90s Anthems

Product Information

This extremely upbeat cover of Ready For The World’s 1986 tune took the airwaves by storm 11 years later in 1997. INOJ’s rework of the song and her cover of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time”, was less a slow jam or ballad than a song to be blasted at your cardio funk class. 52: Queen Latifah – Weekend Love Let’s clear up a common misconception: Despite the apparent lustfulness of its opening verse (“You let me violate you / You let me desecrate you”) and the chorus, Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” is not a sexy song. Its lyrics are not about desire, but an all-consuming self-hatred that makes you want to use someone else as a means to your own annihilation. That being said, “Closer” has a groove that’s as unsettling as it is undeniable – it’s “I Want Your Sex” for nihilists. Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991) Oasis have two further songs inside Greatest Songs of the 90s Top 10 – ‘Wonderwall’ at Number 3 and ‘Live Forever’ at Number 5. ‘Champagne Supernova’ narrowly missed out on the Top 10 at Number 12. Lauryn Hill initially penned “Ex-Factor” for another group but felt it was too personal to give away. This beautiful, heart-wrenching, breakup song was on repeat on many a Discman due to its relatability and stirring vocal performance. 29: Aaliyah – One In A Million

Tevin Campbell was everyone who ever tried to find the courage to talk to their crush. “Can We Talk” was all about the angst of teenage love, longing and words left unsaid. 41: Hi-Five – I Like The Way (The Kissing Game) Played during the closing credits of The Lion King, the song was originally to be performed by characters from the movie , but John objected to its comical nature. He wanted it to follow “Disney’s tradition of great love songs” and said it had the potential to be used to “express the lions’ feelings for each other far better than dialogue could”. One of the most unforgettable videos of the decade, Keith Sweat’s “Twisted” was a three-minute murder-mystery-romance that helped to launch the second wave of the R&B impresario’s career. A runaway hit, “Twisted” is infectious and danceable, and Sweat’s distinctive vocal style makes it a song only he could have pulled off. 36: Erykah Badu – On & OnIf OMC’s worldwide hit “ How Bizarre” sounded unlike anything else on the radio in the mid-90s, that’s because it came from New Zealand – thousands of miles away from the epicenters of grunge, Brit-pop, and gangsta rap. Brothers Phil and Pauly Fuemana fused Polynesian instrumentation with American elements of hip-hop and R&B to create the wholly unique Urban Pasifika sound. Pavement – Cut Your Hair (1994) Maybe you put this on a mixtape to your middle school crush or swayed to it at a dance, but this ballad is as serious as it gets. It was originally written for country music singer John Michael Montgomery but All-4-One made it a No.1 hit and won a Grammy for best pop performance in 1995. 57: Whitney Houston – Exhale (Shoop Shoop) The Mighty Mighty Bosstones formed in 1983, and after 14 years of grinding – including a minor appearance in Clueless and a major performance at Lollapalooza in 1995 – they finally landed their first (and only) major radio hit. Ska was peaking in the UK when the Bosstones formed, and the group would subsequently become godfathers to America’s ska scene, influencing bands like No Doubt and Sublime. From its punchy horn section to its tart groove, “The Impression That I Get” just might be the catchiest song on this list. My Bloody Valentine – Only Shallow (1991) A hot song with an equally hot video, Toni Braxton’s runaway No.1 from her sophomore album was the hit of the summer of ’96, and more than earns its place among the best 90s R&B songs. Rumored to be about everything from weed to masturbation, the suggestive lyrics were cleverly buried under a poppy, danceable, uptempo beat that borrowed from the burgeoning electronica movement. 17: Boyz II Men – On Bended Knee No, that isn’t “The Imperial March” that you hear at the beginning of White Town’s fluke hit, “Your Woman” – it’s actually taken from an old jazz tune. (You can hear the same sample in Dua Lipa’s “Love Again.”) If anything, “Your Woman” sounds like lo-fi Prince – and yes, the song is as great as that sounds. Yo La Tengo – Autumn Sweater (1997)

Written and produced by the legendary Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, this inspiring gospel/R&B song reminds listeners to, “keep your head up to the sky” and “to hold on to your dreams.” In 1991, this song went all the way to No.3 on the Hot R&B/Hip Hop songs chart. 63: Deborah Cox: Nobody’s Supposed To Be Here Coming at the end of a decade marred by cynicism and consumerism, New Radicals’ “You Get What You Give” was a ray of sunshine of a pop song, warm, bright, and life-affirming. Though New Radicals are remembered only as a one-hit-wonder (and disbanded after just one album), it’s a hit that left an impressive legacy. Nine Inch Nails – Closer (1994) If you started playing bass in the 90s, there’s a good chance you were inspired to do so after listening to Les Claypool, who can coax more sounds out of four strings than most guitarists can get out of six. It’s those crazy bass skills that broke Primus into the mainstream with “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver” – and if you can’t remember what the song is about, it’s probably because you were too busy frantically trying to play air bass along with it. Los Prisioneros – Tren al sur (1990) You could say that That Dog had talent in their blood: Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Anna Waronker is the daughter of producer-turned-executive Lenny Waronker, while legendary jazz bassist Charlie Haden was the father of two of her bandmates. Their pedigree no doubt opened doors, but it was Waronker’s songcraft that enabled so many people to form a connection with the band. In the case of “Minneapolis,” it’s the details, like the Low concert at Jabberjaw and the embarrassment Waronker feels when she tells her friends she wants to leave, that pull you into the story. Toadies – Possum Kingdom (1994) Putting their “Freek’n You” of days of Jodeci behind them, brothers K-Ci and JoJo Hailey returned to their traditional roots with their side project, Love Always, consisting of more wholesome R&B fare. When JoJo penned “All My Life” for his daughter, he had no idea it would become the duo’s longest-running number-one single of their career and one of the most popular wedding songs of all time. 60: Sade – No Ordinary LoveGlory Box” feels like a chemical composition as much as it does a musical one: So perfect is the alchemy of Geoff Barrow’s dank soundscapes, Beth Gibbons’ shivering vocals, and Adrian Utley’s guitar lines, that if you were to upset the balance between them, the song would be unequivocally changed. It’s just one of the reasons why Portishead was one of trip-hop’s premier acts, and why none of its imitators could properly replicate its gloomy aura. Primus – Jerry Was a Race Car Driver (1991) Leave it to Mariah Carey, the girl next door, to make pure lust sound so naive, so syrupy sweet, that it could be read as something pious to a passerby. Leave it to a diva at the height of her fame to describe being horny as feeling “kinda hectic inside,” and to articulate it by singing more dizzying runs than an amusement park’s worth of rides. It feels right that she wrote, produced, and recorded “Fantasy” in only two days, roughly the amount of time a person can live solely on the giddiness of a flirtation and the anticipation of an eventual release. Here’s what love at 26, the age at which she put out the song, could feel like. It’s what you want love to feel like for the rest of your life, too. Songs mean a lot when songs are bought / And so are you,” Stephen Malkmus snipes on “Cut Your Hair,” a sarcastic shot at an unscrupulous music industry and the fame-hungry bands willing to play ball with it. Ironically, “Cut Your Hair” was the closest Pavement would get to a hit, peaking in the Top 10 of Billboard’s US Alternative Airplay chart. Perhaps that’s why Malkmus steered Pavement toward shaggier, less commercially-friendly sounds on the subsequent Wowee Zowee. Pearl Jam – Alive (1991) R&B meets bubblegum pop in Soul IV Real’s bouncy debut single “Candy Rain.” Powered by the youthful voice of the youngest brother Jason “Jase” Dalyrimple of their family band, the single still slapped thanks to production by their mentor and Uptown labelmate Heavy D. 25: Usher – You Make Me Wanna

One In A Million’ was the fruit of Aaliyah’s first collaboration with Missy Elliott and Timbaland. A club ballad that fused elements of funk, electronica, and trip-hop, and put Aaliyah’s ethereal vocals on full display, it was the perfect distillation of all the pervasive sounds of the era. As one of the best 90s R&B songs, it would turn Aaliyah into the decade’s patron saint of R&B. 28: Selena – Dreaming Of YouThe chart success of Sublime’s “What I Got” (and its parent album) was without a doubt bittersweet for the band and its fans, as frontman Bradley Nowell died of a heroin overdose just months before the single was released. But it would be reductive to tie that success to Nowell’s passing, as the tune’s loping guitar melody and warm synthesizers would’ve almost certainly made “What I Got” a hit – think of it as a Grateful Dead mantra for skate-punks and frat boys. The Sundays – Here’s Where the Story Ends (1990) Dave Grohl could have been a Heartbreaker. After Nirvana’s tragic end, Grohl was invited to play drums for Tom Petty, but turned the offer down to start his own band. The yearning “Everlong” proved that, at his best, Grohl could be nearly as strong a songwriter as Kurt Cobain, plugging in his guitar and making it sing an anguished, burning love song. Garbage – Stupid Girl (1995) Joey” sounds like a holdover from the 80s in the best way possible, with its booming drums and gothic guitar that inexplicably gives way to a hair metal-worthy solo. (Right up until that solo, it could pass as a Jesus and Mary Chain song.) It’s a catchy song with darkness at its core, as Concrete Blonde frontwoman Johnette Napolitano wrote the lyrics about a romantic partner and their losing battle with alcoholism. Cornershop – Brimful of Asha (1997) I’m cheating with this one a bit, as it was actually released in November of 1989. However, it became a dance floor hit in early 1990 in the US, despite never being released there commercially. Additionally, it got to number 13 in the Irish charts.

Though their F-bomb-dropping cover of “I Will Survive” was more notorious, “The Distance” was the bigger hit for Cake, thanks to the song’s racing-as-a-metaphor-for-romantic-pursuit narrative and mariachi-inspired trumpet. Given how dour and humorless much of grunge could be, Cake’s deadpan goofiness offered a welcome respite. The Cardigans – Lovefool (1996)There is an excellent episode of Netflix’s Song Exploder featuring the band that discusses the song in detail. The single reached number 5 in Ireland. The music video relies heavily on computer-generated imagery and features Soviet imagery and iconography. The single got to the top spot in Ireland, the last single of theirs to do so to date and their fourth Irish number one. The Village People only managed number 15. This is by far Babyface’s most successful and most recognizable song. With Babyface broken-hearted and unable to move on from his love, hopefully, the answer was “soon.” 58: All-4-One – I Swear Spiderbait enjoyed a brief moment of recognition in the US when “Calypso” was featured in the great teen comedy 10 Things I Hate About You, though fans of the spiky Aussie pop-punk band probably would’ve been more familiar with “Buy Me a Pony.” It’s amazing to think of how many hooks Spiderbait could cram into songs that weren’t even two minutes long. Saint Etienne – Only Love Can Break Your Heart (1990)