So, after the success of last year's 80s night, my college is putting on a 90s Night dance event on the Saturday of the first week of classes and I'm in charge of the playlist.
Basically, I was instructed to get songs that are either rhythmic or "groovy", sing-a-longs, and/or upbeat in tempo. It's also supposed to be popular songs of the era which both professors/admin who grew up in that era and current students who weren't alive for most of the 90s would know (though I'm encouraged to throw in some songs that are still recognizable to many, but aren't as overplayed as some of the more "obvious" hits of the decade). It's supposed to comprise a variety of genres: pop, rock/alternative, dance, rap, RnB, and more.
Here's what I have so far:
Aqua - Barbie Girl Mark Morrison - Return of the Mack Britney Spears - Baby One More Time Weezer - Buddy Holly TLC - Waterfalls
Outkast - Mrs. Jackson Smash Mouth - All Star EMF - Unbelievable
except for the fact that a lot of the big 90s hits were radio/MTV only and were disqualified from the Hot 100 so that list is not exactly accurate. Not to mention a good 50% of it is not only garbage, but probably some sort of adult contemporary shit that nobody under 40 was listening to at the time
can't touch this ice ice baby black or white motownphilly good vibrations smells like teen spirit baby got back jump around jump achy breaky heart are you gonna go my way mr. jones fantastic voyage sabotage come out and play gangsta's paradise boombastic cotton eye joe where it's at wannabe semi-charmed life tubthumping mmmbop one week intergalactic closing time larger than life living la vida loca genie in a bottle no scrubs mambo no. 5 all the small things
i'm sure a lot of these seem like lame picks, but trust me dude everybody will eat this shit up and love you for it
Dylan James
New Radicals - Maybe You've been Brainwashed Too
Austin Bennett
If you just want songs then You Get What You Give, specifically.
Alexander Harris
Primus - Winona's Big Brown Beaver
Thomas Allen
Sponge - Plowed Enigma - Return To Innocence Blackstreet - No Diggity Our Lady Peace - Superman's Dead dEUS - Suds & Soda Local H - Bound For The Floor (Copacetic) Tonic - If You Could Only See Goo Goo Dolls - Iris
Gen Xers used to consider 1998-2004 the downfall of pop culture and the cancerous teen pop / nu metal / trl / mike scully simpsons era. People kept saying "1993-1997 was the true 90s" or "That 98-99 pokemon britney nsync crap wasn't true 90s, felt more like proto-2000s".
But nowadays, you have people in their late 20s on Buzzfeed/Twitter saying 1998-2004 was the golden age of pop culture or "the 90sest era ever", and consider anything before 1998 to be outdated/overrated/not interesting for them. A complete reversal in opinions.
I listened to the entire Hot 100 for 1997 and it had a _lot_ of bland adult contemporary. There were just a few good songs on there total.
Dylan Richardson
Like seriously, do you think anyone under 40 was listening to Clapton's Change The World?
Robert Harris
Third Eye Blind Toad the Wet Sprocket The Crash Test Dummies Scatman John The Macarena might get some people hyped Red Hot Chili Peppers Real McCoy Song 2 by Blur Radio by Smash Mouth
Angel Evans
The early 90s were probably worse imo. Back then, not just the singles chart, but fucking Top 40/pop radio was full of sappy ass power ballads and adult contemporary singers. It was more like "Age 40" radio. Only from about '93 onwards did you start to hear a lot of alternative rock and rap and newer, edgier sounds crossover onto pop radio and push out all the older acts. Hell, Phil Collins/Genesis went from like massive, chart topping, radio and video dominating current act in '90/'91 to so irrelevant that American MTV refused to air his Unplugged show in the fall of '94 (so it only ever was broadcast in Europe).
Like I said, the 97 chart (which I listened to in its entirety) was loaded with this crap. I've never been exactly convinced that 13 year olds were listening to Toni Braxton or Michael Bolton.
Jackson Cox
Wannabe is the best song on there, I'm not kidding. An understated pop masterpiece.
Jeremiah Jones
I mean, "Unbreak My Heart", kinda of, yeah. but the rest no way. Especially Michael Bolton.
Or fucking Celine Dion. Several #1 hits, a bunch more Top 10s... who the fuck was buying those records/requesting those songs on the radio?
Ryder Robinson
Where the fuck is "Don't Speak"? That seemed like it was literally the biggest song of both 1996 and 1997.
Cuckgau also gave an unnecessarily kind review to the album that was on.
Jaxson Bennett
I always felt bad for LeAnn Rimes. She was like 16 and sounded 45.
Christian Scott
Airplay only rule. Basically if you didn't have a CD/12"/cassette single mass pressed in stores, you could not chart on the Hot 100 even if you were #1 on every radio station in the country. Fucked over a ton of acts in terms of chart placement: Weezer, Natalie Imbruglia, No Doubt, Oasis, Will Smith, etc.
Billboard's always been behind the times though. Same thing happened with digital downloads and the Hot 100 later on. It took them until sometime in 2005 to view iTunes downloads as legitimate purchases. All that counted at the time were, again, mass-market CD/12"/cassette singles, which basically didn't exist anymore.
Hudson Baker
you gotta throw in some nirvana, bro how about Smells Like Teen Spirit and Sliver?
Brayden Diaz
Ace of Bass - The Sign Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet with Butterfly Wings, 1979 Los Del Rio - Macarena
Eli Richardson
Younger millennials are ashamed of the actual era they grew up in (2000's) so they pretend to associate with the 90's despite having little to no nostalgia or recollection of the decade.
Caleb Gonzalez
This is a correct statement. They always out themselves in 90s threads though when the adults are talking about really good mid-level groups like The Breeders/Lush/Failure/Veruca Salt/L7/Catherine Wheel/Belly/Hum or even more in depth about the biggest grunge/britpop bands and they can only write 'Hey remember Woodstock 99! Limp Bizkit really made me wanna break stuff!'
Isaac Anderson
The y2k trance aesthetix came to be around '96. I guess they didn't really get to the US until the very end of the decade though.
Asher Thomas
Too much blippity bloops and not enough angsty twings and twains I presume.
Henry White
Adamski/Seal - Killer - Kiss from a Rose Tasmin Archer - Sleeping Satellite Felix - Don't You Want Me Collective Soul - Shine
I could be here all day 2bh
Benjamin Watson
I always considered late 1996 and 1997 to be this weird transitional period of cultural equilibrium. It's like the culture of 2000 (Aqua, Limp Bizkit, the Scream series, Buffy) was competing against the culture of 1994 (Faith No More, L7, Veruca Salt, Beavis and Butthead etc). 1998 onward seems pretty y2k though, although there were still some very faint mid 90s influences at the start of that year.
>I guess they didn't really get to the US until the very end of the decade though. The US was always late with foreign trends/artists/hits though. For example, Robbie William's "Angels" originally came out in '97 and wasn't a hit in America until 2000.
Christopher Sanders
Holy cow.... I feel like this is not representative of what the "youth" or even "college aged" kids were listening to at all.
Joshua Jones
i was born in 2000 and i still have some sort of weird longing for the 90's somehow
Joshua Taylor
Ms Jackson isnt 90s
Evan Rogers
Oops. For some reason, I always thought it was slightly earlier.
Maybe I got it mixed up with "Atliens".
Jason Young
The Offspring - All I Want
Luis Smith
>weird longing for the 90's somehow *your perception of the 90s
Carter Scott
it just seems a lot better, not even just talking musically it was the last decade before 9/11
Jeremiah Walker
in some ways yes in some ways no
Jordan Martin
What I got
Kevin Sullivan
Crank That - Soulja Boy
Kevin Turner
party rock
Leo Johnson
>90s
Easton Kelly
U2 mysterious ways
Caleb Baker
that song sucks
Brody Peterson
Fatboy Slim - Praise You Daft Punk - One More Time (technically released in november 2000 but nobody will notice)
So much better than the billboard chart someone posted. Also It's funny how Faith No More had the 31st biggest song in Australia during 1997, since they were long past the point of being popular in America and even the uk
