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siamese-dreamm · 6 years ago

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Top 25 Songs of the 1990s

If the nostalgia for the 80s mostly manifests itself in weird fancy dress parties and Netflix TV shows were people have bad hair and listen to Toto’s Africa on repeat, nostalgia for the 90s comes more in the forms of t-shirts, endless Friends re-runs and reunion tours. Yet if there’s something ironic about the way people celebrate the 80s, the love of the 90s might come from a more genuine place. And for good reason, when it comes to music as this list will demonstrate the 90s had incredible range. Every decade produces different kinds of music, but no decade is as defined by it diversity, from stadium rock anthems, to the greatest alt-rock and hip-hops hits of all time. Here’s my top 20 songs of the 1990s. I’ve only include one song by each artist but may mention other songs that might have made the list for them.

No 25: Friday I’m In Love (The Cure): Some songs are just impossible not to love. Robert Smith couldn’t believe it when he came across the arrangements and lyrics of this song and no one else had. You can see why he would think someone else would have already had this, a song so wonderfully simple in it’s conceit and message, but it took until the 90s and for a certain Goth legend to put it all together. No 24: My Name Is (Eminem): The start of it all. In many ways Eminem was the artist who would define the next decade, or at least its first half, but for Marshall it all start with My Name Is. Incredibly catchy, full of that crude but cutting wit and commentary, a perfect introduction into the dark, hilarious and unique world of Detroit’s finest.

No 23: Life’s a Bitch (Nas): It would be amiss of me to not include something from Illmatic, an album so great that even while producing consistently solid work after Nas has never truly escaped its shadow. While it certainly falls into the category of a all killer no filler album, Life’s a Bitch has always stood out for me. With a great guest spot and one of the greatest hooks in all of hip “Life’s a bitch/and then you die/that’s why we get high/cause you never know when you’re gonna go” it doesn’t get much better. No 22: Juicy (The Notorious B.I.G.): Between “It was all a dream” and “If you don’t know, now you know” Juicy is a song so embedded in the pop culture you can still read/here people quoting it on a daily basis. The crowning achievement of Ready to Die and of Biggie himself.

No 21. Loser (Beck): As Rolling Stone magazine observed the 90s had more era defining poets than any other decade musically. Beck certainly falls into this category. Songs with titles like “Loser” would become ubiquitous in the late 90s/early noughties and if you didn’t know Beck or the song you might expect it to be some awful, Linkin Park style mope-fest. Instead Loser is a wonderful nonsense poem of a song with a fantastic hook “I’m a loser baby/so why don’t you kill me.”

No 20. Celebrity Skin (Hole): The nakedly emotional Doll Parts might have made the list on another day but while Live Through This is full of aching classics, I wanted to celebrate a different side of Courtney Love, the I don’t give a fuck side. After a few years off, post Kurt’s death, Courtney, with the help of Billy Corgan, came back with a vengeance. Celebrity Skin is 2 and half minutes of pure punk energy, swagger and confidence. There are many shades to Courtney Love.

No 19. One (U2): In 1987 U2 released The Joshua Tree, an impossible to top both almost as impossible to follow with any success. 4 years later they released Achtung Baby an album that may not surpass The Joshua Tree but comes damn close. One also holds up against anything Joshua Tree.

No 18. Fake Plastic Trees (Radiohead): Their biggest hit of 90s might be the overplayed Creep and their greatest album might be OK Computer-a perfect, genre defining masterpiece-but I struggle to pick out a single song from it. When it comes to The Bends its full of great individual songs, none more so than Fake Plastic Trees.

No 17. Lost One (Lauryn Hill): Back to front one of the greatest albums of not only the 90s but of all time. Yet when it comes to picking a song off of it its tough to get past those first four tracks. From Lost One, Ex-Factor, To Zion and the earth shaking Doo-Wop (That Thing). It’s an album about love and heart-ache and each of those four songs showcase a different side to it. Lost One just edges it on the list, a song that showcases a more raw anger.

No 16. You Oughta Know (Alanis Morrisette): Talking of raw, break-up anger. You Oughta Know is the ultimate angry break-up song. Jagged Little Pill is one of the biggest selling albums ever but it can divide opinion, Ironic is the butt of so many jokes (we get Alanis doesn’t really know what ironic means) and generally it can be seen as a kind of an uncool album, but for me it has an always will be a classic. Although personally I’ve always loved Head over Feet, I have to go with You Oughta Know, the one song even the album’s haters can’t really deny.

No 15.) Live Forever (Oasis): Noel Gallagher wrote this track in response to Nirvana’s I Hate Myself and Want to Die and what he perceived as Kurt moaning (while at the time this was an example of a joke going straight over Noel’s head I guess time kind of proved him right) but as someone once pointed out this song isn’t really a celebration of life. It’s defiant but more than anything else melancholic and ultimately the crowning achievement for a band that, for good and bad, defined the mid-90s in Britain.

No 14.) Girls and Boys (Blur): The one song Thom Yorke wishes he wrote, apparently, Girls and Boys is a catchy brilliantly written classic that encapsulates a mid-90s culture of Ibiza trips full of MDMA and fake tan. In the Blur vs Oasis battle, Blur just edge it on this list, soz Noel and Liam.

No 13) Nuthin But a G’ Thang ( Dr Dre ft Snoop Dogg): It only takes one album to secure your place in music history if that album is truly great enough, for Dre The Chronic is that. Don’t get me wrong with NWA and even as a solo artist/producer Dre has done other incredible work but The Chronic and its perfect lead single are what really make Dre Dre. A G-funk masterpiece.

No 12.) Jeremy (Pearl Jam): Few bands produced as many good songs in the 90s as Pearl Jam, but picking one is difficult. For arena rockers they never really had that signature song but I edge with their most controversial track in the form of Jeremy. The tale of boy who killed himself in front of his school is deeply tragic and disturbing and Vedder’s lyrics and vocal brilliantly tap into that darkness to create an almost hypnotic song. A highlight on album full of them.

No 11) Basket Case (Green Day): Before they wore red ties with black shirts and eyeliner, Green Day occupied a very different place in the rock world. Their songs weren’t as grand but they were every bit as resonant and Basket Case is a that sort of song that everyone loves. “do you have the time to listen to me whine?” The answer some 20 years on remains a resounding yes.

No 10) Black Hole Sun (Soundgarden): One of grunge’s defining songs. After Chris Cornell’s tragic passing last year many of us couldn’t help but be filled with sadness when we hear him sing those words “No one sings like you anymore.” So true.

No 9) Velouria (Pixies): If many of the songs on this list are iconic/anthemic radio staples, Velouria falls under a different category. Even in the alt-rock landscape, Velouria is a truly strange song. Maybe only Black Francis can really answer that eternal question “how a does lemur’s skin reflects the sea?” But while it may be completely unknown-able it is still somehow so haunting and without doubt one of the Pixies finest.

No 8) November Rain (Guns N’Roses): Axl’s magnum opus, in his own words a song about “About not wanting to be in a state of having to deal with unrequited love.” In some ways it is easy to mock the grandiosity of the song, its video and the whole Use Your Illusion project that this song comes from, but why this song lasts, why it became the first song from the 20th century to have a billion views on YouTube is because of the sincerity of Axl Rose. Say what you want about the man but he never he never sang a note he didn’t mean and for all of the band’s rock n’roll posturing, there is something so tragically and recognizably earnest about this song.

No 7) Ready or Not (The Fugees): Miseducation was the 2nd masterpiece of an album Lauryn Hill wrote (co-wrote), the first of course was The Score. Full of classics, including the unavoidable Killing Me Softly cover but for this list I’ll just edge with Ready or Not. With of hip hop’s most iconic beats and hooks, its an enduring classic.

No 6) Losing my Religion (REM): REM should never have been one of rock/pop biggest acts. Their lead singer wasn’t a beautiful rock God and he often mumbled his way through songs, even at their poppiest their songs were dark and they would do weird things like have the opening riff of a song be played by mandolin instead of guitar. But yet they defied all of that to become of the world’s best, most consistent and biggest bands and no song did more to help their cause than Losing my Religion. It might just be a turn of phrase, meaning to lose ones temper, but there’s such weight and gravitas to that title and song. It’s a song I will never get sick of hearing.

No 5) Common People (Pulp): Blur or Oasis? A question that defined British rock in the 90s, of course though the answer was in fact Pulp. Their album Different Class is indeed that different class. It is as close to a perfect record as you could get and its biggest hit Common People remains a class anthem for the ages. No song has ever captured the tensions in British society, between the working class and the upper classes so well, while also delivering a song you could dance and sing-along to.

No 4) Everlong (Foo Fighters): It’s easy to almost dismiss Foo Fighters as the most meat and potatoes of rock bands, because in many ways that is what they are. Throughout their career they have been making consistently good melodic hard rock songs and don’t aspire to much else. There was an exception to this though in 1997 they released The Color and The Shape a perfect rock album. Okay it still has the arena rock anthems they have become synonymous with, including Everlong, but there is also something darker and more complex about this album. It’s climax is Everlong, simply one of the most beautiful songs ever written. A favorite of mine that I still return and that still stirs all the same emotions. If only “anything could ever be this good again”.

No 3) Dear Mama (Tupac): While All Eyez On Me might be his biggest selling album it is not the one that best defines him as an artist or best points to why he is the GOAT. That would be Me Against the World. Other great rappers could show vulnerability and paranoia and even gratitude, but none of them could really stay in those emotions for a full hour the way Pac does on Me Against the World. The album’s best track comes in the form of a loving thank you to his mum. What makes this song so special is that it doesn’t compromise. It’s a beautiful celebration of his mother but it also has lines like “ And even as a crack fiend mama/you always was a black queen.” Tupac stayed real no matter what. Yet that just makes the song all the more beautiful and effecting. It’s for this that so many of us can tell Pac that he is appreciated.

No 2) Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana): Okay Teen Spirit is the best song of the 90s by just about any metric, but it always comes top of these lists so let’s throw a curve-ball. What is there to say about Teen Spirit and Nevermind that hasn’t been said. It’s significance on pop culture has been affirmed and reaffirmed time and time again in the ¼ century since it hit the airwaves. I can only write from a personal perspective though and Kurt and his music have effected my life in a powerful way and in a way no other artist has. There are other Nirvana songs I have a more personal relationship with, Teen Spirit is a song so earth-shaking its maybe tough to feel a truly personal connection to it, but it still does hold a special place in my heart. It was the song that got me into Nirvana (of course) and its importance, artistry and continued relevance can never be denied.

No 1) 1979 (The Smashing Pumpkins): As they begin their ¾ reunion tour nostalgia will be the order of the day, but in some ways it always has been for The Pumpkins. 1979 is not only a song I, like so many others, have indelibly attached to certain moments in my life, it is a song that is itself about nostalgia, about looking back on those moments in your life and realizing how quickly they passed you by “faster than the speed of sound/faster than we thought they’d go.” No song ever captured not only what it means to be young but what it means to look back on that youth as well and as beautiful as 1979. From it’s perfect opening sound, to its closing words “The street heats the urgency of sound/As you see there’s no one around” to its all time great music video, every piece of 1979 comes together to make perfect pop alchemy.

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