A (half) Century of Music

[General Havoc]

I can understand getting cordially sick of that song in Scotland, but then I'm not in Scotland :)

[White Haven]

Nor am I, hence why I find every possible opportunity to reference it in his presence.

[General Havoc]

1994
Yearly GPA: 1.558




Well that didn't take long.

If 1979 was the year of the Bee Gees, then 1994 was the year of another group, R&B quartet Boyz II Men, whom I of course knew about, but had no idea were this huge. More than half the year is taken up with their work, mostly in the form of two massive songs that landed in the heart of the year's offerings. Unfortunately, what this means is that, like '79, the year is entirely dependent on whether I, the critic, like the group in question, and the answer to that question should be correspondingly obvious to anyone who can read the chart above. Honestly, this year would be even worse if it wasn't for a single reprieve-song early on, one that will no doubt obliterate what little credibility I have left. So be it. At least the year will be over quickly.







Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart, & Sting - All for Love
Number 1 song from January 22nd-February 11th, 1994 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Written for the Three Musketeers movie that year, starring Keither Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, and Tim Curry, this song is a pile of ass. All the worst habits of these three artists combine to produce hyper-boring easy listening crap, so useless that it doesn't even have a decent intro. The only thing I really like from this song is the cold opener, wherein Rod Stewart shows up late and calls Sting "String". This amuses me.

Apparently, the three artists tried to release this song under the acronym of the first initials of their last names in the order they appear above. The record company refused. Pity.



Celine Dion - The Power of Love
Number 1 song from February 12th-March 11th, 1994 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: A
*Sigh*

So er... yeah. I've made a number of highly embarrassing admissions over the course of this project, from my irrational love for Elton John to my appreciation for cheesy 80s ballads, but... I probably will never make an admission more embarrassing and more damaging to my credibility for all time than this one. The Power of Love (not to be confused with the Huey Lewis song of the same name), is a 1984 song by Jennifer Rush that has been covered by about three hundred different people, and I basically love every single one of them. Even the instrumental version by The Shadows, even Michael Crawford's version. Even Englebert Humperdink's. Even fucking Air Supply's.

And yet I think this one is my favorite of all, and I will tell you why. The song is a classic early-80s ballad, something I'm already quite partial to, and Dion's version is the one that adds synthesizers and even a very faint rock edge to it, turning it into a proper power ballad. Dion sings the thing perfectly, the buildup for it is tremendous, every single element of this song is calculated to make me like it. I'm well aware this makes me inferior to those of you who can't stand Celine Dion and everything she ever stood for, and that's fine, but I did not listen to every single fucking song from 1958 through to 1994 just to get to this one and lie to you. I love this song. And I will love it even after you have all explained to me how wrong I am for doing so.



Ace of Base - The Sign
Number 1 song from March 12th-April 8th, May 7th-20th, 1994 (6 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Given the above admission, I'm actually kind of surprised I didn't like the Sign better, but it hasn't aged as well as I expected it would, and downtempo reggae fusion is simply not my thing, or so it appears. I know it's sort of a guilty pleasure of a number of people and I certainly don't hate the song or anything, but when it comes to Swedish music, I'll take Roxette over Ace of Base.



R Kelly - Bump 'N' Grind
Number 1 song from April 9th-May 6th, 1994 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Well I do see something wrong with a little Bump 'N' Grind, most specifically the fact that the song is a slow, lugubrious slog that feels MUCH longer than it's supposed 4 and a half minute runtime. I can think of nothing else to say about R Kelly's debut, and so shall not.



All-4-One - I Swear
Number 1 song from May 21st-August 5th, 1994 (11 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
This song, a cover of a country song from earlier the same year, was absolutely omnipresent throughout the mid-90s. I have no idea why. I know this period was the apex of the R&B quartet period, as groups like Boyz-II-Men and their imitators can show, but I have cordially no use for this song, despite my efforts, as slow and boring as it ultimately is. Maybe the entire genre is wasted on me, but I don't see why this was such a huge song this year or any other, something I can say for an awful lot of songs that lasted forever on top of the charts.



Lisa Loeb - Say (I Missed You)
Number 1 song from August 6th-26th, 1994 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
The story goes that Ethan Hawke, a friend of Loeb's, gave this song to Ben Stiller who included it in turn in his directorial debut film, Reality Bites. What he heard in it, I don't know, but this song is actually the first of a large number of female pop/folk pop/adult contemporary hits that would go on to increasingly dominate the decade, as mainstream America looked for something that combined Nirvana's sound with Easy Listening blandness. I don't hate every one of the songs that would result from this trend, but I do hate most of them. So thanks, Loeb, for that.



Boyz II Men - I'll Make Love To You
Number 1 song from August 27th-December 2nd, 1994 (14 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Christ, I forgot just how big this band was.

Yes, this song, Boyz II Men's second ultra-mega-smash hit of 1994 completely swallows up the second half of the year, and once again I'm not sure why. No, I don't hate this song, but it's just not that interesting, despite its reputation as some kind of ultra-sexy Marvin-Gaye analogue. This easy listening R&B poisoned a lot of the 90s, and I'll be damned if I can figure out what everyone heard in this song, which once again set the record for the longest run on the billboard charts (at least until 1996).



Boyz II Men - On Bended Knee
Number 1 song from December 3rd-16th, 1994, December 31st, 1994-January 27th, 1995 (7 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I wanted to give this one the barest pass just because of the improved harmonies, the soulfulness of the singing, and a much improved melody over the rest of Boyz II Men's catalog, even though the intermission-spoken-word section almost killed that impulse for me. But in general, of the Boyz II Men hits of 1994, this is the... better one? I guess? I still don't really like this song, but it's not as annoying as the others are, and I can sort of see why people might like it. This song, incidentally, marks the first time an artist replaced themselves at the top of the charts since the Beetles in 1964. What a wonderful comparison that is...



Ini Kamoze - Here Comes the Hotstepper
Number 1 song from December 17th-30th, 1994 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
Yes, you do know this song, even if you've never heard of the title before, I guarantee it. And even if, by some miracle you managed to miss it entirely, take it from me, this cool, relaxed reggae-fusion piece is a massive breath of fresh air in an otherwise stiflingly dead year. I'm hardly the most reggae-minded white guy out there, but I actually really like this song, with its proper blend of old school funk and lyrical dexterity, or at least what passed for it in the mid-90s. This song is a great mood and background piece, and is one of the few bright spots this year.







Supplemental Songs

With so few songs actually appearing on the top of the charts, surely there's a good crop of supplementals for us to peruse?



Elton John - Can You Feel The Love Tonight
1994 Billboard Top 100 position: 18


Havoc's Grade: B
Oh fuck it, why not drop all credibility forever? It's not like I've got any left.

Yes, 1994 was the year of The Lion King, arguably Disney's finest work ever, and central to the entire project was the soundtrack, one of the strongest that even Disney movies records. This far most people will go, but no farther, as this song is regarded as schmaltzy, saccharine shit. Well fair enough, but I've professed by appreciation for Elton John before this point, and while this is certainly on the softer side of even his offerings, it's still a decent song, one I will profess to actually liking in a calm, relaxing sort of way. Not everything has to be freaking Megadeth, guys. There are times I just want to put something on that sounds a bit whistful, and for a love song, this one certainly fits the bill in an almost ethereal fashion.

Yeah, I know, I suck, my music sucks, this song sucks, and Elton John sucks. I know. But after this year, at least, there will be no more credibility to shed, now will there? And besides, I defy any of you to reveal all your unmanly music selections the way I have.



Warren G, featuring Nate Dogg - Regulate
1994 Billboard Top 100 position: 22


Havoc's Grade: B
Maybe the most famous G-funk song ever written, this intriguing little piece never managed to bring about a new musical style into the forefront, but it left us the song itself, which was something of a classic around my high school, for one. It took me a while to find a non-censored version of this song, as singing about "making bodies turn cold" in a funk song was apparently unheard of at the time, but this song is a cool, relaxed piece with just enough edge to keep it from getting boring, and I expect to get a lot less flak for this than the song above.



Bruce Springsteen - Streets of Philadelphia
1994 Billboard Top 100 position: 54


Havoc's Grade: B
One of the most effortlessly melancholy songs I've ever heard, Streets of Philadelphia, off the Philadelphia soundtrack was a stunning song when it was released, and has softened only a little with time. Springsteen plays it only very rarely, having commented before that the loss it represents to him is almost too much to bear. One of several unofficial anthems for the AIDS plague, whose ravages were just passing their apogee, this is a haunting song, one I don't listen to often, but hold in immense respect.



Pearl Jam - Better Man
1994 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
Better Man was never released as a single, due to Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder declaring that it was, and I quote, "too mainstream". But regardless, this song is one of Pearl Jam's better ones, a sad lament for a woman trapped in a marriage she can't escape from. I can't say I break it out all that often, but it's a solid piece of alternative rock, and I do like how effortlessly evocative of the scene this song is, without lapsing into hacky melodrama.

Oh, and speaking of Pearl Jam...



Pearl Jam - Daughter
1994 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
Daughter is my favorite of Pearl Jam's songs, mostly because it's one of the best uses an acoustic guitar has been put to since Bob Dylan stopped writing 60s ballads. Written about learning-disabled children getting the hell beat out of them for being unable to understand what was happening, the song has a wonderful energy to it, which unfortunately peters out by the end, but I do still enjoy it quite a bit. Rolling Stone called this song a "tribalist throwback to classic rock", which will do for me.



Elton John - The Circle of Life
1994 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
I've split this selection because I can't ever decide which version of this song I like the best, the raw zulu-inspired orchestral overture from the film version, or the more polished piano ballad by Elton John himself. Both versions of the headliner song to the Lion King have strengths and weaknesses, the former rather meandering about for half its runtime, the latter ending on a very light-rock-AM note. Still, either song is quite strong, and by now it should be a surprise to nobody that I like something like this.



Rednex - Cotton Eye Joe
1994 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
Oh shut up. You like this song, and I don't believe you if you tell me you don't. The most famous song from a Swedish electro-house band that decided to break into country western for some damn reason, Cotton Eye Joe is a dance party favorite for a reason, stupid as all hell but infectious regardless, a perfect example of what House-Country ought to sound like. I don't care what music snobs have to say about this song, I enjoy the hell out of it, and so do you. If I can admit to liking the above songs, you can admit to this.



Green Day - When I Come Around
1994 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
I agonized over Basket Case, Green Day's first hit, but ultimately decided not to include it on this list, as it simply didn't age quite as well as I assumed it would back in high school. When I Come Around on the other hand, cored around a strong riff and bass line (and with a music video filmed in San Francisco!) has remained a solid, if not earthshaking song, one of Green Day's better works, at least in my opinion. What my opinion is worth after this torturous year, I can guess at, but you all have followed me this far, and there are yet more embarrassing admissions to be made as we move on further into the 90s.



Other noted songs from 1994:
Toni Braxton - Breathe Again
Ace of Base - All that She Wants
Ace of Base - Don't Turn Around
Salt-n-Peppa - Whatta Man
Richard Marx - Now & Forever
Bryan Adams - Please Forgive Me
All-4-One - So Much In Love
Salt-n-Peppa - Shoop
Michael Bolton - Said I Loved You... But I Lied
Enigma - Return to Innocence
Sheryl Crow - All I Wanna Do
Crash Test Dummies - Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm <---- Really, guys?
Melissa Etheridge - Come to My Window
The Cranberries - Linger
Beck - Loser
Snoop Doggy Dogg - Gin and Juice
Jimmy Cliff - I Can See Clearly Now
Aerosmith - Crazy
Meat Loaf - Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mary Jane's Last Dance
The Four Seasons - December, 1963 (Oh What a Night) <---- Charting Remix version. We saw the original back in 1975.
Melissa Etheridge - I'm The Only One
Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun
Amy Grant - Big Yellow Taxi
Weezer - Buddy Holly
The Offspring - Come Out and Play
Mariah Carey & Luther Vandross - Endless Love
Counting Crows - Mr. Jones
Now and Forever - Richard Marx
Beastie Boys - Sabotage
The Offspring - Self Esteem
Weezer - Undone (The Sweater Song)
Green Day - Basket Case
The Cranberries - Zombie

[LadyTevar]

Fun Fact: Meatloaf's "Rock & Roll Dreams Come True" was the first film introduction to a lady who is now a top Movie Star: Angelina Jolie.

[General Havoc]

1995
Yearly GPA: 1.538





If you're beginning to get sick of the mid-90s and want the good times to come back, then brother, I've got bad news for you. Blame the Billboard algorithms if you want, but this year was lousy with samey-sounding R&B ephemera, a trend I have every faith is going nowhere fast. Music will indeed change over the next few years, but we are entering a ten-year slide now that culminates in what is widely considered the worst year in music history. Dig in, ladies and gentlemen, this is not going to be fun.





TLC - Creep
Number 1 song from January 28th-February 24th, 1995 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I've never gotten why TLC got popular, though I'm sure someone out there can explain it to me. This song is a boring, lackadaisical hip-hop/soul piece that really showcases nothing except the trio's capacity to sing in a sultry voice. I'm not tremendously impressed. Supposedly Lisa Lopes was against the release of this song as she felt the message of reciprocal cheating was a bad one to send to young girls. Given that this is coming from an artist most famous for burning her boyfriend's house down, that's quite a statement.



Madonna - Take a Bow
Number 1 song from February 25th-April 14th, 1995 (7 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Take a Bow was Madonna's attempt to pull back from the Courtney-Love-esque reputation she had crafted for herself, after a series of major public backlashes against her antics. People call this thing "Japanese" and "Calypso-infused", though I have to admit that I don't hear it at all. That said, I should probably hate this song more than I do, slow and repetitive as it is. The video attracted all the attention, of course, with PETA exploding in outrage over the glorification of bullfighting, and Madonna using it as an audition piece for the movie Evita. I can't say the hubbub is tremendously impressive this many years after the fact, as the song it's built around just isn't worth getting that up in arms about.

This is Madonna's eleventh number one hit. Her career was massive.



Montell Jordan - This is How We Do It
Number 1 song from April 15th-June 2nd, 1995 (7 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I gave this song a point just for not being a slow R&B number. Not that there's all that much to Montell Jordan's sole claim to fame, but this New Jack-Hip Hop number is at least memorable, in a year when not a whole lot of songs were.



Bryan Adams - Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman
Number 1 song from June 3rd-July 7th, 1995 (5 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Well you can't say he didn't try, guys, but this Spanish-infused soft rock piece is just not for me. Adams' simpering vocals just don't match the latin rock style of the song, the lead single off the soundtrack to the Johnny Depp-starring Don Juan Demarco. The song isn't terrible by any stretcbut it's just not something I'm after. Sorry.



TLC - Waterfalls
Number 1 song from July 8th-August 25th, 1995 (7 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Waterfalls would be a pretty good song if it would just get to the point. With topics relating to HIV, drug dealing, murder, and juvenile delinquency, the song is quite well crafted, and gets the messages across without sanctimony or hyperbole, except that the song also has to stop for five minutes at a time to show us the most on-the-nose dramatic retellings of the stories in question, which utterly kills the song's momentum. It's still not a terrible one, and the radio edit does improve on things, but it's a classic case of putting the video before the song, never a good idea when it comes time to evaluate music.



Seal - Kiss from a Rose
Number 1 song from August 26th-September 1st, 1995 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
Kiss from a Rose is a weird song, and that probably saves it from a weaker score. The headliner from the Batman Forever soundtrack, this song is a strange, gothic, R&B Soul number that I don't particularly love, but recognize fairly instantly from it's strange minor-chord acapella intro and periodic tune stoppages. It's not a great song, and Seal is not a great singer (in addition to being a supporter of genocidal Chechen warlords), but it's decent enough to warrant a pass.



Michael Jackson - Kiss from a Rose
Number 1 song from September 2nd-8th, 1995 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
Michael Jackson's last number 1 single was a slow, R Kelly-written love ballad, with a video that is one of the creepiest things I've ever seen. I have long tried not to mock Michael's pale, artificial appearance overmuch, generated as it was in no small part by an incurable skin disease, but the sight of him frolicking in the nude with his wife is nonetheless not something I felt the need to see. That said, the song is all right, not wonderful, but all right, as slow languid ballads go. It's one of Michael's slowest songs at 60 BPM, but he sings it in an appropriately heartfelt manner, and the song builds properly. I'm not gonna throw it on constantly, but I won't condemn Michael's last appearance here.



Coolio - Gangsta's Paradise
Number 1 song from September 9th-29th, 1995 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: A
I'm not a fan of Hip Hop normally, but there's times when you have to make an exception and Gangsta's Paradise is one of the greatest exceptions there is. A dark, operatic song, replete with a Gothic choir, Psycho-inspired orchestral strings, and a strong choral performance by R&B/Gospel singer L.V., this was the title song off the Dangerous Minds soundtrack, and has utterly replaced the movie it was made for in popular consciousness. Modified from the 1976 Stevie Wonder song "Passtime Paradise", this is Coolio's only hit, as well as the only song he ever wrote that featured no profanity, a decision he attributed to wishing for the song to be taken seriously by the mainstream. Instead of cursing, the song is filled instead with rich, biblical imagery and dour, apocalyptic tones, ranging from the 23rd Psalm to smoke and light images taken from beat poets and earlier Hip Hop artists.

Gangsta's Paradise might be my favorite hip hop song of all time, a tremendously evocative song that sounds like nothing else before or since, so unique and well-crafted that Weird Al's parody version became my favorite work of his career. Coolio was never this good again, and nor were any of his contemporaries, but that hardly matters. Gangsta's Paradise is a flat masterpiece, and I will unhesitatingly put it up against any other song of its era or its genre as one of the finest ever recorded.



Mariah Carey - Fantasy
Number 1 song from September 30th-November 24th, 1995 (8 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I was ready to give this song mercy, I really was, but it simply could not get out of its own way. The underlying structure of this up-tempo dance-pop number is actually pretty decent, in a mid-90s sort of way, but the effect is spoiled utterly by layer upon layer upon layer of random warblings, until the song starts to sound like seventeen people having a conversation in a crowded room over which music is being piped. This is a problem that afflicted Mariah a hell of a lot, the inability to actually sit down and get to the song, but perhaps never more than here. The video was also, incidentally, Mariah's directorial debut, and it shows the same problems, a shot length of twenty miliseconds and a generally unfocused tone, something that dooms both video and song to the grade above.



Whitney Houston - Exhale (Shoop Shoop)
Number 1 song from November 25th-December 1st, 1995 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Apparently Whitney balked at this song when it was first presented to her, asking if songwriter Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds had forgotten how to write lyrics. I think that's a prescient question, as this song is meaningless nonsense, thrown onto the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack to try and boost its popularity. Obviously it worked, but this song is a waste of Houston's talents, as were most non-ballads or dance songs that she did. Other than a music video directed by Forest Whitaker, there's really nothing else to distinguish this song from a host of other mid-90s Soul/R&B singles.



Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men - One Sweet Day
Number 1 song from December 2nd, 1995-March 22nd, 1996 (16 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
The question of which song was the biggest song of all time is not easy to answer, but if we go by the charts, it was this one, as One Sweet Day holds, to this day, the record for longest time spent on top of the charts. This song was 1995, a massive team-up anthem from two of the biggest R&B artists in the world at the time, whjich hit number 1 in 36 countries and whose seismic impact was so immense that the music video was them recording it. This song is one of the biggest things ever.

And it sucks. It's the worst habits of both Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey on display for all the world to sea, rambling warbling nonsense over a beat and melody so basic as to defy description. Only now, rather than Mariah redoubling herself eight times over the chorus, she can add four other people to the cacaphony of nightmares that this song produces by the end. I don't hate this song enough to flunk it, but it's an ephemeral piece of mid-90s collaboro-pop. I have no use for it, something which will reflect in next year's scores as it takes up a full quarter of the year to come.







Supplemental Songs

A samey year often shoves interesting songs off onto the Supplemental list, so let's see what we've got.



Hootie & The Blowfish - Only Wanna Be With You
1995 Billboard Top 100 position: 33


Havoc's Grade: B
Can someone explain to me why Hootie & The Blowfish got so much flak? I mean they're hardly Aerosmith or anything, but what's so terribly wrong with a little Heartland Rock once in a while? I'm not precisely a fan of the Blowfish, but I do like this song and it's rich, rambling (yes, sometimes that's a good thing) vocals by frontman Darius Rucker, whom I did not know was black for the longest time. The video for the song looks like something the Foo Fighters might do, which is no terrible thing, and the song was close enough to something Bob Dylan had done for him to sue them. All in all, it's not a bad song, perhaps a borderline case, but one I'll allow in if only because it's not the same old shit.



Martin Page - The House of Stone and Light
1995 Billboard Top 100 position: 35


Havoc's Grade: B
One of the last single-songwriter ballads, as one of the last electro-gospel hits ever, The House of Stone and Light is a strange, moody song, one that's weird enough for me to appreciate without being inaccessible. The lyrics ramble on over a thousand spiritual topics from Baptist theology to Hindu philosophy to the lost kingdom of Shambhala, but the overall impression is coherent enough to sustain the song, and I'm a sucker for choirs included in pop music to lend weight. Call it what you want, I like this song regardless.



The Pretenders - I'll Stand By You
1995 Billboard Top 100 position: 95


Havoc's Grade: B
If anyone's wondering what I mean by criticizing the "ramblyness" of the number 1 songs this year, this song should provide an effective counterpoint. I'll Stand By You isn't a great song, really, but frontwoman Chrissie Hynde's singing is clean and clear and strikes exactly the right note between compassion and conviction that a power ballad like this demands. It's still not a spectacular song, necessarily, but it's one I like a great deal, as post-80s power ballads don't have a lot to offer until you get to the vicinity of 2010.



Weezer - Buddy Holly
1995 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
I agonized over this one for a while, as I'm not a massive fan of Weezer in general or this song in particular, but it's a strong alternative-rock offering from the year, and I can't deny that I listened to this song a looooot back in High School. So chalk one up for nostalgia (on every count), and sit back for a dose of 50s cheese. Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo actually objected to including this song on the album for that exact reason, but the record label talked him into it, probably for the best. I don't adore Buddy Holly, but I like it, and Hotfoot does need to be appeased on occasion...



Live - Lightning Crashes
1995 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
Lightning Crashes is one of the most evocative songs I've ever heard, thanks mostly to a exceptionally restrained sensibility, even by the standards of post-grunge rock. It's a mystical, nuanced song, one that I really have no cognates for, like if REM and U2 tried to imitate Nirvanna together. Songwriter and lead singer Ed Kowalczyk always said that he had an impression the song was taking place in a hospital, but I've always gotten a slightly otherworldly sense from it, as if it was derived from something just ever-so-slightly beyond the grasp of our reality. It does kind of revert to more normal grunge-rock by the end, but it leaves, at least for me, a hell of an impression.



Scatman John - Scatman (Ski Ba Bop Ba Dop Bop)
1995 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
All but forgotten today, Scatman John was one of the weirdest stories in popular music, a 53-year-old backup jazz musician with a lifelong stutter who found relief from his affliction in the scat-singing techniques of Ella Fitzgerald. When, in 1995, he switched from Jazz to Eurodance and released an album, the effect was nuclear. This song erupted in Europe and particularly in Japan, making Scatman John one of the biggest stars in the world for a brief moment. Looking back at it, this song isn't great, but it's legitimately pretty damn good, and odd enough to make up the rest. I remember this song being fairly damn ubiquitous back in the day, and I still groove to it unironically today. Scatman John died of lung cancer in 1999, but his song lives on, appropriately remembered as a mid-90s gem.



The Cranberries - Zombie
1995 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
Irish Grunge isn't a genre I know a hell of a lot about, but this song, one I regarded with fair indifference at the time, touched off a firestorm when it came out, written as it was about the IRA bombings of Warrington, England, during the Troubles, a terrorist attack which killed two young children and which more or less destroyed the IRA's credibility with both the British and Irish public. None of that was apparent at the time though, and the Cranberries, one of the more famous Irish bands around at the time, took immense flak for betraying "the cause" by writing a paean to the young victims of the IRA. The lead singer's father was shot at in his own home, the bassist's car was incinerated by a petrol bomb while he was still in it (he escaped). Time vindicated the Cranberries and their song, but leaving all the politics aside, the song is just good enough for me to include on the list, a solid grunge-rock track with a message that doesn't overstay itself, and a vocal style whose roughness enhances, rather than detracts from, the overall result.





Other noted songs from 1995:
All-4-One - I Can Love You Like That
Luniz - I Got 5 On It
Melissa Etheridge - I'm the Only One
Tom Petty - You Don't Know How It Feels
69 Boyz - Tootsie Roll
Sheryl Crow - All I Wanna Do
Annie Lennox - No More I Love Yous
U2 - Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
Gloria Estefan - Turn the Beat Around
Vanessa Williams - Colors of the Wind
Selena - Dreaming of You
Michael Jackson - Earth Song
Alanis Morrisette - Hand in my Pocket
Nine Inch Nails - Hurt
Meat Loaf - I'd Lie For You (And That's The Truth)
The Presidents of the United States of America - Lump
Rednex - Old Pop in an Oak
Scatman John - Scatman's World
Cher - Walking in Memphis

[LadyTevar]

Once again, Billboard's rankings show how pathetic their system was at the time. The Supplemental and "Other Noted" were bigger hits imho than those listed

[White Haven]

I feel it necessary to provide some context to the cultural environment surrounding these billboard top hits. To that end, I present this for your inspection and education.

[General Havoc]

1996
Yearly GPA: 1.288





Ouch.

1996 hit a low that we haven't seen since 1963, which if you don't remember, was the worst year we have ever seen. '96 isn't quite that bad, but the songs this year were pretty damn wretched, even with a couple of semi-decent pieces in the middle of the year. I admit to being a bit surprised that it came out this bad, but then again the music this year was a load of crap, as hip hop was still without any idea what to do with its new-found prominence, and R&B was at a terrible low point that would only go lower. Dig in.




Celine Dion - Because You Loved Me
Number 1 song from March 23rd-May 3rd, 1996 (6 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Yes, I like some of Celine Dion's work, but there's a goddamn limit, and this downtempo ballad from the soundtrack to the Robert Redford movie Up Close & Personal is well past it. Such songs of Dion's as I like are because they are operatic, thunderous spectacles, belted arias over rock guitars and electric synthesizers. This is nothing more a generic adult contemporary soundtrack song over which Dion sings unconvincingly. A waste of time in a year that I sense will be full of them.



Mariah Carey - Always Be My Baby
Number 1 song from May 4th-17th, 1996 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: F
I'm getting cordially sick of this warbling crap that Mariah gets up to in every single song, and in particular here she simply will not shut up and sing the freaking song. Yes, I know how that sounds, shut up. Mariah's got a beautiful voice, and if she would bother to sing the fucking song it could actually be something special, but she can't help herself but insert track after track of octave scales and warmup takes over everything, burying the song itself in rambly pointless crap. I am sick to death of this trend already and it's only 1996!!!

God this is going to hurt...



Bone Thugs-n-Harmony - Tha Crossroads
Number 1 song from May 18th-July 12th, 1996 (8 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Tha Crossroads was a tribute song to Bone Thugz late mentor, the early Hip Hop pioneer Eazy-E, and in consequence, the sentiment is genuine and the song's heart is in the right place, but as a song... no, I'm afraid not. Yes, it's got some flow, but this R&B-Hip Hop thing was something Bone Thugz would do better on other songs, as this one has nothing going for it besides a trippy music video. The song is just meandering, which I suppose is right for the theme, but does not make for something I'm tremendously interested in listening to. I'm a fan of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, honestly, but this one just doesn't do anything for me.



2pac ft. K-Ci & JoJo / 2pac ft. Dr. Dre and Roger Troutman - How Do U Want It / California Love
Number 1 song from July 13th-26th, 1996 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C / B
These two songs were released together, and hit number 1 as part of the same package, so I'm including them both as offered. The first song, How Do U Want It, isn't exactly something I'm going to love for all time, but I do recall it from the era, and it has an interesting enough structure and rhythm to keep my interest. As an interesting note, this was one of many Hip Hop songs of the era bashing civil rights crusader C. Delores Tucker, who had criticized Gangsta rap for being demeaning to women and kids (calling her a slut who should be gang-raped probably didn't win you too many points on that argument, guys).

California Love is a different matter altogether, a driving, infectious hip hop song featuring Dr. Dre himself, this song is cored around a pounding electro-funk bass line and features lyrics relating entirely to the fact that California and its denizens are better than everyone else. This is a sentiment I can get behind. An awesome music video in the vein of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome doesn't hurt anything as far as I'm concerned. Yes, the coda is way too long, but this song is actually a lot of fun, and I enjoy it very much non-ironically, a G-Funk anthem from the mid-90s that has not lost a step.

I don't really have the Hip Hop background to speak to 2pac's "importance" or anything in a larger context, but given the alternatives, he did fine by me, at least for this round.



Toni Braxton - You're Makin' Me High / Let it Flow
Number 1 song from July 27th-August 2nd, 1996 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D / D
It appears this was the year for split singles...

You're Makin' me High is a slow-paced R&B ballad that could be any other song from this year, and if I'm being honest, the exact same is true of Let it Flow. I don't remember a damn thing about Toni Braxton or her career to be honest, despite the Grammy Awards and the number 1 hits. These songs entirely eluded my consciousness at the time and have not managed to make much more of an impression now. Both of these songs were off the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack, as were other songs from last year. That soundtrack has a lot to answer for...



Los Del Rio - Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix)
Number 1 song from August 3rd-November 8th, 1996 (14 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Oh you knew this one was coming.

So, looking back on the Macarena, a 1992 song that was remixed in '96 to spectacular, worldwide reception, it's easy to see where both the popularity and the backlash came from. But setting aside the extreme overplay and the justified rage at being unable to escape the damn thing, the Macarena just isn't that bad, guys, indeed if you listen to it in a vacuum it's... well decent at least. After all, it's not like there's been a lot of other flamenco-dance tracks on the charts so far. Just give it a single listen, just one, and while I understand why people wouldn't adore it, it's not the sort of thing that's going to poison your ears in small doses.

Let's remember, this song was hated. A hardcore parody song filled with vile cursing made it into the top ten domestically just because it was bashing the Macarena. Politicians who used it were egged in the streets. I even remember a DJ who described the dance move as "First: Place your arm straight out in front of you at shoulder height, palm facing down. Then: Punch the DJ." I get, I do, but it's been long enough, twenty years, that time needs to have healed the wound. I think, maybe, given everything we've seen, and everything that's to come, it's time we let the Macarena out of jail.

Just... watch it carefully in case it re-offends.



Blackstreet, featuruing Dr Dre - No Diggity
Number 1 song from November 9th-December 6th, 1996 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
This is a borderline case, as I'm really not fond of this song particularly, but it has a nice smooth rhythm and even flow, and you've got to respect those things even when the song doesn't do anything for you in particular. Songwriter and frontman Teddy Riley claims that nobody from the band was interested in this song, and forced him to sing the opening verse just so that he would sink or swim with it and not them. He swam, they sank.



Toni Braxton - Un-Break My Heart
Number 1 song from December 7th, 1996-February 21st, 1997 (11 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: F
Oh... that Toni Braxton.

I know I just finished pleading for clemency for the Macarena of all things, but this song was ubiquitous in all the wrong ways in the mid-90s, and I hate it. I know it's not as bad objectively as all the other songs that have earned this dubious honor, but I hate this song in particular and its growling, gravitas-laden false-pathos. This song is just an overwrought mess and nothing, not the Spanish guitar or the edited run-time, nothing can salvage it.

Oh, though you want to know something about this song you didn't know? There's a Weezer cover.






Supplemental Songs

Years like this demand more of the Supplemental List than ever before. Let's see if it can deliver:



Celine Dion - It's All Coming Back to Me Now
1996 Billboard Top 100 position: 14


Havoc's Grade: B
Wait.

Just hold off on the pitchforks for a second and listen to the damn thing. This is a Jim Steinman song. Yes, that Jim Steinman, the legendary songwriter whose work with Meat Loaf was so iconic. Indeed, Meat Loaf wanted this song for himself, and begged Steinman for it for years (eventually getting his wish in 2006), but Steinman was adamant that this song needed to be sung by a woman and gave it instead to Dion, with the above result. I do really like this song, overblown as it is, though perhaps not as much as Andrew Lloyd Weber, who called it "the greatest love song ever written". It's operatic overtures and orchestral flow are enough to keep me interested, and by now you should all know whether or not that's true of yourselves.



Alanis Morissette - You Learn / You Oughta Know
1996 Billboard Top 100 position: 29


Havoc's Grade: C / B
You Learn is alt-rock to a fault, and that's not a good thing, a rambling, borderline-useless song from the mistress of Canadian angst herself (regard this as a borderline-C, and you'll get the idea). No, this combo is on my list purely because of the second song, Morissette's biggest and best hit, one of the most bitter songs I've ever heard, punched up over an alt-rock background that sounds actually angry rather than just morose. Morissette sings this song with a sarcastic sneer and a voice quivering with barely-controlled rage, and that's precisely how it should be, and indeed if not for a completely wasted grunge-style vapor-bridge, I might have even given this one an A. I know the song became something of a cliche in years to come, but it's a damn fine song in its own right, and deserves another listen.



Deep Blue Something - Breakfast at Tiffany's
1996 Billboard Top 100 position: 39


Havoc's Grade: B
A purely personal selection, as I'm well aware that this song is boring milquetoast adult alternative crap. It just happens to be boring milquetoast adult alternative crap that I happen to like the sound of. Nothing further to say.



Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen - Theme From Mission: Impossible
1996 Billboard Top 100 position: 66


Havoc's Grade: B
Yeah, this thing actually charted. Call it another borderline pick, but I do like this U2-version of the classic theme, and it may well not be the last time I throw something like this on the list. Looking at you, Moby...



Melissa Etheridge - I Want to Come Over
1996 Billboard Top 100 position: 79


Havoc's Grade: B
Country's not normally my thing, but Etheridge's throaty folk-rock style was always a better fit with my tastes than the Garth Brooks-style stuff that Nashville was putting out throughout the 90s. This song, a simple heartland rock ballad is nothing particularly spectacular, but it's a song well-sung and well-structured, with a simply, catchy chorus. Not everything has to be a soaring masterpiece. Sometimes a simple song sung well is just the right recipe.



Weird Al Yankovic - Amish Paradise
1996 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
My list. My rules.



Primitive Radio Gods - Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand
1996 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
As you can probably guess, this song is really goddamn weird. So much so that I'm not entirely sure what to call it, an eerie, alt-rock/trip hop song that straddles the line between weird and accessibly weird. I'm not sure there's a category that this song fits into, and yet I've always found it weirdly soothing, particularly the piano bridge midway through and the ambient sounds pillowing the lyrics. Probably just me, but it's one I've always rather enjoyed. Your mileage may vary.



Oasis - Champagne Supernova
1996 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: A
It feels like it's been eons since I gave out an A.

Oasis was always a band I sort of respected more than I liked, so absolutely different were they from everything around them, like if the Beatles had stumbled into a time machine and emerged in 1994. The band was always decent, but hamstrung by lead singer Liam Gallagher's inability to... well... sing. Champagne Supernova represents Oasis' best ideas for how to deal with this problem, mostly by burying Liam in intricate layers of psychedelic rock, to incredible effect. I really like this song, I like how it builds on itself to raging crescendos all without ever abandoning its mellow, psychedelic feel. I like how Liam sounds like John Lennon on this track, instead of like a warbling asshole, as in most other songs. I like everything about this song, even the indulgent bridge/coda that lasts what seems like thirty minutes, and I strongly recommend you all give it a fresh listen to before we close this miserable year out for good.






Other noted songs from 1996:
Quad City DJ's - Come On Ride It (The Train)
Alanis Morissette - Ironic
Eric Clapton - Change the World <---- I had no idea this was Clapton. How are the mighty fallen...
Goo Goo Dolls - Name
Jewel - Who Will Save Your Soul
The Smashing Pumpkins - 1979 <---- Both this and the next one are decent songs that missed the list by a fairly thin margin.
Oasis - Wonderwall
No Doubt - Just a Girl
Sheryl Crow - If It Makes You Happy
Metallica - Until It Sleeps
Ace of Base - Beautiful Life
The Fugees - Killing Me Softly
Duncan Sheik - Barely Breathing
The Dave Matthews Band - Crash
No Doubt - Don't Speak
Tina Turner - Goldeneye
Tonic - If You Could Only See
The Wonders - That Thing You Do <---- Yes, this was released as a single.
Michael Jackson - They Don't Care About Us
Jamiroquai - Virtual Insanity
Beck - Where It's At

[General Havoc]

1997
Yearly GPA: 1.288





I honestly thought that 1997 would come in worse than it did, as a quarter of the way through the year, it had earned precisely zero points. A late rally (if you can call it that) from what is arguably the biggest song ever written helped stabilize the year as merely bad as opposed to miserable, but the charts at this point are still a wasteland of non-talent and hackery. Presumably things get better in '99 once the new metrics for calculating chart positions come into play, but we'll have to wait and see.






The Spice Girls - Wannabe
Number 1 song from February 22nd-March 21st, 1997 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: F
Oh my god...

I try not to be a hipster in these lists, and give songs a shot, even when I'm accustomed to hating them, but even with fresh ears, this song is a massive plate of ass. It's an aggravating, aggressively annoying piece of ear-poison from a band I always hated but did not, before this day, understand why. This song is terrible from start to finish, from the awful hip hop verses to the off-key choruses to a music video that seems tailor-designed to set my teeth on edge. Everything about the Spice Girls' biggest hit is godawful, and I never want to hear it again.



Puff Daddy, featuring Mase - Can't Nobody Hold Me Down
Number 1 song from March 22nd-May 2nd, 1997 (6 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I goddamn near failed this song too, and only relented because, frankly, it's not the previous one. A boring, almost sopoforic sampling of Matthew Wilder's 1983 "Break My Stride" does not do it for me, as guest rapper Mase sounds like he doesn't even gives a damn that he's on the track. The beat is anemic, the flow utterly non-existent, and I can think of no reason why I or anyone else should listen to this song again. If this is how P Diddy got big, then I have no explanation for anything anymore.



The Notorious B.I.G. - Hypnotize
Number 1 song from May 3rd-23rd, 1997 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Okay, this is a little more like it. Hypnotize, the fifth single to chart at number 1 after the death of its artist, is the lead track off of Biggie's Life After Death album, produced by, who else, Puff Daddy. Based on, of all things, a Herb Albert song, this song is a lot more tolerable than the crap from before, with a decent flow and a simple but functional beat. I don't really love it, as I never really thought Biggie was all that skilled as a rapper, but then I'm not in a position to criticize, really. Still, one takes what one can get in a year like this.

Incidentally, the real music video for this song is almost unlistenable as it will not get out of its own way, drowning the song in a stupid B-plot about black helicopters and in the sound of revving motorcycle engines. As such, you have this little... gem... to tide you over with.



Hanson - MMMBop
Number 1 song from May 24th-June 13th, 1997 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
... you see what I subject myself to for you people?

Okay, returning to reality here for a moment, all overplay and hype aside, Mmmbop is... not very good. It's not awful by any stretch of the imagination, but it's nothing one would wish to listen to beyond about a minute of airtime. Mostly the problem lies in the fact that the young singers simply can't sing the lyrics in a way that's at all comprehensible, and to this day I know only one single line out of this song, the titular Mmmbop itself, whatever that means. I'm told the now-adult Hanson brothers can sing it better, but there's only so much research I'm prepared to do for this. Even without that though, the song is so bubblegum-sweet that even I can't tolerate it for long.

Still, I don't hate Mmmbop the way I do certain songs mentioned above. I always thought the backlash against Hanson was a little extreme, even for the time, though the brothers themselves always seemed to take it in good humor. As such, I almost feel like I'm beating up on a soft target by rating the song this low, but let me just conclude by saying it's nothing I'm going to throw a conniption fit over. Hanson is a phenomenon I don't really understand, but there are far more deserving targets for one's ire this year. Leave 'em be.



Puff Daddy and Faith Evans, featuring 112 - I'll Be Missing You
Number 1 song from June 14th-August 29th, 1997 (11 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Puff Daddy just wasn't that good a rapper, it seems, but the underlying sample of the Police's Every Breath You Take is strong enough here to earn this song a few points. There's nothing really wrong with the idea of turning this song into a soulful mediation on transitory life and those lost, but the result is just... clunky. It feels like Puffy is performing this song out of obligation or something, which I know is untrue, but I have to report what I'm hearing. Faith Evans does a fine job with the chorus, and it's that which holds the song together, ultimately, but still, this is nothing I can't do without.



The Notorious B.I.G. featuring Puff Daddy and Mase - Mo Money Mo Problems
Number 1 song from August 30th-September 12th, 1997 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Oh great, Puff Daddy, Mase, and Diana Ross on the same song. What a wonderful combination.

Yes, Ross' contribution is a sample of one of her less awful songs, but the base fact is that Mase still can't rap. He has no flow, no evident interest in what he's doing, mumbles his lyrics as though under the influence of a powerful sedative, and Diddy's production is still self-indulgent as all hell, interrupting the song repeatedly for unfunny schtick with Mase and jabs at Bryant Gumble, the lowest hanging fruit it is possible to aim at. I know this song is a big deal, somehow, if nothing else because it made Biggie the only artist in history to posthumously chart a song at number 1 twice. But honestly, this thing is just amateurish. Move along.



Mariah Carey - Honey
Number 1 song from September 13th-October 3rd, 1997 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I'll give Honey one thing, Mariah's inability to sing simply rather than layering herself over eight times is... less prominent here. Unfortunately, so are whatever qualities she brought to her work. Supposedly this song was part of an attempt to get a more hip-hop sound across in her music, something I can only speculate as to whether or not she was successful in. What she was not successful in doing was making something I was interested in hearing, as this song is a boring, over-long R&B ballad over hip hop beats, one whose virtues I I have contrived to fail to identify.



Boyz II Men - 4 Seasons of Loneliness
Number 1 song from October 4th-10th, 1997 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
This ephemeral little R&B number is the very last number 1 hit Motown Records ever produced, and if that's not a sad commentary on this year, I don't know what is. It remained on the charts only for one week for a reason, typical Boyz II Men ballad with no substance and very little style. I can't even recommend this song as a matter of history. Just let it pass and move along.



Elton John - Candle in the Wind 1997 / Something About the Way You Look Tonight
Number 1 song from October 11th, 1997-January 16th, 1998 (14 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C / C
The revised edition of Candle in the Wind is, by some measurements at least, the best selling single in the history of the world, having sold a seismic thirty-three million copies since its inception. Yet despite this, Elton John has only performed the song twice, once in the recording studio and once at Princess Diana's funeral, having refused categorically to perform it ever again unless specifically requested to by her children, Crown Prince William and Prince Harry. Despite this, I absolutely adore the original song, but I always regarded this version as something of a cop out, a less skilled re-tooling of the original, bashed out in what seems to be no time at all. I'm sure the notion was heartfelt, but it seems to me like a cheap cash in of some sort, buttressed by the strength of the original song.

As to the B-side, it's not one of John's best songs, a soft rock ballad that just sounds a bit too polished for my taste. I can't hate it too much, really, but it's not really for me. Nothing more to say really, as this song was buried by its headliner.






Supplemental Songs

So while the charts were mired in yet another pile of crap, the following was left off the list:



R Kelly - I Believe I Can Fly
1997 Billboard Top 100 position: 6


Havoc's Grade: B
No, I don't care how stereotypical it became in later years, nor that it came off the Space Jam soundtrack of all things, I Believe I Can Fly is so well-remembered for a reason. This is how slow, soulful, gospel-inspired R&B is done, guys, and this song remains R Kelly's biggest and best hit. You know you're doing the right thing by me when you bring a choir in after all, and this song sports one of the better ones of the era. If it hadn't been kept off the top spot by Toni freaking Braxton of all people, it would probably have gone a long way towards redeeming this awful year.



Meredith Brooks - Bitch
1997 Billboard Top 100 position: 15


Havoc's Grade: B
Bitch is just a fun song, something missing from all of the above entries, you may have noticed. Alt-rock has always been hit or miss for me, but the poppier side of the alt rock world is where I prefer to hang out, and Bitch fits right into it. I don't really look for hidden meanings here, just a fun little song that I enjoy listening to. Some years, that's all you can ask for.



The Verve Pipe - The Freshmen
1997 Billboard Top 100 position: 21


Havoc's Grade: B
For a song that seems to be rather on-point, there seems to be a hell of a lot of confusion out there as to what The Freshmen is actually about, be it abortion, suicide, drug addiction, murders committed during blackout drinking, or some horrible combination of the above. Whatever the inspiration, the song is still an excellent piece, a punched up alt-rock version of the original acoustic number from 1992, one that doesn't oversell the material but builds the right notes of desperation and regret around them. I don't much care for the sudden key shifts in the last chorus, but the song is otherwise quite strong, and an easy pick for the Supplemental list.



Gina G - Ooh Ahh... Just a Little Bit
1997 Billboard Top 100 position: 41


Havoc's Grade: B
Borderline case, but there's no rule that says Eurovision has to produce nothing but galvanized crap, and I do actually kinda like this silly little Eurodance number from the UK, Britain's nominee for the 1996 Eurovision contest that managed somehow to catch on outside of the country. I don't love this song certainly, as its lyrics are beyond stupid, but its cored around a decent riff and beat, and it's bubbly enough that one can't help liking it, at least in small doses. Your mileage may vary.



Chumbawumba - Tubthumping
1997 Billboard Top 100 position: 69


Havoc's Grade: B
I don't even know what to say about Tubthumping, indie-group Chumbawumba's only foray into the pop charts. It's a fun drinking song about how fun drinking songs are soul-destroying wastes of time and potential, and a pop anthem from a band that despised pop anthems enough to complain about them in one of their album titles. But leaving the weirdness aside, Tubthumping is just a foot-stomping anthem of hooliganism and fun, and I can't hate it at all for it. I know this song makes it onto a lot of "worst song ever" lists, and I suppose I can understand why, if I imagine it played on loop for a thousand years. But I like Tubthumping, and I certainly like it a hell of a lot more than the rest of this year's crap.



Michael Bolton - Go The Distance
1997 Billboard Top 100 position: 89


Havoc's Grade: B
Here we go again...

Yes, I've praised Michael Bolton before, and now I'm going to do it again, as this sort of soaring, inspirational ballad is the exact thing he was best at, and this song, off Disney's Hercules soundtrack knows how to milk Bolton's vocals properly. No, it's not some superb masterpiece, but for what it is, I actually think it's not bad at all. And while I'm sure none of you do, that's just tough.



Rammstein - Du Hast
1997 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
Bet you didn't think I'd put this one on here, given the previous song, did you?

Industrial rock is a subject I sort of wish I knew more about, but this piece is one I do know and appreciate. Built around an untranslateable German homophone, this song isn't about the lyrics for me so much as the driving riff and bass line, one I always seem to be wishing would kick into the next gear, but I'll take what I've got here any day. I don't know enough about whatever "Neue Deutsche Härte" is supposed to be to really say much more about this subject, but I do like Du Hast a great deal, and if anyone knows more songs to follow on from this sort of thing, I'm all ears.



Sublime - Santeria
1997 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
Sublime's lead singer, Bradley Norwell, died of a heroin overdose not long before this song was released, making this his posthumous swan song. Despite a vibe that's a bit too laid back usually, I actually quite like Santeria, a nice bit of relaxing reggae rock that isn't afraid to talk about capping people and dialing up the violence when necessary. I don't really LOVE this song, but I do like it enough to warrant its inclusion here.



The Wallflowers - One Headlight
1997 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: A
I'm not sure what it is about One Headlight that I like so much. The simple, earthy roots-rock bass line? The throaty singing? The evocative lyrics? The haunting, arpeggiated string bridge? I can't be sure, but I really really like this song, not quite so much in a stirring emotional way, but just in the way that it all blends together into something special that hits me in just the right way. I'm sure this isn't a reaction shared by many, but at the same time, I don't expect to get a lot of flak for my love of this song. Indeed, I've been waiting for quite a while to put this song on the lists, bookmarking it to ensure that I didn't manage to skip it somehow, thanks to its lack of chart success.






Other noted songs from 1997:
Mark Morrison - Return of the Mack
LeAnn Rimes - How Do I Live
Backstreet Boys - Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)
Third Eye Blind - Semi-Charmed Life
Duncan Sheik - Barely Breathing
Whitney Houston - I Believe in You and Me
Shaun Colvin - Sunny Came Home
98 Degrees - Invisible Man
Celine Dion - All By Myself
Seal - Fly Like an Eagle
Madonna - Don't Cry for me Argentina
Aqua - Barbie Girl
Backstreet Boys - As Long As You Love Me
No Doubt - Don't Speak
Bob Carlisle - Butterfly Kisses
Sugar Ray - Fly
Green Day - Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) <---- Very very close call here, but I elected to leave it off the list simply because I get sick of it too quickly. Decent song though.
Puff Daddy & The Family - It's All About the Benjamins
Bryan Adams and Barbara Streisand - I Finally Found Someone
Will Smith - Men in Black
Radiohead - Paranoid Android
Metallica - The Memory Remains
Savage Garden - To the Moon and Back
Matchbox 20 - 3 A.M.
Smash Mouth - Walkin' on the Sun

[LadyTevar]

"Barbie Girl"?!?!?!?!
Really?

Now, "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" I am surprised didn't make the Billboard, it should have. Madonna took this beloveed song, and she gave it all her heart. It should have blow all the others off the charts. Then, she followed it with "You Must Love Me", which is imho Webber and Rice's most powerful 'goodbye song' out of all their musicals. I still bawl when I hear it.

[General Havoc]

1998
Yearly GPA: 1.173





1998 was the year Nielson managed to get its head screwed on straight at last and started evaluating number 1 hits in a more comprehensive manner again. And yet this didn't help at all, for, believe it or not, 1998 was an even worse year than 1997 was, as the charts continued to slide down into a funk of awful, awful music, reaching depths we haven't seen since the dark ages of pre-60s music. This year it was less because the songs were awful, and more because they were so goddamn boring, languid easy listening R&B or bad hip hop that simply would not do anything even slightly interesting. This is what I was talking about when I described the mid-90s-through-late-00s period as the "Second Dark Age", and it's not gonna get better for a good while.






Savage Garden - Truly Madly Deeply
Number 1 song from January 17th-30th, 1998 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Believe it or not, there are a couple of Savage Garden songs that I don't mind, but even I can't tolerate this thing, boring as it is with Savage Garden's typically simpering vocals which are less sultry and sexy than aggravating. Incidentally, this song holds a record of sorts, not on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, but the Adult Contemporary chart, a subsidiary chart to keep track of songs of this sort. The record in question regards this song's one hundred and twenty three weeks spent on the Hot 100 AC chart, a staggering two year, four month ordeal that indicates to me just how bad the chart in question must have been for all that time.



Janet - Together Again
Number 1 song from January 31st-February 13th, 1998 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Presumably, Janet Jackson used her first name only for this one as a means of distancing herself from her no-longer-cool-and-now-kind-of-creepy brother. This Donna-Summers-inspired House/Disco track was written as a memorial for a friend of hers that had died of AIDS, and while I have no idea if this was fitting tribute, as a song, it's badly out of date, and not in a fun retro-way. This is the sort of song that was cranked out by the gajillion in the 70s, most of which were forgotten, as should this.



Usher - Nice & Slow
Number 1 song from February 14th-27th, 1998 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I'm actually a pretty big fan of Usher's, but this song is one of his very first, and boy does it sound like it. Slow, lugubrious, and boring, this song does not contain much of use, let alone any hint that Usher would go on to become anything besides another boring balladeer. He got better guys, just give him some time.



Celine Dion - My Heart Will Go On
Number 1 song from February 28th-March 13th, 1998 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
You all thought I was gonna praise this song, didn't you? 'Oh, look at Havoc! He's a lame loser who likes Celine Dion songs!' Well fuck all of you, because as a fan of Dion's, I can tell you with authority that My Heart Will Go On is exactly as terrible as it is remembered as being. Overwrought, falsely-emotional, this song, supposedly based on a Jethro Tull tune, is of course one of the biggest hits in history, and inspired a whole string of end-of-blockbuster-movie ballads from assorted bands and artists, every single one of which was a complete waste of time, and several of which I have every faith we're gonna be running into. Thanks Celine. This is what I apparently get for defending you.



Will Smith - Gettin' Jiggy wit It
Number 1 song from March 14th-April 3rd, 1998 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
According to my research, Gettin' Jiggy wit It has a rather surprisingly deep pedigree behind it, sampling from a dozen different songs from the 70s on through the 90s, and co-written by Nas of all people. What's more, Will Smith apparently wrote it so as to reclaim a racial epithet I'd never heard of before ("jigaboo"). All that said, I really can't hate this song, any more than I can most of Will Smith's stuff (his music at least). It's nothing amazing, but the flow is decent as always, and I certainly remember the song. Call it a draw.



K-Ci & JoJo - All My Life
Number 1 song from April 4th-24th, 1998 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I cannot be the only person who finds a song that refers to the singer's lover as "close to me, you're like my mother/sister/brother" creepy as hell.

Well actually, it appears I can be the only one. This song was a smash hit and it still gets occasional radioplay even today. Bruce Hornsby, of all people, added the accompaniment to it, for reasons I have to assume have to do with a sudden stroke. I have no use for this boring R&B ballad nor its singers, so let's leave it here.



Next - Too Close
Number 1 song from April 25th-May 22nd, May 30th-June 5th, 1998 (5 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I always thought this song sounded like a parody song, like something Flight of the Conchordes would have made in a later year. I tend to be a music-over-lyrics kind of guy normally, but this song's lyrics are so damn sleazy (and don't have any actual music to cover them) that I just feel kind of dirty. "When you're crying, I get so excited" is the kind of line that people should have thought twice about.

This song, incidentally, is the top song of the year. *Sigh*



Mariah Carey - My All
Number 1 song from May 23rd-29th, 1998 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
I admit that this is a better song than Mariah was in the habit of putting out, but I still have basically no use for it, despite the heavy latin chords and percussion that rings it. If she'd stuck with it, making a Gloria Estefan-style song, maybe it would be worth something. But she did not, and the result is consequently a languid, boring affair that doesn't serve to showcase Mariah's skill in any meaningful way.



Brandy & Monica - The Boy Is Mine
Number 1 song from June 6th-September 4th, 1998 (13 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Based on an infinitely-superior 1982 duet between Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson called "That Girl is Mine", this boring R&B number was an absolute sensation when it landed, partly because of a massive tabloid frenzy over speculations that this song somehow reflected the reality of the situation between the two artists. As I couldn't care less about either one, much less about their private lives, all I'm left with is a dull song, with mumbled, almost inaudible lyrics. This song is useless, and I only failed to give it the dreaded F because it wasn't interesting enough to fail.



Aerosmith - I Don't Want to Miss a Thing
Number 1 song from September 5th-October 2nd, 1998 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
You know how I said that My Heart Will Go On inspired a whole slew of these over-cheesy movie-soundtrack ballads? Well this is sort of what I'm talking about. I don't actually hate this song, but it gets old pretty quickly in addition to being choppy and uneven in the extreme. Aerosmith's latent awesomeness sees them through it to an extent, but I am endlessly annoyed by the fact that this song is Aerosmith's biggest hit. They deserved to have their legacy be something better than this.



Monica - The First Night
Number 1 song from October 3rd-16th, October 24th-November 13th 1998 (5 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
It was a while before I recognized this song, and I still have no idea who the hell Monica was. This song wasn't absolutely awful to be honest, built around a decent enough backing track, but it's just not interesting enough for me to give it a better score. This year's songs haven't been bad so much as boring, and this is an excellent example.



Barenaked Ladies - One Week
Number 1 song from October 17th-23rd, 1998 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
It's really hard not to like One Week even a little bit, as it's a bubbly, intricate song about fights and forgiveness that includes what might be a world record for references/minute. Bluegrass crossed with Bubblegum Indie Rock is certainly a new idea, and while I don't really love this song, it's all right by me, by and large.



Lauryn Hill - Doo-Wop (That Thing)
Number 1 song from November 14th-27th, 1998 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
The Fugees were a massively influential band, centered around lead singer Lauryn Hill, whose debut solo single is... pretty crap. Even by the standards of 90s hip hop, I find this song intolerably generic. It's a confusing, poorly-constructed, slipshod song that seems to be against and for commercialism at the same time and warns people endlessly that there are girls and guys out there only interested in "that thing". What is that thing? Sex? Does a warning against casual sex really jive with the whole block-party atmosphere of the song, and the instructions to care more about each other than your fashion accessories? This song is a complete mess, and I'm rather tired of listening to it.



Divine - Lately
Number 1 song from November 28-December 4th, 1998 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
I'm torn on this one, because a soulful gospel song would normally be the exact prescription for a boring year like this, and yet... nothing about this song really appeals to me in the slightest. I think maybe it's because Gospel music is supposed to be powerful and uplifting, but this song is a listless bore, about people wasting their lives in lovelorn sickness. I don't usually object to a song's content when it comes time to evaluate, but the song just feels so damn leaden that I don't feel I can justify a higher grade than this one.



R. Kelly and Celine Dion - I'm Your Angel
Number 1 song from December 5th, 1998-January 15th, 1999 (6 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Music and film magazine Entertainment Weekly tore this song apart in terms far more hilarious than I could ever possibly do, describing it as "a slice of squishy-hearted pseudo gospel that might better be called Touched by a Marketing VP," before calling Celine Dion "a human anti-NAFTA petition," and claiming that the song "cried out for stricter work-visa controls." Goddamn.

I don't think I hate this song (or any song) quite as much as the esteemed editors at EW did, but this song is pretty goddamn wretched, a duet from two artists whose inclinations towards super-soft Easy Listening schlock were allowed to run riot here. I have cordially no use for this thing, and big a hit though it was, neither did anyone else once a year had elapsed to let people come to their senses.








Supplemental Songs

As always, I turn to the Supplemental list to try and recover something worth listening to here. Can the secondary charts save us once more?



Third Eye Blind - How's It Gonna Be
1998 Billboard Top 100 position: 11


Havoc's Grade: B
I'm sure nobody but me remembers this song fondly, but the Autoharp-inspired morose song on the loss of love and relationships through simple expiration dates always struck me somehow as a brutally sad song, something I'm once in a while in the mood for, and while I'm still not wild about Stephan Jenkins' lead vocals, I think I'll squeak this one into the list just by the skin of its teeth as a fine example of what alternative rock from the late 90s was capable of. Take it as a personal selection if you want. I liked this song in its day and like it now.



Backstreet Boys - Everybody (Backstreet's Back)
1998 Billboard Top 100 position: 22


Havoc's Grade: B
Ooooh boy...

So I did mention at one point back in 1991 that there were Boy Band songs I liked, and... basically this is the one I was thinking of. I won't pretend I liked it at the time, for I did not, but having had a chance to sit on it for a decade and a half, this song has aged way better than any of its contemporaries did. Yes, I know how stupid these bands all were, but if the fucking Monkees can have a decent song or two (and they did), as can the Archies, then there's no reason why one of the approximately six billion late-90s boy bands can't have one too. I actually like this Thriller-rippoff dance-pop piece, or at least I like it a hell of a lot more than I like most of the rest of the goddamn year. And I wouldn't be surprised if the same is a true of other music hipsters my age.



Chef - Chocolate Salty Balls
1998 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
Anybody else hungry?



Semisonic - Closing Time
1998 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
A song about singer Dan Wilson's impending fatherhood, disguised because he didn't want to drive his bandmates mad playing songs about his kids forever, and featuring, among other things, aphorisms from classical Roman philosophers (Seneca the Younger foremost among them), Closing Time is a Power Pop classic from a period that produced very few. I don't really adore this song the way I have other songs similar to it (some of which we'll be seeing), but I respect it a lot, and it's one of the canon of Indie-rock classics for a reason. It may just be the justified overplay that keeps me from rating it even higher.



Metallica - Whiskey in the Jar
1998 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
I'm not the biggest Metallica fan, but I really like their rendition of this classic Irish highwayman's ballad. Whiskey in the Jar is a song with enormous pedigree, having been covered by everyone from The Dubliners to The Highwaymen (no relation), The Pogues, and Thin Lizzy. And yet this version is probably my favorite, a hard-rocked rendition that earned the band a Grammy for best rock song, for once well deserved. The late 90s are not an era that produced a lot of great rock, but this song is pretty awesome, and I will defend it even if the band that produced it was past their sell-by date.





Other noted songs from 1998:
Shania Twain - Still the One
Madonna - Frozen
The Backstreet Boys - Quit Playin' Games (With My Heart)
Pras Michel featuring Ol' Dirty Bastard and Mýa - Ghetto Supastar (That is What You Are)
Busta Rhymes - Turn it Up/Fire it Up
Madonna - Ray of Light
The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony
The Backstreet Boys - All I Have to Give
Limp Bizket - Faith <---- One of, if not the, worst covers of all time.
Will Smith - Just the Two of Us
Robbie Williams - Millenium
U2 - Sweetest Thing
Alanis Morissette - Thank U

[LadyTevar]

What always amused me about "One Week" is the first half of the video is a parody of the "What Do You See/Truly Scumpuous" scene from "Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang".

[White Haven]

Having seen the presence of Sweetest Thing on your noted songs list, I now know nothing but rage and fire.

Seriously. FUCK modern U2 with a chainmop.

[General Havoc]

Having seen the presence of Sweetest Thing on your noted songs list, I now know nothing but rage and fire.

Seriously. FUCK modern U2 with a chainmop.

All the songs I've been dumping on you people for the last few years, and it's Sweetest Thing that drives you mad? A saccharine love song? I had to listen to the Spice Girls!!!

[frigidmagi]

I think Havoc's meds are gonna need to be readjusted after listening to that much Spice Girls in such a short time frame.

[Steve]

I'll get the body armor... and the HAZMAT suit.

[White Haven]

The Spice Girls were forced upon you by the charts! You chose to highlight that abomination of your own free will!

[General Havoc]

The Spice Girls were forced upon you by the charts! You chose to highlight that abomination of your own free will!

I did no such thing! I was not the one who bought their damn single enough to push it to the top of the charts!

[White Haven]

Sorry, should have been more clear. Wrong abomination, which is something of an occupational hazard during the nineties.

You chose to highlight Sweetest Thing. It made a voluntary list. *glowers*

[General Havoc]

Sorry, should have been more clear. Wrong abomination, which is something of an occupational hazard during the nineties.

You chose to highlight Sweetest Thing. It made a voluntary list. *glowers*

I have repeatedly made clear that the Other Noted Songs list is nothing more than a list of every single song from the lists I have for that year that I have even heard of, which did not score highly enough to rate a place on the supplemental list itself. The songs on that list vary from mediocre to awful. Being on that list doesn't mean I'm highlighting it. Being on that list means that I've heard of the damn thing.

[White Haven]

....Fair. I suppose. But I'm watching you...

[General Havoc]

1999
Yearly GPA: 1.615





I... did not expect this. 1999 is not some kind of world-beating year destined to be remembered throughout the ages, but particularly by the standards of its fellows, it's a... perfectly serviceable year of the charts. I recognize that a GPA as low as 1.6 is not normally what someone would call great, but one takes what one can get with this kind of thing. And it's not one single artist dominating the charts this year like it was in 1979, but a fairly sizeable number of artists, again in context, some of whom were awful of course, but a number of whom turned in perfectly serviceable music. There are no standout amazing tracks for the number 1 list this year, but it's far from the worst thing I've ever heard, and given that I expected to be mired in awful, awful crap until about 2009, this is a pleasant surprise.






Brandy - Have You Ever?
Number 1 song from January 16th-29th, 1999 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I'm torn on this one, as this R&B ballad isn't actually that bad, but it has the unfortunate trait of getting worse as it goes on, partly because, and I hate to say this, Brandy just isn't that good a singer. The R&B ballad consequently devolves into meaningless blather before too long, spoiling the promising start. Still, we've heard far worse here, and you can consider this a D+, if that matters at all.



Britney Spears - ... Baby One More Time
Number 1 song from January 30-February 12th, 1999 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
It's very hard to listen to this thing with fresh ears, given the hoopla that surrounded it at the time and the... shall we say 'polarizing' opinions on Britney in general? And yet if I shut my eyes and just listen... frankly, it's not bad. Nothing I'm going to listen to over and over again, but as teen-pop of the era goes, it has a strong beat and a nice rhythmic minor-chord-laden sound that resembles several metal songs I've heard more than it does the rest of the late 90s dance-pop genre. No, I'm not calling it metal, but it's a decent enough song to merit some mercy. We can (and will) do a whole lot worse with Britney and her imitators. Just this once, guys, I think it's time to leave Britney alone.



Monica - Angel of Mine
Number 1 song from February 13th-March 12th, 1999 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
This song was freaking everywhere in 1999, and it sucked back then too. This is actually a cover of an even more unlistenable version by the british girl group Eternal. Boring and lackadaisical, this meandering ballad is more or less useless, and only avoids the F by being entirely too bland to even stand out in such a way.



Cher - Believe
Number 1 song from March 13th-April 9th, 1999 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Now you see, this is what Cher is good at, projecting vocal power without necessarily needing to sing particularly well. The number 1 song of the year, Believe was based on a sampled drum track from an obscure Daft Punk song, and it earned Cher the record for the oldest female artist ever to record a number 1 (she was 52), and for the longest duration between first and last number 1 hits (34 years since 1965's I Got You Babe). In fairness, I don't really love Believe, though I acknowledge that it's a good song, simply because, for me, it never really pushes things to the next gear, as eurodance-pop is supposed to. Still, this was the biggest song of Cher's career and I certainly don't dislike it. I just think another song off her next album is considerably better... but we'll get to that.



TLC - No Scrubs
Number 1 song from April 10th-May 7th, 1999 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I'm a music-over-lyrics kind of guy, but there are exceptions, and No Scrubs is among them, and for once, that's a positive. I don't like the sound of No Scrubs much at all, built as it is on a boring Hip Hop/R&B beat, but the song is interesting enough lyrically, as its about how TLC want nothing to do with loser men who keep hitting on them, and sounds sincere for once instead of forced. I certainly still don't love the song, but it's all right, better than the typical release from TLC.



Ricky Martin - Livin' la Vida Loca
Number 1 song from May 8th-June 11th, 1999 (5 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Yes, I know it was fantastically overplayed, but taken as its own thing, Vida Loca isn't a terrible song. If nothing else, it has a hell of a lot more energy than most of its contemporaries. Yes, there's far better examples of latin power pop to be found out there, but there are worse ones too, and this song was the one that catapulted the entire genre into prominence. No, I don't love the song, but it's not a bad little number at all, and it's harmless enough. I've listened to too much actual garbage to be put out by something like this.



Jennifer Lopez - If You Had My Love
Number 1 song from June 12th-July 16th, 1999 (5 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I have, for instance, listened to this thing, a boring mid-tempo song that has nothing interesting about it save for an unrelated latin pop bridge midway through that has nothing to do with anything. In fact the only interesting thing I could find about this song was the ordeal of singer Chanté Moore, whose song "If I Gave Love" was a carbon copy of this one and was shelved as a result. Her claim was that Puff Daddy stole her song to write J-Lo's version, and expressed regrets, many years later, that she hadn't punched him in the head.

Her and me both.



Destiny's Child - Bills, Bills, Bills
Number 1 song from July 17th-23rd, 1999 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
As the millenium winds down, we finally hear, for the first time, from one of the biggest acts of the next one, Beyoncé Knowles, whom I've never really been a fan of, but at least I don't hate the way I do a number of other artists who appeared around this point. This song, however, is not great. It's not awful either, but there's really nothing to recommend it over any other R&B dis track, though it is noteable for initiating the policy of Beyoncé bashing every man she ever met in song after song after song. She got better at it, or at least so I assume.



Will Smith, featuring Dru Hill and Kool Moe Dee - Wild Wild West
Number 1 song from July 24th-30th, 1999 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
I tend to give Will Smith a pass, most of the time, but this song doesn't do anything for me, one of the most obvious movie theme songs I've ever heard, one that wishes it could be as good as Smith's MIB theme. Moreover, this song includes a mid-song interlude featuring a scene from the movie that, on soundtrack, makes no sense at all. No, this thing is completely amateurish, and while I'm certainly not above praising the occasional movie theme, this one isn't one of them. Better luck next time, Will.



Christina Aguilera - Genie in a Bottle
Number 1 song from July 31st-September 3rd, 1999 (5 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
This is a close one, but Genie in a Bottle squeaks through just by virtue of having a fairly solid tune underlying it. It appears the label that released this song as a single had no faith in it, as a music video wasn't even considered until the song had already hit number 1. And yet this song is probably the best of Aguilera's career, one of the few from that group of pop stars, (Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, etc) that actually sounded decent to listen to.



Enrique Iglesias - Bailamos
Number 1 song from September 4th-17th, 1999 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I spoke above of the latin pop fad that hit in 1999, and this is another example thereof, the song that introduced Enrique to the wider public. It's... okay. It could honestly stand to be a bit more elaborate, I think, but it's a solid enough flamenco-inspired song, and Enrique's whisper-style of singing isn't as annoying as it would later become. In retrospect, this latin-pop thing wasn't so bad, particularly given what the alternatives seem to have been.



TLC - Unpretty
Number 1 song from September 18th-October 8th, 1999 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I kind of feel bad giving this song this grade, but the base fact is that, as a song, it's pretty damn bad. I know the message is topical and that a lot of people found it empowering, but songs are songs, first and foremost, and I can't get past the fact that this thing is awkwardly structured, and sounds flat out boring. I'm not gonna condemn it further, as the idea was certainly nice, and the song isn't bad enough to be offensive or anything, but as a pop song to listen to and enjoy? No, sorry. Try again.



Mariah Carey, featuring Jay-Z - Heartbreaker
Number 1 song from October 9th-22nd, 1999 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
One of the big surprises of this project is the twin realization of just how big Mariah Carey really was, and just how much I don't like any of her music. This song is bad in the same exact manner that all Mariah Carey songs are, a mid-video fight scene between Carey and her rival notwithstanding. I just have no use for Mariah's simpering singing style, and the way she vomits useless tracks all over her own songs. I don't think I ever will.



Santana, featuring Rob Thomas - Smooth
Number 1 song from October 23rd, 1999-January 14th, 2000 (12 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Carlos Santana is awesome, and I will hear no arguments against that fact. Unfortunately, Rob Thomas, lead singer of Matchbox 20 is really not, and while I don't hate Thomas, he's all wrong for this song, which begged to be a Santana instrumental, or at least to have a different lead singer and structure fitted around it. Still, I do like Smooth, if only because half of a Santana song is better than none of one. Ignoring my personal opinion for a moment however, even the twelve-week run of this song does not do justice to how monumentally huge it was, according to Billboard, the second most successful song of all time, as well as the second biggest number 1 hit in the history of the charts (behind The Twist, if you can believe it). It's the only song ever to make the top 100 list for two different decades. It was seismic. Does it deserve all that praise? Maybe not. But it's a decent, solid song, and that's no bad thing to use to usher out the 20th century.








Supplemental Songs

A better-than-expected year for the number 1 list can either rob the supplemental of its power, or herald a new flowering of decent music. Which is this? Well...



Eagle-Eye Cherry - Save Tonight
1999 Billboard Top 100 position: 22


Havoc's Grade: B
Did you know that Eagle-Eye Cherry was Swedish? Or that that's his real name? I didn't, but that's the beauty of this process. Save Tonight may not be a great song, but it's a very, very good one. A solid turn-of-the-millenium alternative rock piece with a really good bass line, I always felt that this is the kind of song that Lenny Kravitz would sing if he weren't so up his own ass. Eagle-Eye never had this level of success again, but there's no shame in being a One-Hit Wonder if your one hit is something I remember fondly.



Shania Twain - Man! I Feel Like a Woman
1999 Billboard Top 100 position: 77


Havoc's Grade: B
Country isn't my thing at all, as I'm sure anyone who's read these lists can tell, but there's the occasional exception, and for whatever reason, this has always been one of them. Actually I do know the reason and it's that damn country rock bass line, a driving routine that I simply love, no matter what you layer over it. In many ways this was Shania Twain's year, as she had hit after hit pouring off not just the country but the mainstream charts, and while I wasn't fond of all of them, she was always one of the better country-rock singers out there, if for no other reason that, unlike most of the polished stars Nashville churned out, she unquestionably had the background to match, having begun singing in trucker bars at the age of 8 and worked as a lumberjack in the Canadian wilderness as a teenager. I like this song, whatever others think about how overplayed it was.



Sally Dworsky & Michelle Pfeiffer - When You Believe
1999 Billboard Top 100 position: 99 (sort of...)


Havoc's Grade: B
Bear with me a moment here...

So, The Prince of Egypt, one of Dreamworks best works, was an animated musical, with a soundtrack to match, and this duet was designated as the big, smash, blockbuster hit, featuring a duet of Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. And it... sucks. It has all the worst features of both singers' careers, being slathered with unnecessary vocal pieces and showing off, burying the song underneath artifice and confusion. It is not a surprise to me that, despite all the hype and marketing poured into this song, it tanked like a stone.

No, the version I'm highlighting is the actual theatrical version of the song, the version sung by Michelle Pfeiffer and veteran Disney voice actress Sally Dworsky. Absent the need to show off, or to cater to galaxy-sized egos, this version is perfectly straightforward and consequently highlights quite well what I think is an excellent, gospel-inspired ballad. What sounds sappy from Whitney and Mariah comes off as correctly biblical in this version, or at least I think so. I'm sure most of you have never heard of this song, and don't like what you hear, but I loved this song from the first time I heard it, and have not changed my mind all these years later.



Foo Fighters - Learn to Fly
1999 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
I never quite realized how much 90s alt-rock I liked, but here's another example, a fun little piece with a great chorus hook and a music video that features Jack Black and the lead singer in a fat suit. All comedy aside, Learn to Fly is a really good song, solid and upbeat, something not seen a lot in the 90s. Honestly, if I could find anything else about it to say I would, but I seem to have exhausted the consensus on this one.



Lit - My Own Worst Enemy
1999 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: A
And speaking of excellent alternative rock songs from the late 90s with silly music videos, here's one of the best. Lit's biggest hit is apparently something called "Post-Punk", but what that means, I couldn't tell you. I actively love this song, so much so that I gave it an A rating, despite the fact that I don't necessarily think it merits such a rank objectively, if there is such a thing. I can't stress enough how hard it was in the late 90s rock scene, nu-Metal-soaked as it was, to find songs that were any fun to listen to. For that reason alone, My Own Worst Enemy should get a good rating from me, but it also happens to just be an awesome song. Screw the haters.



Darude - Sandstorm
1999 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
Sandstorm isn't a song so much as it's a "musical composition", whatever that means. Created by Finnish trance DJ, Darude,it took off after being uploaded for free to MP3.com, and gaining support in among gamers, which it retains today. I know some people find Sandstorm annoying, but I've always kind of liked it, and I'm no great lover of Trance music. It's a borderline case, sure, but I'll take what I can get.



Savage Garden - The Animal Song
1999 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
I'm not a big Savage Garden fan. I always thought their stuff was too slow and boring even for me. But there's an exception or two among their discography, and this is one of them. I'm not sure what it is about this song, a soundtrack piece from an obscure Juliette Lewis movie, that I like as much as I do. Maybe it's the strong percussion, or the upbeat style of the song. Whatever the source, I do like it, a generally decent pop song, something worth looking out for at any time.



Blink-182 - What's My Age Again?
1999 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
A looooot of people hate this song, but I've always liked it, a short little pop-punk piece with a driving beat and fast tempo about 20-something man-children acting far below their age, a subject I may know something about. This thing was originally supposed to be called "Peter Pan Complex", only for the label to reject the title as being too Pedophilic-sounding (I can see why). Supposedly, the band wrote this song after getting frustrated with all of the 27-year-old songwriters making songs about prom night and high school, and wanted to confront the creepiness of that head on. Yet I don't find the song creepy, just a hell of a lot of fun in a twisted, trainwrecky way. I don't know a lot of Blink-182's work, but this song alone puts them in my good graces.



Other noted songs from 1999:
Sixpence None the Richer - Kiss Me
Sugar Ray - Every Morning
Goo Goo Dolls - Slide
Backstreet Boys - I Want it That Way <---- PERILOUSLY close to making the supplemental list, if I'm being brutally honest.
Sarah McLachlan - Angel
Pearl Jam - Last Kiss <---- If Pearl Jam could get out of their own way, and find a better lyricist, this song might have been great
Backstreet Boys - All I Have to Give
Lenny Kravitz - Fly Away
Shania Twain - That Don't Impress Me Much
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Scar Tissue
Mariah Carey - I Still Believe
Third Eye Blind - Jumper
Lou Bega - Mambo No. 5 <---- The original was much better.
N'Sync - (God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time on You
Shawn Mullins - Lullaby
Tal Bachman - She's So High
Will Smith - Miami
Shania Twain - From This Moment On
Juvenile featuring Mannie Fresh and Lil Wayne - Back that Azz Up
Len - Steal My Sunshine
Jay-Z - Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem) <---- I refused to believe this song was real for a full decade.
Goo Goo Dolls - Iris <---- The biggest victim of Billboard's screwed up measurement system in the 90s, this staggeringly huge song never even charted.
Whitney Houston & Mariah Carey - When You Believe
Smash Mouth - All Star
Lenny Cravitz - American Woman
Madonna - Beautiful Stranger
Vengaboys - Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!
Sarah McLaughlin - I Will Remember You
Limp Bizkit - Nookie <---- Fuck. This. Song. And. Band.
The Offspring - Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) <---- Guilty Pleasure.
Ricky Martin - Shake Your Bon-Bon
Cher - Strong Enough
Sixpence None the Richer - There She Goes

[General Havoc]

2000
Yearly GPA: 1.654




I'm really not sure what's going on here guys. Once again, the first year of the 3rd Millennium (shut up, I know about the 2000/2001 debate) proved to buck the trend I had assumed was going to be ongoing through this period, of music being bad and getting worse. Not that 2000 was the best year ever or anything, but as the chart above shows, it was as good as any average year we've seen. There's certainly a fair bit of dreck on the charts, but the music this year, particularly in the first half of it, was better than I had remembered, and we can only hope this trend will continue on into the early years of the 00s.

Hint: It won't.



Christina Aguillera - What a Girl Wants
Number 1 song from January 15th-28th, 2000 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Welcome to the new millennium, everyone!

I've read a few things about the process of making this song, and it sounds awful. Aguillera wanted, supposedly, to transition into more ballads and serious songs, but her record label marked her as a teen pop princess and so teen pop was what she would do. They even asked her to drop her last name so as to appear "less ethnic". In her own words: "It can be hard to be eighteen and to be in this business, your album is huge, and these people twenty years your senior are seeing you as a product. That can be scary. I just wanted to make music, and all of a sudden it was all about this package—what your look is going to be. All these decisions are being made for you."

And what decisions did they make? Terrible ones. This song sucks, not because it's awful but because it's boring as hell, another generic teen-pop song that made this whole group of singers completely forgettable. This song wasn't worth the fuss and the torture, and that's probably the saddest part.



Savage Garden - I Knew I Loved You
Number 1 song from January 29th-February 18th, February 26th-March 3rd, 2000 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
There are Savage Garden songs I can stomach. This is not one of them. This is Savage Garden at their most pillowy-soft, and this is not a band that needed to tone it down. I don't hate this song, but it's almost soporific in its ability to put me to sleep. Not for me at all.



Mariah Carey, featuring Joe & 98 Degrees - Thank God I Found You
Number 1 song from February 19th-25th, 2000 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
Say what you will about Mariah Carey, she takes her craft seriously. This overturesque combination song was all her doing, writing, producing, mixing, everything. She wanted the male harmonies and accompaniments, and put the entire song together with the collaborators she thought would be best. This style of song really isn't my thing at all, but I appreciate the effort, and it does have some effect, as the layered harmonies this time don't seem extraneous and out of place, and more like the simple orchestral grandeur of having that many singers together. Not a song I'll listen to fondly, but one I can respect the effort in.



Lonestar - Amazed
Number 1 song from March 4th-17th, 2000 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Meet the very last Country song to make it to number 1 (Taylor Swift does not count, people). It's... not very good. A boring country-ballad from a band that could honestly do better (albeit not much). Perhaps the best word on this song comes from its own Wikipedia page. The content section, often a nice source of interesting tidbits about these songs, consists entirely of the following: ""Amazed" is in the key of A♭ major with a vocal range from F3 to A♭4."

Amazed: So boring that the key and vocal range were all we could come up with.

Oh and the description of the video: "It alternates between shots of the band performing the song in a dark room, and a model making seductive poses." Clearly a VMA candidate...



Destiny's Child - Say My Name
Number 1 song from March 18th-April 7th, 2000 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Say My Name was the occasion of an ugly split between Beyonce and the other members of Destiny's child, whose vocals appear on the song but who do not show up in the video, having been replaced midway through the production process. All that said, the song isn't bad, particularly as Beyonce songs go. It's got a nice flow and construction to it, and while I wouldn't call it anything groundbreaking, its melodies sound complex as opposed to jumbled. I take what I can get this year.



Santana, featuring The Product G&B - Maria Maria
Number 1 song from April 8th-June 16th, 2000 (10 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
I mentioned that Carlos Santana was awesome, didn't I? And this duet with a group of R&B singers I'd never heard of is proof enough of this. Not that this song rocks out, it's quite the opposite, a cool, relaxing, laid-back latin-pop/R&B piece laid over a chill hip hop beat. This piece exudes cool and relaxed confidence, and this is why, despite being considerably simpler than last year's Smooth, I like Maria Maria considerably more. And it will almost certainly singlehandedly save this year.



Aaliyah - Try Again
Number 1 song from June 17th-June 23rd, 2000 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
To my surprise, I actually kinda like this song, something to do with the acid-house beat that famed producer Timbaland (whom I've always liked) layered onto the track. That and the Minor chords sit well with me, as they typically do. Try Again was written for the Romeo Must Die soundtrack, a mediocre movie that featured Aaliyah in a starring role. I always liked Aaliyah's voice, a clean, pitch-perfect soprano, one that I felt she used to better effect than Mariah's arguably better voice was ever put to. She died in a plane crash in 2002, of course, at the age of 22, but this song, the first one to ever reach number 1 based solely on airplay (it was never released as a single) isn't an unfitting tribute to a singer taken before her time.



Enrique Iglesias - Be With You
Number 1 song from June 24th-July 14th, 2000 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
This year is not turning out anything like I expected. This is yet another song that, while not fantastic, I actually do kinda like. It still has Enrique's customary waste-of-time bridge, but it's a decent song for that, with energy and a decent choral structure. You kind of have to be able to put up with Enrique's simpering-soft singing, but in small quantities, I'm capable of withstanding such things. The tendency for this year's songs to push House music into the number 1 list is a trend I'm far from against, given what the alternatives have thus far been.



Vertical Horizon - Everything You Want
Number 1 song from July 15th-21st, 2000 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
I remember this song surprisingly well, given everything. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure why, as the song isn't that good. Not that it's bad, it's a solid enough post-grunge alt-rock song, the sorts of which you didn't usually see on top of the charts. Maybe the sheer novelty of a rock song on top of the charts in the 21st century was what recommended it to my memory. All that said, this song was an enormous hit, as evidenced by the anecdote of the lead vocalist's brother, who went backpacking in nepal and found elderly lamas listening to this song on tiny radios in their stone huts.



Matchbox Twenty - Bent
Number 1 song from July 22nd-28th, 2000 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
Bent is a song with several good ideas, musically speaking, but that never really gets to that other gear that a really good alternative rock song must have. I like very specific moments in the song, but overall it just sort of rambles along without a lot of interesting structure. Still, there's something to it that I keep coming back to, despite my lack of use for Rob Thomas in general and Matchbox 20 in specific. Perhaps others get more out of it than I do.



N'Sync - It's Gonna Be Me
Number 1 song from July 29th-August 11th, 2000 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Justin Timberlake has sure come a long way...

Honestly, It's Gonna Be Me is almost the platonic example of a mid-tier early 2000s Boy Band song, entirely generic, a slightly catchy beat or hook, lyrics that are meant to appeal to high school girls, a "silly" music video that isn't all that funny, it's exactly what you think it is. This song is entirely forgettable. I plan to engage in just that very shortly.



Sisqo - Incomplete
Number 1 song from August 12th-25th, 2000 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I kind of wish I liked this song more than I do, as it certainly sounds heartfelt, but the problem, as always, is that Sisqo just isn't that good a singer, and like a lot of second-tier singers out there, he tries to disguise that fact by flip-flopping all over the place instead of singing the damn song. As a result, I'm afraid I just can't find any use for this thing, though I do find it more convincing than a lot of the brag tracks and bullshit to be found out there, then and now.



Janet - Doesn't Really Matter
Number 1 song from August 26th-September 15th, 2000 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Doesn't Really Matter doesn't really matter, and that's a fact. This song is boring and ephemeral in all the wrong ways, and Jackson sings it in a falsetto voice that I can't even understand. Some reviewers even compared it to that 1963 mystery piece that I have never understood, Sukiyaki. I have no use for this song, nor for the movie (Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps) that it came from. Screw this film, and screw everything that spawned from it.



Madonna - Music
Number 1 song from September 16th-October 13th, 2000 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Ah, Music, the song that Lady Gaga would rip off shamelessly a decade later to produce a far better song. Honestly, there's no reason Music couldn't have worked, as the idea of a Madonna dance-pop song isn't a bad one, but there's just nothing here for this song except shrieking annoyance and overly cute asides that ruin whatever flow the song initially had. The electronic pitch-shifting, by then-wunderkind producer Mirwais Ahmadzaï, sounds dated now and gimmicky. There's just nothing here to my ears, and while I'm sure it was a trendsetter in its day, music that stands the test of time must do better than that.



Christina Aguilera - Come on Over Baby (All I Want is You)
Number 1 song from October 14th-November 10th, 2000 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
After the ugliness associated with her last single, Christina wanted more creative control for this one, including writing the rap breakdown in the middle of the song. She... probably should have stuck with the studio hacks, as I have no idea what this song was supposed to be, other than an eclectic dance-pop R&B song that really has no "sound" to it. I can't envision actually dancing to this thing, nor willingly listening to it for any longer than I already have. It's warbling nonsense. Leave it alone.



Creed - With Arms Wide Open
Number 1 song from October 14th-November 17th, 2000 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I want to be very clear here. I don't understand all the hate that Creed got. No, they're not some maligned gem of a band, and yes, I'm aware that they were the dreaded Christian Rock, but they were never even close to half as bad as everyone seemed to regard them as, particularly given a similar band that would arise soon enough in their wake. This song, however... this one I understand. This overwrought, sickly-spiritual father-son song is just trying waaaaaay too hard. The song doesn't rock in any conceivable sense, Christian or otherwise, and Sapp's vocals, always a bit strange, just sound silly in something like this. I never hated Creed as a band, but this song sucks, and I can't blame anyone who instantly wrote them off after hearing it.



Destiny's Child - Independent Women, Part I
Number 1 song from November 18th, 2000-February 2nd (11 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I've nothing against the message, but this song just sucks. It has broken flow for no reason, no melody to speak of, and while I understand why the producers thought Beyonce would be a great person to sing a song about female empowerment, they should have kept thinking. Beyonce's contempt for the lesser creatures around her (do not mistake that for criticism) bleeds into this song, making it sound less like a celebration of female empowerment and more like another breakup dis track, something Beyonce had no shortage of then or now. This song is off the Charlie's Angels soundtrack, which makes the message even more suspect, as that was a crap movie about three women under the command of a guy. I just don't get anything out of the whole exercise, and like with most Beyonce songs, it brings not enough to the table to warrant a better grade.






Supplemental Songs

New Century. New Millennium. New songs. New List. Same bad taste.






Creed - Higher
2000 Billboard Top 100 position: 11


Havoc's Grade: B
I mentioned bad taste, right?

No, honestly, I do like Higher, overwrought though it is. It's a nice Hard Rock song with good construction and with a sound that fits Scott Stapp's very strange voice. It's nothing that's going to go down in the rock hall of fame, but it's a solid post-grunge song, more solid than most of its contemporaries, and I've been a fan of it since I first heard it a decade and a half ago. I'm well aware that Creed is a christian rock band, but that's irrelevant to me, as I simply like a song or I do not, and I'm not going to start disliking Higher just because it has religious themes in it any more than I would Stairway to Heaven or Ode to Joy. I know this band is roundly hated by most, but this is the exception I make. Other bands we will encounter couldn't even manage one decent song.



Three Doors Down - Kryptonite
2000 Billboard Top 100 position: 15


Havoc's Grade: B
Kryptonite's a borderline inclusion, as I don't really love the song, but it's solid enough to get a pass. Written by singer Brad Arnold at the age of 15 in High School, I've never been sure just what the hell Kryptonite is supposed to be about, but the alt-rock, post-grunge sound is pretty solidly done, if nothing spectacular, and I do like the build that the song has through the verses and into its choruses. Kind of an edge case, but Kryptonite's all right by me.



Third Eye Blind - Never Let You Go
2000 Billboard Top 100 position: 43


Havoc's Grade: B
I have no earthly idea what Never Let You Go is supposed to be about, not even after reading the lyrics and doing the research. Supposedly Stephan Jenkins wrote the song "to freak out" Charlize Theron, his "muse" at the time, whatever the hell that means. Like with Kryptonite though, this song just barely scraped into my list on the basis of a good power pop hook, even if the lyrics make no sense under any interpretation I have ever heard. I don't love Never Let You Go, but I admit that I've listened to it quite a bit. It'll do.



Sting, featuring Cheb Mami - Desert Rose
2000 Billboard Top 100 position: 50


Havoc's Grade: B
I'm not generally a big fan of so-called "World Music", representing as I think it does a watering down of distinct musical traditions into something homogenized and unrecognizable. Neither am I a big fan of most of Sting's post-Police work. But on both occasions, I make a big exception for Desert Rose, an ethereal world-pop-rock song cored around Algerian singer Cheb Mami and his Rai singing, an evocative folk music from the Bedouin peoples of the Algerian mountains. Desert Rose is more or less what I assume Sting was going for with most of his stuff after 1985, a song that evokes place and mood and mystery with sound design and the fusion of judiciously-selected styles of music, woven well together. 2000 was the only moment in the next ten years or so that a song like Desert Rose could possibly have been made, but I'm glad we got this much.



Disturbed - Down With the Sickness
2000 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
Nu Metal gets a lot of (deserved) shit for being whiny and terrible, but that doesn't mean there isn't a good song or two hidden within this over-morose genre, and Down With the Sickness is one of them. Yes, the lyrics are par for the course with this genre, but I actually like the sound of the damn thing, something I can't claim for most of the rest of the Korn and Tool-laden genre. Driving guitars and angry choral singing is nothing new in Metal, I accept that, but I don't get this stuff terribly often, and this song, unlike all the others, seems to have stuck out in my memory. Maybe it's a guilty pleasure, I can accept that, but even I have to stoop into Metal once in a while, even if it's the Nu version thereof.



Bon Jovi - It's My Life
2000 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
The only Glam Rock 80s band with Top 40 hits in the 2000s, Bon Jovi basically re-invented themselves with this song, a hard rock turn for the band that once produced the greatest 80s-rock song of all time. I don't like It's My Life quite that much, but it's a pretty damn great song, one that brought the band back into relevance with a new sound that produced more than its share of good songs. Rock on, Jovi.



Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
2000 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
Another song I'm borderline on, as I've never been a big fan of either the Red Hot Chili Peppers or of their stoner-brand of Alt-rock. But Californication, their best song, is just enough to make it through, mostly on the strength of the choral section, where the music gets minor-chordy and the lyrics considerably darker. It's not a stupendous song, but I do like it enough to listen to every so often, and sometimes that's enough.



Other noted songs from 2000:
Faith Hill - Breathe
Sisqo - Thong Song
'N Sync - Bye Bye Bye
Macy Grey - I Try
Backstreet Boys - Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely
Nine Days - Absolutely (Story of a Girl) <---- Overrated.
Celine Dion - That's the Way it Is
Blink-182 - All the Small Things
Faith Hill - The Way You Love Me
Smash Mouth - Then the Morning Comes
Eifel 65 - Blue (Da Ba Dee) <---- This plays on infinite loop in the eighth circle of Hell.
Eminem - The Real Slim Shady <---- I almost put this one on the list. I just can't stand that goddamn Casio beat.
Brittney Spears - Oops... I Did it Again
Jessica Simpson - I Wanna Love You Forever
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Otherside <---- Another near-miss. This was a good year for C+/B- songs.
Jay-Z, featuring UGK - Big Pimpin'
Mystikal - Shake Ya Ass
Train - Meet Virginia
Dr Dre, featuring Eminem - Forgot About Dre
Savage Garden - Crash and Burn
Toby Keith - How Do You Like Me Now?
Lee Ann Womack - I Hope You Dance <---- Probably the most-tolerable of those kinds of country-pop songs.
David Gray - Babylon <---- Better than I remembered it being.
Limp Bizkit - My Generation <---- Yes, they did. It's just as bad as you think.
Eminem, featuring Dido - Stan
The Baha Men - Who Let the Dogs Out?
Everclear - Wonderful

[LadyTevar]

Amazed, unlikely as it seems, was one of Nitram's favorite songs. He had it included on our music album as one of 'Our Songs'. Arms Wide Open was another of his favorites, as he liked Creed's sound.

I consider 2000 to be a watershed year, mainly for the "Suplimental" and "Other" listings that were played on the Alt and Rock channels. By that point, all the Top 40 lists were overplayed with N'Sync, Aaliyah, Janet, etc. Their kind of teeny-bop was long stale to my ears; I'd heard the best/worst of that kinda thing in the 80s. I was listening to COUNTRY, just to get away from it, which was a good thing as that was the year you got Toby Keith, Lonestar, Brad Paisley, and other country singers who were drawing on their love of 80s rock and Southern Rock to make country music viable again.

BTW: How Do You Like Me Now should be an anthem for any grown-up who was snubbed in High School. It's a nice big middle-finger to all the snooty cheerleaders in our lives. As a Geek and low-man on the school's totem pole, this is my song. :)

[frigidmagi]

The link to "It's my Life" isn't working. Also it's one of my favorite songs and I had always thought it was older then 2000.

Also dear God why did anyone think Limp Bizkit doing a cover of My Generation was gonna go well? Just how much drugs were these people on?