The 1990s provided, as they say, "formative years" for the Cheese Fry as we navigated and fumbled our way through our 20s and early 30s - college (and grad school), first serious girlfriend, first jobs, apartment renting and roommates, moving to Los Angeles, driving for hours a week in Los Angeles traffic dialed into KROQ, KISS, and/or Star 98.
Today, "90s on 9" is a pre-set channel on our SiriusXM radio and often transports us back to an oddly specific memory from our storied past. It's like an aural time machine. That said, some of those 1990s songs make us cringe, roll our eyes, and click to another channel. Some songs really should stay unsung.
Which recently made us wonder... which of the most popular songs of the 1990s stand up today? Which ones remain timeless bangers and which ones have unexpectedly aged poorly and should be deep-sixed for the good of mankind?
For the record, accessing Billboard's official online list of the most popular songs of the 1990s requires a subscription, so we can't verify the accuracy of the free list we found plus we stipulate that how Billboard tracked popular music underwent a lot of changes during this period so the definitive list of 1990s hits is probably full of exceptions and asterisks. But for the purposes of this informal study we'll accept it.
The Bangers - popular 1990s songs we'd listen to again right now
* The Sign (ranked #11 on the all-time 1990s list), Ace of Base
* Waterfalls (#19), TLC
* Take a Bow (#24), Madonna
* Believe (#31), Cher
* No Scrubs (#33), TLC
* Livin La Vida Loca (#38), Ricky Martin
* Smooth (#41), Santana and Rob Thomas
* Stay (#94), Lisa Loeb
* Save the Best for Last (#47), Vanessa Williams
* Another Night (#51), Real McCoy
* Nobody Knows (#61), Tony Rich Project
* I Love You Always Forever (#71), Donna Lewis
* Unpretty (#76), TLC
* Baby One More Time (#78), Britney Spears
* Nothing Compares 2 U (#82), Sinead O'Connor
* Quit Playing Games (with My Heart) (#86), Backstreet Boys
* Hypnotize (#88), Notorious B.I.G.
* California Love (#97), 2Pac
* Return of the Mack (#100), Mark Morrison
Guess we were bigger TLC fans than we realized. Of that list, without question the most finely-crafted, perfectly realized pop song is "Livin La Vida Loca." And there is very little traditional verse/chorus pattern to "Stay" but we know every word. Kudos also to the crunchy hooks of "California Love" and "Hypnotize" for making white people think they were hip hop fans.
The Outcasts - popular 1990s song we never, ever want to hear again
* Macarena (#2), Los Del Rio
* I Will Always Love You (#7), Whitney Houston
* I Swear (#9), All 4 One
* Because You Loved Me (#18), Celine Dion
* Can't Help Falling in Love (#22), UB40
* (Everything I Do) I Do It for You (#37), Bryan Adams
* Black or White (#39), Michael Jackson
* Whoomp! There It Is (#44), Tag Team
* Here Comes the Hotstepper (#65), Ini Kamoze
* I'm Too Sexy (#79), Right Said Fred
No real surprise here. Cheap, awful novelty songs ("Macarena" and "Whoomp!" and "I'm Too Sexy") were barely tolerable when they were new. For us, there's really no Celine Dion song worth a listen - it's all too bombastic and syrupy and "look at how dramatic I can sing" self-aware. As for "I Will Always Love You," that was ruined for us by endless radio play. And UB40 holds a special place of irritation in our hearts - they provided not one, but two terrible and unlistenable fake reggae disasters: "Can't Help Falling in Love" and "Red Red Wine."
