considering the success of songs like “Tonight, Tonight” and “1979” on MTV. But to a confused, angry, shy 16-year-old, a lyric like “And I know the emptiness of youth” or “The world you can never understand / Is the world you can’t live without,” will always strike a chord in my heart.

66. Blur – "Song 2" (1997)
From Blur

I wrote this for someone I made a CD for and I think it fits just fine: I could be deep here and say that this song was a metaphor for our teenage years: a blast of giddy fun and nonsense, but ultimately too short and inconsequential. Wait, I just was.

Yep, that about sums it up. I thought with a song like Song 2, I would get into Blur a little more, but this particular tune is actually an aberration of the rest of their catalogue.

65. Rage Against the Machine – "Killing in the Name" (1992)
From Rage Against the Machine

Let’s forget for a second that despite their extremely left-leaning politics that RATM are, in fact, a bunch of capitalist phonies. Okay, now that I got that out of the way, I can talk about the music. It is explosive. It is incendiary. It has everything that either an angry 17-year-old or a politically-confused college freshman could ever want in a band. The chorus of “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!” was probably directed at authorities of a political nature, but I bet there were just as many kids who were thinking of their parents when they heard those lines repeated over and over again. Know your enemies, indeed.

64. Cracker – "Euro Trash Girl" (1993)
From Kerosene Hat

Take Tom Petty and add sarcasm and wit to the lyrics and you basically have Cracker. I wrote above what drew me to Petty, and it’s pretty much the same things that drew me to Cracker. “Euro Trash Girl” was actually just a bonus track, but someone, somewhere decided that the 8-minute epic about looking for his dream woman – an angel in black – but instead only finds soldiers in drag and a case of the crabs among other things. Other songs I recommend by Cracker include “Teenage Angst (What the World Needs Now”) and “Ain’t Gonna Suck Itself.”

63. Megadeth – "Symphony of Destruction" (1992)
From Countdown to Extinction

Ford or Chevy? Apple or PC? Bird or Jordan? I don’t think Metallica vs. Megadeth was anywhere near as fierce of rivalry as any of the other ones, but all I know is that I was a Metallica guy through and through. I can pretty much point to one big reason for that, and that is Dave Mustaine’s voice. I don’t give a shit how much he can shred, when such a manly genre as metal features a singer with vocals that are comparable to a cat being raped, we have a problem.

That being said, not all of his singing was that bad. In fact, if you took all the Megadeth songs that I liked and put them together, it would amount to a half-decent EP, and the pretty bad ass “Symphony of Destruction” would probably lead the disc off.

62. Alice in Chains – "Man in the Box" (1990)
From Facelift

VH1 had this song at #50, which seemed low to me considering it was the only song the band had on the list. So why is it lower here? Because it’s NOT the only Alice in Chains song in the top 100. When I hear this song now it’s still rockin’ and it’s still good, but my first thoughts are “generic grunge song.” Alice in Chains would go on to do much better work and eventually became one of the most respected bands of the 1990’s.

61. Nine Inch Nails – "Wish" (1992)
From Broken

When I think of “Wish” I think ferocious. It represented a complete change in the Nine Inch Nails sound, going from the bleeps and blips (and occasional guitars) of Pretty Hate Machine to an all-out assault on the ears with “Wish.” It quickly became (and still is) one of my all-time favorite NIN songs because it’s just so damn heavy and focuses more on the rock side of the Reznor oeuvre and less so of the industrial-lite leanings of other records.

Check back on Wednesday or Thursday for #60-41!