OH MY GOD ANOTHER HUGE LIST: The 101 Hottest Hits of the 90s (part 3)

This is the third installment of my list of the 101 greatest pop hits of the 90’s. It’s 3 AM and I can’t sleep and I’m drinking beer with a label that has a skiing elephant on it. It’s delicious, but I might start rambling. On with the countdown!

60. Brandy, Sittin’ Up In My Room (1996, #2)

A woeful tale of dancing with oneself, the Moesha star’s contribution to the super-popular Waiting To Exhale soundtrack grooves along without gathering up too much steam–kinda like I Love Your Smile back at #74, actually. It’s one of Brandy’s better singles, despite lacking the oomph of I Wanna Be Down or What About Us?, her amazing (and amazingly underrated) track from 2003.

59. Michael Penn, No Myth (1990, #13)

Before he was known mostly for being Aimee Mann’s husband, Michael Penn wowed the world with his debut single, a Crowded House-like pop ditty that references several of the books you pretended to read in high school. I don’t remember it from when it was new (despite the fact that the video got Penn an MTV award for Best New Artist), but mostly know it as the song I taped off the radio in 1997 or so where the first 20 seconds were cut off. Also, he and his wife tuned into a romantic duet when they went on tour together.  That was sweet.

58. The Breeders, Cannonball (1994, #39)

Barely qualifying for this chart, the Breeders song was a megahit in New England for about a full year (about the same time as Belly’s Feed The Tree, sung by Rhode Island native/ex-Breeder Tanya Donelly.) This song was huge on MTV the Christmas I got a TV with closed-captioning, and I used to leave it on all the time so that I could learn the words to songs. I learned that in the chorus Kim Deal is allegedly saying “I love you, cuckoo cannonball” and not, as one would assume, “rew woo woo! rew woo woo rew woo woo!” If you’re interested in the Breeders, or any other band from Boston from the last thirty years, you might want to check out Joe Harvard’s excellent (and excellently pre-millennial) website, which includes anecdotes about how you shouldn’t try to smoke pot with Kim Deal. I’m not sure if it’s true or not, because on Title TK the iguana song is supposed to be about her pot dealer, but whatever. I’m rambling. Thanks, Delirium Noel!

57. Lucas, Lucas With The Lid Off (1994, #29)

Lucas was as white as Vanilla Ice and at least as preppy; his mother was once the head of the Danish Academy of Arts and his father founded a little place called Pottery Barn. But so? The song’s got that jazzy mid-nineties swing that can still keep heads bobbing and feet tapping, even when he’s going on about skullcaps.

56. Deee-Lite, Groove is in the Heart (1990, #4)

What’s the best part of this song? The sample from the Blow-Up soundtrack? The Q-Tip rap? The part with the lip-popping noise and counting to three? The part where Horton hears a hoo-woo? Oh, it’s so hard to say! This song’s just that good.

55. DNA feat. Suzanne Vega, Tom’s Diner

What better source for a major dance hit but an a cappella intro to a folky album best known for a hit song about child abuse (or, for those who remember it, a half-song about fancy poultry parts?) So popular upon its release that the song has its own tribute album, Tom’s Diner is quite the song for trivia buffs: for instance, the diner in the song is also the where they shot the exteriors of the restaurant on Seinfeld and, apparently, the song used by software developers to make the mp3. I rediscovered Vega after seeing her on Austin City Limits in 1996 and falling in love with her still-amazing Nine Objects of Desire album. Then I became, very literally, one of her biggest fans–she knew me by name when I met her at a book signing in Copley Square, and I endured mean Rice Chex-throwing rich hippies when I stood near the stage to see her at the Newport Folk Festival. This was #2 when I made a favorite songs of the 90’s list back in 2001 (which is very different from this one, in that it included songs that weren’t pop hits–if you care want to see it in all its atrociously formatted glory click here.)

54. En Vogue, Free Your Mind (1992, #8)

Another song I associate with school bus rides, this time from sixth grade, after the city decided to cut budget funding by moving all “special students” onto the same bus, meaning that allegedly gifted sixth-graders like me had to endure really long bus rides with emotionally unstable delinquents and all-day kindergarteners. Luckily, my only friend was on the bus with me, and I remember the two of us hatching a plan to rewrite all of En Vogue’s Funky Divas singles to be about NBA players–this might have been the one about Hakeem Olajuwan, but I’m not sure. Inspired by the rocky R&B of Janet Jackson’s Slash collaboration and copied shortly after for that movie with the Kleenex and the sharp sword and Kevin Costner, it’s still really good.

53. Paperboy, Ditty (1993, #10)

More or less lost to the sands of time, Bay Area rapper Paperboy’s big hit was a slick little number that, honestly, I don’t remember hearing before it came up on some one-hit wonders show thing a couple of years back. I like how most people use the phrase one-hit wonder in terms of how talented the musicians were and not, you know, how it really all depends on the whims of money-grubbing and ultimately ridiculous record labels. Still, Island cared about Ditty enough to change the weird, weird original video, replacing much of the, uh, pastoral imagery with boring party scenes. (Historical note: this video was filmed when hip-hop meant sepia tones; this was before the “black people/blue light!” craze of the new millennium.)

52. Soho, Hippy Chick (1990. #13)

According to Soho’s Wikipedia entry*, the trio’s current whereabouts are not known. But thanks to a Youtube commenter, it seems that they’re alive and well and living in Scotland. Back in the day, it was really exciting to hear the beginning of this song on The Retro Lunch and wonder if it was going to be the mopey Smiths epic or the indie dance song with the cowbell. Originally named Groovalax, which might be the single worst band name I’ve ever heard, the group faded into obscure domesticity after numerous label troubles and are thus relegated to one-hit wonder status.

(*Their Wikipedia entry also claims that one of their albums suffers from cocaine production. Ideas what that might mean in real terms, anyone?)

51. Mazzy Star, Fade Into You (1994, #15)

Back when I was thirteen, before I had any sense in my head, I said that Mazzy Star’s gloriously languid Fade Into You was the Worst Song of the Year. Specifically, in my poorly-scrawled summary of that year’s music, I called it the “only song I hated more than Full House.” Which is serious, because I thought Full House was the worst show on TV, and I watched a lot of TV so I meant it. I guess I just wasn’t ready to experience anything that pretty yet, because by the end of high school I was ready to accept Hope Sandoval as the dreamy goddess that she is.

50. Sheryl Crow, Home (1997, #18)

Sheryl Crow’s best single is also the one nobody remembers. The hauntingly beautiful Home was the fourth and final release from the surprisingly dark Walmart-banned album where she looked like Fiona Apple on the cover and sang mildly depressing songs about aliens and nuclear war. Forget the Lance Armstrong thing. Forget her later foray into fake tan and toothpick arms. Forget the ex-boyfriend autoerotic asphyxiation thing. Forget that she said that Las Vegas was a metaphor for Los Angeles, and for Christ’s sake try your hardest to forget Soak Up The Sun. Hell, forget All I Wanna Do, if it helps. Early Sheryl Crow, especially the second album, is really cool.

49. BLACKstreet, No Diggity (1996, #1)

I thought this song was decent when it came out, though its release coincided with my teenaged retreat away from hip-hop and into the Joni Mitchell’s cold Canadian arms. I saw BLACKstreet on MTV at some point, though, and they explained the song’s different parts–what inspired the piano part, where the melody came from, the gospel backup vocals, and what the samples were–and I realized what a smart, well-crafted song this is. It’s kind of dumb, but I actually needed MTV to explain it for me. It’s my favorite Dr Dre production, and my favorite high school-era rap song.

48. Joan Osborne, One Of Us (1996, #4)

Entertainment Weekly and I unanimously agreed that Joan Osborne’s Relish was the best album of 1995, and I still think it’s fantastic. While much of the Lilith Fair era has aged poorly, lead single St Teresa and album tracks as good Pensacola and Let’s Just Get Naked sound as awesome today as they did twelve years ago. One Of Us was a standout on the album, and not necessarily in a good way; it was the only song she didn’t write herself, and probably the only one that could have gotten annoying after as many radio plays as it did. I can’t say I’ve ever had many heroes, but Joan Osborne was one for awhile. She had gone to NYU for film school, so I wanted to go to NYU for film school! She said that Let’s Stay Together was the best song ever, and I was more than happy to believe her! She was always on VH-1 Crossroads, and that was my favorite TV show! And so on…. It’s kind of strange that I lost interest when the rest of the world did–I ought to really check out some of her more recent stuff.

47. Everything but the Girl, Missing (1996, #2)

Back in 1996, one of my favorite websites was Everything But The Girl’s website, ebtg.com, which had a pink leopard-print background and Tracey Thorn’s book recommendations. It’s totally thanks to her that I got into Philip Roth and read A Very Long Engagement and, um, some other things I don’t really remember right now. I remember first hearing Missing on a VH-1 show about songs that were number one in other countries, but it was the whole of the Amplified Heart and Walking Wounded albums that gave my nerdy bones their much-needed fix of longing dance music and acoustic pop.

46. Toni Braxton, Another Sad Love Song (1993, #7)

I still love Braxton’s first hit, which won me over the first time I ever heard it. A great R&B singer that’s rarely given decent material, this Babyface-penned song stands as the perfect midpoint between hip-hop records and your aunt’s Anita Baker tapes. She won a Best New Artist Grammy but hasn’t had a hit song since the oddly inappropriate Hit The Freeway almost six years ago, and last I knew her body was plastered on the side of a hotel in Vegas.

45. Stereo MCs, Connected (1993, #15)

Back in sixth grade, my mother let me have a sleepover birthday party, and I invited all the boys in my class. Even though I only had one friend they all came, and it was a messy rumble of Super Nintendo and manhunt (back when manhunt was just the tougher version of hide and seek.) But the best part of the whole part was when the coolest kid brought over his Stereo MCs tape and put this song on. None of us had ever been near drugs before and, you know, I’ve still never gotten connected in the way he’s singing about, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the sentiment.

44. Ini Kamoze, Here Comes The Hotstepper (1995, #1)

On a hot summer day in 1994, my parents and I sat down together in our air conditioned family room to watch a movie together, as a family. The movie, which I chose myself, was Short Cuts, Robert Altman’s wonderful drama about life in contemporary LA. I thought it was a beautiful story about a suicidal cellist and a cultural fixation on TV, but my parents saw it as “the movie where you see Julianne Moore’s pubes and everybody swears a lot.” Lots of fighting ensues when they tell me I can’t watch R-rated movies anymore.

Flash forward six months. My parents and I decided to go to a movie together, as a family, which is something we never did, and for some reason they let me pick the movie. Naturally, I chose Ready to Wear, Robert Altman’s silly movie about Paris fashion that has lots of sex, lots of gays, and lots of actors who don’t seem to actually be in the movie for any reason. Boy was my homophobic and cranky father annoyed when we sat down, as a family, in front of a group of gays who spent the whole movie yelling to Sophia Loren on screen. I really love the movie (and its more successful soundtrack, which is where the song comes from) but I think it was the last time my father ever paid to see anything in a movie theater.

43. Bingoboys feat. Princessa, How to Dance (1991, #25)

It took me years to track down this song before the advent of Youtube videos; it was a major hit for Austrian trio Bingoboys back in 1991 but almost entirely forgotten today. I couldn’t even find anybody that remembered it for a long time. Princessa’s rapping and the instruction records elevate this over most other Eurodance, to the point where I feel like I can’t even express how much I like it.

42. New Order, Regret (1993, #28)

Along with The More You Ignore Me The Closer I Get and James’s Laid, this song first signalled to me that there might be something out there besides hip-hop posturing, classic rock that I couldn’t relate to, and cheesy freestyle. I mean, for a suburban white kid who kept his radio dial faithfully on the pop station, things didn’t get much better than this, a song that actually spoke to my bored, shy white-boy loneliness. Also, if anyone can explain the context of this video to me, please leave it in the comments.

41. Len, Steal My Sunshine (1999, #4)

Back in the summer of 1999, there was a battle of good and evil on 12 cuts above the rest, the local modern rock station’s weekly countdown of most requested songs. On the side of good, Steal My Sunshine, the perky alterna-disco single by a Canadian brother-sister duo that sounded like a poppier Bis. And on the side of evil, Nookie. Sure they both featured hideous men wearing tacky wifebeaters, but it was more of a moral struggle. All summer they fought for the top 2 spots, and Limp Bizkit usually won. But then pop radio caught on to Len, and soon they were getting played on other Bizkit-free stations. And now, ten years later, I think way more people are inclined to admit that they actually liked this song than fucking Nookie. Yay, forces of good!