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The Best Songs Of The 90s

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Prompted, inevitably, by the “1991 day” thread; what are the blog’s favourite songs of the 1990s?

My top 10 is (repeated from that thread) as follows:

Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana
Juicy – Biggie Smalls
Ex-Factor – Lauryn Hill
Protect Ya Neck – Wu Tang
Glory Box – Portishead
Shook Ones Pt II – Mobb Deep
Enjoy the Silence – Depeche Mode
Say It Ain’t So – Weezer
Don’t Let Go – En Vogue
Know Your Enemy – RATM

A combination there of my own personal tastes, the songs that had a major impact on the culture at point of release and the ones that have aged like a fine wine and still prompt happy times when they come up in conversation/on the radio. More than anything, they’re the songs that, in some strange way, define the decade from my perspective.

The 90s, for me, were the moment that all the barriers between genres started to collapse; a super exciting time when all sorts of things seemed possible. I was also a teenager for a good chunk of it, which inevitably helped. Some of the above are songs I loved in my adolescence (Say It Ain’t So), some I’ve come to respect over time (Enjoy the Silence).

Inevitably, even as I write this I’ve started to recall the classics I forgot to include: Geek USA, Nothing Compares 2 U, You Oughta Know (how did I miss that one out?), Original Nuttah, Sure Shot, Da Funk, This Is Hardcore, Live Forever, Animal Nitrate, Yes, It’s A Shame About Ray, Rez, E-Bow The Letter, Fu-Gee-La, Show Me Love, The Rain, The Boy Is Mine, Doll Parts, Hyperballad, Insomnia, California Love, Set You Free, Don’t Speak, November Rain, Regulate, A Design For Life. A Design For Life! What a record THAT is.

I always think that songs are much more interesting than albums. With albums there’s a greater pretence to serious artistry; it’s where the form gets a bit fusty and academic. No one is nominating a whole album by Brandy & Monica, whereas I can quite happily state that The Boy Is Mine is one of the best things I heard all decade.

A great song reaches out, grabs you by the throat and never lets go: it’s immediate and undeniable. And it’s also more likely to be truly definitive: most of my album memories from the 90s are me off listening somewhere on my own, whereas I will always always always remember how it felt to be 15, sat on the platform of some distant railway station waiting for a train that felt like it would never arrive and singing along at the tops of our lungs to the just-released Live Forver. Because it felt fucking magnificent. We shared that song, in a way that I’ve not shared many albums with others. Not really.

Anyway, enough preamble. I’ve listed above a ton of 90s classics. It’s over to you to list below your own favourite 90s tunes, and maybe share a memory or two that they conjure. I’ll pitch in with a few more if this thing gets any traction.

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Comments

  2. Here’s 5:

    A Design For Life – Manics YES!
    Find the River – R.E.M.
    Paranoid Android – Radiohead
    She’s a Jar – Wilco
    Not Dark Yet – Bob Dylan

    • Great selections.

      Time Out of Mind remains a brilliant album, and Not Dark Yet is a track I often find myself going back to. He was only in his mid-50s, but he felt about a hundred years old when that came out.

      There are so many R.E.M tracks that could qualify for the list. Nightswimming!

        • Absolutely. Everybody Hurts is one of those songs I listen to from time to time and try to imagine never having heard it before. Its impact has been dulled by over-familiarity, but what a beautiful piece of work it is. I would imagine it’s probably helped a fair few people through difficult moments too.

          • I think it is a gift to the world from Michael Stipe (and Bill Berry), yes diluted by familiarity, but I try to do the same as you occasionally.

  3. Unfinished Sympathy – Massive Attack
    It’s Not Safe – Aimee Mann
    Far Gone and Out – Jesus and Mary Chain
    The Shining Hour – Grant Lee Buffalo
    Barbara H – Fountains of Wayne
    Afraid Himself to Be – Jason Falkner
    Le Femme D’Argent – Air
    Waltz #2 – Elliott Smith
    The Dutchman – High Llamas
    Interstate Love Song – Stone Temple Pilots

    • French Disko – good choice, I forgot about that one. Stereolab I think were a band who were simultaneously ahead of their time and behind the times. They would have done very well in either 1976 or 2021.

    • Ah, Regret.

      I remember the first time I heard Regret. I was about 13 or 14, and it was track one on a free CD mounted to the cover of Q magazine (there was a cake on the CD cover).

      I listened to that song over and over. To me, it seemed to chart a level of adult sophistication I hadn’t often heard in rock music. I pictured myself, maybe as old as my mid-20s, recently moved in to a new home with wood floors and no furniture, the slate wiped clean and ready to proceed with life, unhindered by – ahem – regrets.

      Many years later, my then girlfriend, now wife, and I rented our first place together. We moved in without much furniture, and as I stood looking across the empty wood floors, I stuck Regret on, and realised that I was – in theory at least – now that mature sophisticate once conjured by the lyric. Even though, on the inside, I still felt like I was about ten years old and blagging it all wildly.

      That was the moment that I realised sometimes the future turns out exactly as you’d imagined it, but it still never feels quite the way you’d expect it to.

      Just wait til tomorrow, I guess that’s what they all say.

  5. Songs that had a big impact on me and which (crucially, and unlike much 90s music) haven’t dated… also, no more than one song per artist….

    – The Orb – The Blue Room
    – Portishead – Mysterons
    – Spiritualized – Cool Waves
    – Beck – Loser
    – Kate Bush – Moments of Pleasure
    – DJ Shadow – In/Flux
    – Radiohead – No Surprises
    – U2 – Mysterious Ways
    – Air – La Femme D’Argent
    – Tom Waits – The Earth Died Screaming
    – Blur – On Your Own
    – The Divine Comedy – Generation Sex

    That’s the ones I like anyway!

    • In/Flux! Congratulations for being one of only a seemingly small number of people to pick the correct DJ Shadow tune!

      One of very very few records I ever bothered to purchase on vinyl. Huge fan of Mo Wax and Ninja Tune at the time, always think In/Flux was the peak of that whole movement: the build up to that first “Meanwhile, uptown, the DJ play” is just brilliant.

  6. Short Busta Rhymes interlude.

    I realised after I hit “post” that I’d missed an absolute no-brainer tune off the list in the OP. Scenario by Tribe Called Quest; one of the best hip hop tracks of the 90s, arguably the greatest posse cut ever released and the launch pad for the stellar talent that is/was Busta Rhymes.

    Here’s Tribe’s legendary performance of the track on the Arsenio Hall show. A truly great cultural moment: look at the audience, look at Q-Tip, look at Arsenio’s face. Most of all, look at Busta, wearing his reversible top hat and dropping one of the greatest verses in hip hop history. Causing rambunction indeed.

    Busta went on to numerous massive singles and to coin a visual aesthetic that is probably as heavily redolent of the 90s as anything else in music that I can think of: all those Hype Williams videos, that fancy dress and the fish-eye lens shots. Amazing. He blew the doors off in terms of what an MC could be/do.

    Here’s Wild For The Night, a tune which would quite conceivably make my 90s Hip Hop top 10. Absolutely brilliant video.

    • So much of my favourite stuff has already been posted but I’m genuinely gutted I didn’t get to Scenario before you. Low End Theory is one of the few hip hop albums I could pick almost any track from, it’s just that good, but Scenario is just… it. Quest were maybe the first hip hop I ever heard that made me go “ohhhh wow”: it was Bonita Applebum and, of course, Can I Kick It that made me buy People’s Instinctive Travels… as a teenager, but LET absolutely blew my mind when it turned up. I’d almost forgotten how much I loved it when the excellent Netflix series Hip Hop Evolution reminded me a couple of years ago, and it barely left my headphones again for about a year.

  7. Smashing Pumpkins – 1979
    Massive Attack – Teardrop
    Primal Scream – Loaded
    EBTG – Missing, Todd Terry mix
    Underworld – Born Slippy. This is the 90s for me, living in London, working in the West End, drinking too much, mixed feelings
    Dee Lite – Groove Is In The Heart
    Radiohead – Let Down
    REM – Texarkana
    Dinosaur Jr. – Feel The Pain
    Prince – Cream
    Portishead – Roads
    Oasis – Some Might Say
    Pulp – Babies
    Supergrass – Time
    Breeders – Cannonball
    Stereolab – French Disko

    A lot of nostalgia in there for me.

    • Oh man – Cannonball. That may just be the most 90s song of them all, in its way.

      I was tempted to go for some Supergrass, although mine would have been either Caught by the Fuzz or Lenny. Love that weird intro to the latter. They were such a fun band when they first emerged.

      Re: Pulp, I know Common People is the one really. In fact, it probably belongs in the top 10. I just never quite took it to my heart. This Is Hardcore is the Pulpiest Pulp song there is, and I’m a sucker for a tune with a lot of changes in it. Babies or Disco 2000 would be my runners up.

  8. Here we go

    Andy Irvine/Davy Spillane – Hard on the heels
    Neil Young – Harvest Moon
    Squeeze – Some Fantastic Place
    Massive Attack – Angel
    Page and Plant – Kashmir
    Emmylou Harris – Deeper well
    McAlmont & Butler – Yes
    Teenage fanclub – Sparky’s Dream
    Afro-celt sound system – whirl-y-reel
    Curtis Mayfield – Back to Living Again
    Kate and Anna McGarrigle – Going back to Harlan
    Dick Gaughan – No Gods and Precious Few Heroes
    Monaco – What do you want from me?
    Nils Lofgren – Black Books
    Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris – Western Wall
    Michael Marra – Niel Gow’s Apprentice

    Definitely no Blur, no Oasis and no Spice Girls !!!

    • Mr Jones. I speak from experience of having sung this song in many many bars, booths and street parties and can confirm that absolutely everyone loves Mr Jones. Huge massed singalong, even if nearly everyone ducks the chorus. Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-yeah.

      • I may also be guilty of having belted that out quite a few times, though luckily only in synch with Adam and not in his stead. The one I just can’t get through intact is Sullivan Street; singing along, my voice always cracks half way through, usually on the run up to the title phrase. It has a massive sense of loss and nostalgia. I’m welling up just writing about it. WHAT a song.

  10. Primal Scream – not Loaded, or anything from Screamadelica. I refer the house to the (many believe to be) disappointing follow-up, and it’s two opening tracks Jailbird and Rocks Off.
    And while we’re on the subject of the best song the Stones never wrote, howzabout Dandy Warhols – Bohemain Like You

    • I’m planning on doing BLY next time I do karaoke. Never heard it done before, seems easy enough to sing and surely – surely – enough time has passed that others might finally be glad to hear it again.

  11. Lightning Seeds?
    There’s that one about 3 Lines on a shirt, or that other one which they nicked from Goal Of The Month.
    Or this one when they were basically one bloke in a studio (with a couple of mates sometimes).

    Pure

  12. I reckon you’re all going to hate me here.
    But for sheer power, commitment, belief, and marking a moment:

    When Liam says “Toinght, I’m a Rock n Roll Star”, you believe him.

    If it’s stuff that defined the 90s, Oasis must be in there
    (but the answer is not, and never will be, Wonderwall)

  13. OK I’ll just start typing and see what happens:

    Pulp – Dishes
    Beasties – So Watcha Want
    Shack – Undecided
    Boo Yaa Tribe – Don’t Mess
    Suede – New Generation
    Def Jef – Get Up 4 The Get Down
    Top – Life’s Only Dreaming
    Ice-T – Straight Up N—— (no I am not bloody typing that)
    Waterboys – Glasto Song
    St Etienne – Hobart paving
    Ride – Leave Them All Behind
    Prince – Diamonds & Pearls
    Stereo MCs – The Other Side
    Dubstar – Cathedral Park
    Paul Simon – Born At The Right Time (live)
    My Life story – the King of Kissingdom
    Definition of Sound – Wear Your Love Like Heaven
    Supergrass – Richard III
    Massive Attack – Lately
    The The – Dogs Of Lust
    Tindersticks – City Sickness
    Super Furry Animals – Play it Kool
    Spiritualised – Cool Waves
    Primal scream – Burning Wheel
    Elvis Costello – The Birds Will Still Be Singing
    MC Tunes – Tunes Splits the atom (no I am not bloody joking)
    Tin Machine – Goodbye Mr Ed
    Urban Dance Squad – Bureaucrat of Flaccostreet
    The High – So I Can See
    Eric B & Rakim – Know the Ledge
    Talk Talk – Ascension Day
    Scott Walker – Bouncer See Bouncer
    First Offence – Tell Em Watcha Want
    Beth Orton – She Cries Your Name
    Kid capri – Joke’s On You Jack
    ATCQ – If The Papes Come
    Black Grape – Kelly’s Heroes
    Chemical Brothers – Sunshine Underground
    The Auteurs – New French Girlfriend
    Audioweb – Lover
    Black Sheep – Try Counting Sheep
    Ash – Angel Interceptor
    Jah Wobble – the Sun Does Rise
    The Human League – Tell Me when
    MC Buzz B – Bandit
    The High Llamas – The Goat Looks On
    …..and of course Son of Bazerk – Part One (“WE’RE HERE!!”)

    …I’m going for a lie down. As I often did in the 90s.

  14. I was so wrapped up in The Dels and life in the 90s that I feel like they passed me by in a flash. Oasis, Spice Girls of course. I can come up with a few without thinking too hard though..

    The Mutton Birds – Come Around
    Weather With You – Crowded House
    Good Enough – Dodgy
    Chasing Rainbows- Shed 7
    You’re Gorgeous- Baby Bird

    Edit** Of course Pulp and Supergrass.. but I’ve come back to mention Catatonia. Murder and Scully and the monster that is Road Rage. Singing those at the top of my voice in the car to shake myself out of whatever it was that was consuming me. Yes. Cata-fucking-tonia.

    Best song of the 90s though?.

    Driving With The Brakes On…

  15. Lots I like already mentioned. I’ll go for ones that haven’t been.

    1. David Sylvian – I Surrender (my fave song off my fave David Sylvian album)
    2. Primal Scream – Damaged (I love how it shouldn’t work in the context of Screamadelica but does perfectly. And I really like the guitar solo)
    3. Massive Attack – Protection (though I could have chossen any track off of the debut. I don’t like the seond album as much, but the title track is so gorgeous. “I stand in front of you, I’ll take the force of the blow”. I love that. And Trazza singing “You’re a girl and I’m a boy”)
    4. Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Under the Bridge (not a band I like much, but this song is ace. I like the guitar’s harmonics.)
    5. Tom Waits – Hold On (“You don’t meet nice girls in coffee shops”)
    6. Peter Gabriel – Blood of Eden (with Sinead. A great moment in Wim Wenders’ Until The End Of The World film, when the plane’s engine cuts out and they’re gliding and they think the nuclear bomb’s gone off)
    7. Jane Sidberry – Calling All Angels (also used in the above film. Just stunning. Stunning, stunning, stunning.)
    8. Jeff Buckley – Hallelujah (way too over-familiar a song, X-Factor material, but if it wasn’t… the way he holds that last note is so beautiful)
    9. Moby – Porcelain (The beach!)
    10. Ben Harper – The Three of Us (Just to round off the list to ten I’ll go for this lovely acoustic instrumental)

    • I would have bet cash money on you being a Porcelain man, Gary.

      My favourite Buckley was always Lover You Should Have Come Over. So much drama, such great backing vocals. Too young to hold on, and too old to just break free and run.

    • Second that Jellyfish vote and another 90’s band that may have been spiritually from the 70’s. The Black Crowes. The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion is usually my favourite album when I think about these things.

  17. I think 1999 is possibly the most amazing year for music. Some years are great for singles, others for albums. 1999 is great for both. I could fill a top fifty from just that year but will resist from doing so.

    Sinead O’Connor – Nothing Compares 2U

    A remarkable song that only Sinead can give justice to. The grief and longing is almost crippling. In my life it captured a sliding doors moment perfectly, what might have been.

    Leftfield featuring John Lydon – Open Up

    A track that kicks the door down, grabs you by the throat and throws you round the room, tossing a lighted Molotov cocktail over its shoulder as it exits. On the album, they diluted it with a four minute reggae coda. A truly great single.

    Massive Attack – Teardrop

    By the time I heard this I had experienced the scorching pain and ecstasy of true love. I can barely cope whenever I hear Teardrop without dissolving.

    Björk- Venus As A Boy

    Playful, sexy, beautiful and strange. Can you ask any more from a pop song?

    Fiona Apple – Criminal

    Watching the video made me, a man approaching forty at the time, feel oddly soiled. But the voice is intriguing and gorgeous and the piano chords seem to originate from the familiar safety of The White Album. She begs for forgiveness, or at least a good defence lawyer, but I felt I was the one committing the crime. It makes the recent Fetch The Bolt Cutters even more amazing. We have history, Fiona and I.

    Randy Newman – Shame

    Randy, in full dirty old man mode, seems to be dining Fiona and attempting to persuade her back his gaff. Supported by a wonderful New Orleans Jazz band, by the song’s outro, he’s the lamb being led to slaughter.

    Deee-Lite – Groove Is In The Heart

    Playful, sexy, beautiful and strange. Plus, irresistible on the dance floor. A song that makes me feel 17 again.

    Kelis – Caught Out There

    Totally gobsmacking. How could anyone imagine this as a record and then make it a hit?

    Macy Gray – I Try

    A stumbling song of resilience, a last hurrah of old-fashioned Soul music. It catches the back of the throat, provoking a gulp, a hitch of the trousers and a deep breath before joining in on the chorus, chin held high.

    Aphex Twin – Windowlicker

    Electronic dance music performed as free jazz. This is music that knows no boundaries, no restrictions, a music beyond imagination.

    • I Try is a fantastic shout. One of those tracks which is often discounted because it’s a bit of a one hit wonder but is just fan-fucking-tactic if you actually stop and listen to it. Perfect synergy of song and voice. Renders cover versions a nonsense.

      Re: Nothing Compares, it’s either that or Yes for the best vocal of the decade, from where I’m sat, with Sinead probably edging it. How the hell did she know to do that with it?

    • Open Up is a good call. I love Lydon’s voice. Yesterday I came across a clip on YouTube from his ‘I could be wrong, I could be right’ speaking tour in which he gets the audience to sing Abba’s Fernando. It’s awful.

    • Great choices, Tiggerlion. Kelis made my longlist, and it’s good to be reminded of Macy Gray.

      Leftism is so bountiful, I could have gone with Open Up or Release The Pressure, but Original just pips them for the opening
      Sonically we’re in control
      We’re the diamond in your soul
      Images come thick and fast
      From the future, from the past
      It could be the Four Quartets

      I just see Hugh Laurie’s skeletal mugshot when I hear Teardrop – but it doesn’t stop it being a wonderful song. You’ll probably not want to watch this, but I think this is one of the better mashups out there

    • I read recently that Nothing Compares 2 U was written about his housekeeper, who flounced off after an argument and he deeply regretted it.

      The song was an apology and an appeal for her to come back. No funny business.

  18. I interpreted songs deliberately strictly -because otherwise it would be too hard to choose. There are loads of tunes from that decade I love, but many of them would best be described as instrumentals (KLF, Orb, Grid, Global Communication, etc, I’m thinking of you). Songs have a great beginning, preferably a chorus, they sustain themselves well through the lyrics without getting baggy or repetitive, and they conclude well, not fading to grey.
    So:

    Soledad – Jah Wobble and the Invaders of the Heart
    California (All The Way) – Luna
    One of Those Rivers – Dodgy
    Original – Leftfield
    Change Your Mind – Neil Young
    Like A Motorway – St Etienne
    Inside Out – Shara Nelson
    Safe Surfer – Julian Cope
    A Girl Like You – Edwyn Collins
    Naked Eye – Luscious Jackson

    From your top 10, I’d take Don’t Let Go – En Vogue. When I saw the Weezer track, I was sorry to see it wasn’t a cover of this – the 4 lines of the chorus go through my head almost every day.

    • All The Small Things is an amazing tune. Great shout.

      Say It Ain’t So is a bigger deal in the US than here, and it’s probably a bit cheeky chucking it in as decade-defining, but it is an anthem of nerd rock, has a wonderful intro, a brilliant lyric and such a fabulous crescendo to sing along to. I’ve encountered a surprising number of people for whom that song is particularly meaningful.

  19. A selection from one of my playlists from that era

    Freestyler – Bomfunk MC’s
    Sorted E’s and Whizz – Pulp
    I Know – Hybrid
    Don’t Give Up – Chicane with Bryan Adams
    Insomnia – Faithless
    Moving – Supergrass
    2 worlds collide – Inspiral Carpets
    Coffee and TV – Blur
    At The River – Groove Armada
    6 Underground – Sneaker Pimps
    The Western – PFM
    Horizons – LTJ Bukem
    Jumbo – Underworld
    Little Fluffy Clouds – The Orb
    Perfect Motion – Sunscreem
    Out Of Space – The Prodigy
    Lovestruck – Madness
    All I Need – Air
    Red Alert – Basement Jaxx
    You’re Not Alone – Olive

  20. LTJ Bukem! Virtually anything off Logical Progression vol 1 and 2 would happily make my list, but special shouts go out to The Western, which is among my very favourite records by anyone, ever, and this, which is…. just… amazing…

    The Western always reminds me of a magic moment during rehearsals for the sixth form play. We were all in school on a Saturday evening, mixed in with the local girls school (always a pleasure).

    Despite not really being one of the in crowd, I managed to get control of the stereo, stuck on a bunch of DJ Shadow and then topped it off with The Western. It went very quiet, someone turned the lights off and we all lay on our backs looking out the skylight at the stars, a little bit phased by all the boundless potential that suddenly swirled round the room. Drunk on our own youth, essentially.

    It’s always been my go to record for when I need to hit reset and get the ground under my feet. Conrad is my favourite drum & bass MC of all time, and I love love love what he does with that tune; perfect synergy of rhymes and music. It’s a wiiiiild world, that we livin in….

    • The Western is the track on that list that takes me back to living in Watford in the 90’s. We actually had a flat just up the street from Good Looking Records offices.

  21. I’ve given this very little thought, and deliberately haven’t read the thread before picking these dozen which came quickly to mind. I will now see what everyone else has said and no doubt there will be many I should have thought of:

    Pulp Common People
    Paul Weller Broken Stones
    Blur Tender
    Bjork Venus as a Boy
    REM Losing My Religion
    Counting Crows Omaha
    Bruce Springsteen Across the Border
    Crowded House Private Universe
    Bob Dylan Trying to Get to Heaven
    Lucinda Williams Sweet Old World
    U2 One
    Cornershop Brimful of Asha

    • Yup, so much I missed. Oasis of course – ‘Slide Away’ for example. ‘I Try’ by Macy Gray is a great record. Loads of tracks on ‘Urban Hymns’. Cast were a decent band and ‘Walk Away’ a classic Merseyside song. Mention of the Spice Girls brought All Saints to mind – ‘Never Ever’ was a brilliant pop single. How could I forget Sinead? ‘This is to Mother You’ was a huge record in our household, and still is.

      And I should have thought of Crash Test Dummies and ‘Afternoons and Coffee Spoons’. And Primal Scream ‘Rocks’. And a thousand others too I’m sure.

  22. 2 lists, separating rap and, er, not rap. As soon as I saw the title of the thread I thought it was easy, as the best song of the 90s is clearly Goodnight Moon by Shivaree, which shows what I know, as it’s from 2000.

    My favourite song of each year

    1990 – Frazier Chorus – All The Air
    1991 – Voice Of The Beehive – Perfect Place (single version)
    1992 – Morrissey – Tomorrow
    1993 – New Order – Regret
    1994 – Pulp – Babies
    1995 – Pulp – Something Changed
    1996 – Pet Shop Boys – The Survivors
    1997 – Whiskeytown – Houses On The Hill
    1998 – Pernice Brothers – Wait To Stop
    1999 – Chappaquiddick Skyline – Hundred Dollar Pocket

    My second favourite song of the 90s doesn’t make that list, because Forever J by Terry Hall came out in the same year as my favourite song of the 90s, 1994. Other notable tracks are Common People by Pulp, Beautiful Ones and Trash by Suede, Needle Mythology by Stephen Duffy, Indian by Eg & Alice, Wicked Game by Chris Isaak, Last Goodbye by Jeff Buckley, Clear Spot by Pernice Brothers, Being Boring by Pet Shop Boys, North Country Boy by The Charlatans and Some Might Say by Oasis. And the top year for music in the 90s was 1995, as voted by the Barnsley jury.

    Favourite 15 rap tracks of the 90s (I was only going to do 10, but the next 5 were too good to miss out)

    1 – Gang Starr – Code Of The Streets
    2 – NaS – N.Y. State Of Mind
    3 – Binary Star – Slang Blade
    4 – Beastie Boys – Three MCs And One DJ
    5 – Beastie Boys – Sabotage
    6 – Binary Star – New Hip Hop
    7 – Arrested Development – Mr. Wendal
    8 – Dr. Dre Featuring Snoop Dogg – Nuthin’ But A G Thang
    9 – The Notorious B.I.G. – Juicy
    10 – Digible Planets – Rebirth Of Slick (Cool Like Dat)
    11 – GZA Featuring Inspectah Deck – Cold World
    12 – A Tribe Called Quest Featuring Leaders Of The New School – Scenario
    13 – The Notorious B.I.G. – Big Poppa
    14 – Warren G Featuring Nate Dogg – Regulate
    15 – Wu-Tang Clan – C.R.E.A.M.

    • Wicked Game! Big shout!

      For Pet Shop Boys, I’d go for the glorious Se A Vida E (I Love You). Push comes to shove, possibly my fave Pet Shop Boys song of them all, which is saying something. It always sounds to me the way it feels being in a happy relationship. And that’s a sound I like an awful lot.

      For Morrisey, I’d go for Now My Heart Is Full, which I love more than anything else he’s ever done. It’s peak Morrissey: the vocal, the lyrics, the preening. “Tell all of my friends, I don’t have too many” – SUCH a Morrissey lyric.

      I will give some thought to further hip hop nominations.

      • Okay, having mulled it over, here are my 10 nominations for 90s hip hop tracks. I’ve excluded anything that’s already been mentioned in the thread and tried to avoid the super obvious 90-s devouring artists (by which I mean the Wu, Biggie, Tupac, Nas, Dre, the Beastie Boys, etc).

        1. The Humpty Dance – Digital Underground

        Okay, maybe this one is a little obvious, but it’s such a great moment. Right at the top of the 90s, a record that, while being utterly daft, signals so much of where the genre is headed: the use of alter-egos for MCs, those swarming synths opening up a different type of production style, and even a young Tupac dancing in the video. Brilliant party tune too.

        2. How To Survive In South Central – Ice Cube

        Nothing says the 90s like a super hard, rubberneckin’ beat, in this case built off an old Funkadelic sample that sounds like the evil older sibling of Zapp’s More Bounce To the Ounce. Had to have some Gangsta Rap on the list, although I’m not really a massive fan of the stuff. What I like about How to Survive is the way it typifies Cube’s ability to simultaneously sound like the angriest man on the planet and as if he might actually just be taking the piss completely: who can argue with lyrics like “everybody’s doin a little dirt/And it’s the youngsters puttin in the most work”?

        3. Simon Says – Pharaohe Monch

        In that same spirit of utterly filthy sounding beats; this one has to be right up there. I still remember the first time I heard it: jesus christ, what on earth is that? Super of its time, as is the equally filthy lyric. Makes me nostalgic for that late 90s/early 00s period where the central commandment of hip hop was to make the crowd wild the fuck out.

        4. Concrete Schoolyard – Jurassic 5

        Slightly surprised this didn’t come up yet. Even in the late 90s, rap music could already get a little misty eyed over its own lost innocence; never more so than in the work of J5, whose preference for rock soild MC skills and old school turntablism was a happy rejoinder to some of the darkness brewing elsewhere. Concrete Schoolyard has the works; a great, but now lamentable, opening sample from “Fat Albert Plays Dead” by Bill Cosby, that hands in the air beat and some of the best interplay between disparate MCing styles from any hip hop record ever made. These days, it’s a karaoke favourite: the trick to successfully pulling it off is nailing the “man fi dead” line near the end.

        5. Movements – Roots Manuva

        Brand New Second Hand doesn’t seem to come up in conversation much these days, but it was such a big big record when it first came out. For me, it was the first time I heard rap music that was conspicuously British in character, but which didn’t seem to be in thrall to the Americans and worked all the same. Movements has such a weird, off-kilter vibe to it; it feels like something out of a Hip Hop Jack the Ripper musical (saucy jack, you’re a naughty one, etc). Obviously, Roots went on to make Witness (1 Hope), which was the big one, but I always preferred the early stuff. Movements sounds none-more 90s and takes me back to a time when the future of this music felt so exciting and unknowable.

        6. Mo Money, Mo Problems/Cold Rock A Party – Ma$e/MC Lyte

        Cheating slightly with a two for one here to cover off four important 90s bases: the party jam, the emergence in numbers of female MCs, the influence of Puff Daddy and (related) the tendency to lift tunes wholesale from 70s classics. In this case, a pair of Diana Ross offerings. Cold Rock A Party is an undeniable jam: great beat, great addition of that “oo-ooh” in the off-beat, and MC Lyte absolutely kills the verse. Wonderful flow. Mo Money, Mo Problems, meanwhile, does the unthinkable in taking I’m Coming Out and somehow improving on it. If I had to pick one hip hop record as the total package to sum up the 90s it would very possibly be this one; the beat, the lyric, the video. Ma$e is amazing on it, it’s virtually impossible to perform if you’re foolish enough to try it (as I am): he has that lazy flow and he’s hopping all over the beat. Plus, the chorus is fantastic.

        7. The Next Shit – DJ Vadim

        I’m including this here, partly because a huge element of the 90s for me was checking out some of the mental sounding instrumental Hip Hop coming out of various Trip Hop record labels (shout out also to DJ Krush), partly because the tune is influential and bridges the gap from the end of the 90s to a lot of the stuff that emerged in the decade following (it’s basically a J Dilla track before J Dilla), but mainly because it absolutely slaps, in that super stoned sounding way.

        8. Hip-Hop – Dead Prez

        Another super scuzzy beat that was classic before anyone even rhymed over it. However, this one has the advantage of having some of the best bars in all of 90s hip hop spat on it: “Who shot Biggie Smalls/If we don’t get them they gon get us all/I’m down for running up on those crackers in they city halls”, “It’s real hip hop and it don’t stop/till we get the po po off the block”, “One thing about music when they hit you feel no pain/white folk say it controls your brain/I know better than that, that’s game”. So good. I’m also honour bound to point out that “Let’s Get Free”, the album this is taken from, contains a Hip Hop reworking of Animal Farm, entitled “Animal In Man” and featuring the immortal line “Just then, the horses got buck wild”.

        9. Luchini – Camp Lo

        Out of all the records on this list, the one that sounds most 90s, mainly because it’s designed to sound so 70s. And. It. Slaps. So. Hard.

        youtube.com/watch?v=WvAqy1i2hEA

        10. 8 Steps to Perfection/America – Company Flow

        Just creeping in under the wire with a late 1999 release, “8 Steps” pointed the way forward into the next decade, when I would be spending a lot of time listening to stuff off Rawkus Records, and in particular a lot of time listening to Co-Flow/El-P. Helpfully, it’s also a massive tune in and of itself; massive beat, great flow and that super memorable intro: “Rugged like Rwanda, don’t wind up far or get chopped up”. These days, I prefer my Hip Hop when I can’t actually make out much of what’s being said: it’s generally better that way. This takes me back to a period where what was being said was often the whole point. I will never forget the jolt of first listening to “America”, a record that had something urgent to say and proceeded to say it with such speed, clarity and insight that you pretty much had to pause the damn thing every three lines to catch a breath. So many classic lyrics in that song, but I’ll end by posting just a couple of my favourite sections:

        “You bitchy little tarts don’t even phase my basic policy
        To bomb smarter, my Ronald Reagans crush Carter
        Preparing big tactics, making young men into martyrs”

        “With cameras mics and satellites that leave privacy breathless
        You don’t even know the chemicals you’ve ingested
        Urine tested… Beat an innocent man till he confesses”

        “Invite you to cross the border then shit on your divinities
        What language is that? I’m anguish in fact, tangle with a
        Star-spangled standard issue gat for crowd management”

  23. I have a hard time telling my 90s and my 00s apart, but hopefully not too many misrememberings here:

    Blackstreet feat. Dr. Dre – No Diggity
    Roy Davies Jr feat. Peven Everett – Gabriel (Live Garage Version)
    Lauryn Hill – Do Wop (That Tning)
    TLC – Creep
    Soundgarden – Black Hole Sun
    Marc Almond – Toreador In The Rain
    LL Cool J – Mama Said Knock You Out
    Pet Shop Boys – Being Boring
    Mariah Carey – All I Want For Christmas Is You
    Cornershop – Candy Man
    Scritti Politti – First Goodbye
    Björk – Isobel
    Tricky – Overcome
    Mylene Farmer – Désenchentée
    Freakwater – Picture In My Mind
    David Sylvian – Godman
    Christian Falk feat. Demetreus – Make It Right
    Beck – Loser
    Brainpool – Free Ride
    Prodigy – Poison
    Julian Cope – East Easy Rider
    Dream Warriors – Wash Your Face In My Sink
    Khaled – Chebba
    The The – Love Is Stronger Than Death
    Foo Fighters – Walking After You
    Emmylou Harris – All My Tears (Be Washed Away)
    The Tamperer feat. Maya – Feel It
    QOTSA – I Was A Teenage Hand Model
    Morrissey – Hold On To Your Friends
    Just D – Relalalaxa
    De La Soul – 3 Days Later
    The Wannadies – You and Me Song
    Papa Wemba – M’Fono Yami
    Radiohead – Just
    Nirvana – Heart Shaped Box
    Suede – Black Or Blue
    The Smashing Pumpkins – Bullet With Butterfly Wings
    The Blue Aeroplanes – Jacket hangs

    (and a whole bunch of bangers already mentioned by others, and definitely a bunch of chart hits that I didn’t buy but get happy whenever they come on the radio today, but can’t remember right now)

    • Some great shouts here.

      Loving the Lauryn Hill. I was tempted to name check If I Ruled The World and Ready or Not in the OP, so I’ll do it here instead. She is/was amazing.

      Glad to see some Mariah love on the blog. Fantasy and Honey both deserve a shout here, as well as some of the album tracks where she does completely mental things with her voice and picks mad hip hop samples.

      I loved Tricky so very much. It all fell apart a bit after the second album, but you can pick virtually anything off Maxinquaye. I’ll go for Hell Is Round The Corner, partly because of the way it bites on the immortal Glory Box, as well as Make Me Wanna Die and Tricky Kid from the second album.

      Prodigy well overdue a mention. When it first dropped, No Good (Start The Dance) felt so exciting and cutting edge. It’s a bit old hat now, but I still love it. Super 90s dancing in the video too. I recently played my kids Out of Space and they pissed themselves laughing at it, the little heathens.

      Love that you went for The Tamperer. Such a weird and wonderful pop song. What’s she gonna look like with a chimney on her indeed.

      • I was about to say! That Tamperer tune is utterly brilliant and a regular unbidden earworm of mine.

        A little while ago, just to amuse myself, I rebuilt Out of Space from scratch out of its constituent samples, then re-recorded the massive synths and basically reconstructed the entire song. It was the most enormous fun and I was quite proud of my efforts. Then I played the result to my kids, to amused bafflement. “You… danced to this?”

        You’re damn right I did, you appalling little nerks.

        • My tastes were a bit all over the place in the 90s. I saw these supporting Depeche Mode at the NEC on the Violator tour and they were absolutely brilliant (great album too).

          So on a similar sort of vibe, Jon Marsh’s remix of World In My Eyes by Depeche Mode. Here he almost transforms it into a Beloved track. Happiness, Violator and Electribal memories still sound great and get tons of play round our place today

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C7YvSlbJUw

          I might post more later – started making a playlist of 90s favourites but it just got out of control very quickly. So much brilliant music in that decade

  25. Great question: Here is an an off-the-top-of-my-head answer, all UK-based, pop-centric, and in arbitrary order:

    1: Stereolab, Three Dee Melodie
    2: Portishead, Glory Box
    3: Tricky, Ponderosa
    4: Massive Attack, Protection
    5: Pulp, Babies
    6: Blur, For Tomorrow
    7: Aphex Twin, Analogue Bubblebath
    8: LTJ Bukem, Atlantis
    9: Omni Trio, Renegade Snares
    10: Whitetown, Your Woman
    11: Tom & Jerry, Maximum Style
    12: My Bloody Valentine, Soon
    13: Spiritualized, If I Were With Her Now
    14. St Etienne, Nothing Can Stop Us Now
    15: Groove Armada, At the River (I like this!)

  27. Trendy buggers, you’re all too cool for school to admit to liking Fatboy Slim, eh? I don’t think the following have been mentioned:

    The Rockerfeller Skank – Fatboy Slim
    Human Behaviour – Bjork
    I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind of Thing – PSB
    Wilmot – the Sabres of Paradise
    Justified & Ancient – The KLF
    Brimful of Asha – Cornershop
    Intergalactic – Beastie Boys
    Stay Away From Me – Smashmybrothersfacein

    • As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, the 1994 night Oasis played a half-empty Astoria, I was at an Acid Jazz double-headed downstairs at the LA2. Corduroy and Mother Earth, but the special guest support turned out to be Freakpower. Hang on! Isn’t that guitarist the bloke from the Housemartins and Beats International? And the singer’s the trombonist from Loose Tubes! They were ruddy great. I saw them half a dozen times in the following six months or so, including my 25th birthday party at the Jazz Cafe.

  28. Given how many on the blog, including me, profess to adore this band and album, I suspect there are some who will realise their oversight of my first choice.
    XTC : Easter Theatre
    Supergrass: Richard III
    Del Amitri : Be My Downfall
    Bjork: Hyperballad
    Mutton Birds: Envy of Angels
    Julian Cope: Double Vegetation
    Blur: This is a Low
    The Verve : Northern Soul
    Radiohead : Paranoid Android
    The Orb : Little Fluffy Clouds

    Oooh, I love a list.

    • The Verve are definitely worth a mention. They’ve gone way way way out of fashion, but they had a handful of brilliant moments, even beyond the big singles.

      The two I’d go for personally are This Is Music, which is probably about as close to their actual manifesto as it’s possible to get, and then the 93 Glastonbury recording of Gravity Grave, with Ashcroft going full 90s Jim Morrison on the audience. We got one minute left, c’mon. One minute! One minute! One minute!

  29. I was giving this some more thought and remembered Ocean Colour Scene. Riverboat Song, The Day We Caught TheTrain and the insane Hundred Mile High City. Great band for me. It also reminded me of this from Pete Paphides…. Now he can write.

    • The Day We Caught The Train is an excellent shout. Another unfashionable band, but people do seem to love that song, even now. I think the shout of “we’ve got the whole wide world” on the third chorus and the “when you find that things are getting wild, don’t you want days like these” refrain really send the whole thing into orbit.

    • Good shout. It’s an album that I still play fairly regularly.

      However for me the standout OCS track is the B side “Huckleberry Grove”. No idea exactly why, but it’s just one of those songs that grabs me, makes the hairs stand on the back of the neck, etc etc…..

    • OCS got off to a poor start didn’t they? They must have, ‘cos I first encountered them when rummaging through a bargain bin in a little CD shop in Sodding Chipbury (which is long gone now). After ten minutes flipping through nondescript discs from a wide range of unnattractive artists, I chanced upon an intiguing album called Ocean Colour Scene, which appeared to be by a band of the same name. Naff cover, but lovely heavyweight jewel case, Fontana gold CD and a little booklet sprinkled with clues* that led me to stump up the fiver that the cover sticker demanded. What a find! Been following them ever since.

      * Alison Moyet bvs
      Heidi Stevens viola
      Bob Stanley nod
      Jimmy Miller nod
      Musical Exchange brum nod
      a PO Box in Solihull

      • That first album is not bad at all – a bit formulaic, trying to catch a rendition (remixed by the record company against the bands wishes apparently, but the clues are there).
        Moseley Shoals is something of a re-invention, and a very fine one indeed. Still getting regular(ish) spins check Digit – and the Paul Weller endorsement can’t have hurt

  31. Ok the 90s is the first decade where the tracks of the decade and the songs of the decade are not quite the same. In addition to some of the ‘proper’ artists listed above like Leftfield and Underworld, here’s a list of some of my favourite tracks of the 90s
    Energy Flash – Joey Beltram
    You Got The Love – The Source feat Candi Staton
    The Prodigy – Voodoo People
    FSOL – Papua New Guinea
    Josh Wink – Higher State of Consciousness
    LFO – LF0
    Liquid – Sweet Harmony
    Underworld – Born Slippy
    Disco Evangelists – De Niro
    Sasha – Xpander
    Chemical Brothers – Block Rockin Beats
    Masters at Work – to be in love
    Jam and Spoon – Odyssey to Anyoona
    Daft Punk – Da Funk
    Cafe Del Mar – Energy 52
    Professional Widow – Tori Amos (Armin Van Helden remix) ok so she is a ‘song artist’ but this just left Tori singing ‘honey bring you close to my lips’ and ‘gotta be big’ over and over again over a monster bass line.

    • Energy Flash should definitely make the list.

      Love the Josh Wink shout out. Brings to mind two stories from my school days: the first being the occasion a mate arrived in a cafe we were all sat in and proclaimed “awesome – Higher State of Consciousness”, before realising it was actually just a kettle boiling; the second the kid in my school year who was – ahem – not the quickest, and who was gifted the nickname “Lower State of Consciousness” by his (somewhat evil) classmates.

      I’ll chuck in a few more tunes:

      Brown Paper Bag – Roni Size
      Angels Fell – Dillinja
      In Dust We Trust – Chemical Brothers
      Pulp Fiction – Alex Reece
      Super Sharp Shooter – Ganja Kru
      Far Away – Doc Scott
      Demons Theme – LTJ Bukem
      Terminator – Goldie
      Modus Operandi – Photek
      Doom Night – Azido Da Bass (what a huge tune that was)
      Flowers – Sweet Female Attitude
      Shaolin Buddha Finger – Depth Charge
      20 Seconds to Comply – Silver Bullet
      Never Gonna Let You Go – Tina Moore
      Closer Than Close – Rosie Gaines (for many years, my old football team used to warn that a game was likely to be “a bit Rosie Gaines”)
      A Little Bit of Luck – DJ Luck & MC Neat
      A Knife and a Fork – Paul Robb
      Who’s The Bad Man – Dee Pattern
      Blow The Whole Joint Up – Monkey Mafia
      Dirt – Death in Vegas

      and, of course: Bug Powder Dust.

  32. Depeche Mode. Enjoy The Silence.
    Just sneaks in – released in Feb 1990. Pop perfection really. One of those records I can just revisit and never get even slightly bored of.

    New Order. Regret.
    Euphoric guitar pop is always something I can imagine is very difficult to write – certainly to my ears. As a fan of electronic music, this is as exciting as any electronic track I have ever heard.

    Pet Shop Boys. Can You Forgive Her?
    So unusual; musically, visually, lyrically. Remember sitting in a working mens club when they performed this on TOTP. Total puzzlement around me – is this for real or joke? Regardless if you were behind the cricket pavilion or the bicycle shed.

    Suede. The Wild Ones.
    A band that personified the 1990s for me. Imagine Bowie singing this.

    Morrissey. Speedway.
    I remember going to a gig on my own for the first time to see him on tour in the mid-90s. It was ultra aggressive going to a Morrissey gig, connected to his persona at the time. He came on with a cut drawn on his face and bloody knuckles. Crazy. I’m not a violent person one bit, but it was really scary and exciting to see him around this time. This track still his best.

    The KLF. 3am Eternal.
    Just magic. I often think Damon Albarn most get most annoyed that whatever Gorillaz do – they’ll never be The KLF.

    Placebo. Every You Every Me.
    Used to hear this at endless indie nights in dire clubs, that were utterly depressing music-wise. But this track had a different energy to Britpop.

    Rozalla. Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good).
    When first released, in the Warehouse in Leeds, they would play this track six or seven times during the night. And nobody got sick of it.

    Bruce Springsteen. Streets Of Philadelphia.
    Still love the timeless beat and heartbreaking lyric.

    The Cure. From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea.
    Not a single, but a song that goes on a real journey. Highs, lows and all in-between (days). ‘Wish’ is a sublime 90s album.

    • Couldn’t agree more re: Enjoy The Silence. It just has its own vibe going on that’s so different to anything else I can think of.

      Streets of Philadelphia is a brilliant shout. I’m also a sucker for Secret Garden, which is schmaltzy but wonderful.

  33. This thread has been really cathartic for me. For all the reasons I’ve explained before the 90’s were a tough decade and these songs have brought up some really positive memories for me. I listened to Catatonia’s National Velvet today and it was brilliant. So thanks Bingo and everyone else who’s contributed….

    Now that’s out of the way. How did I forget Nick Heyward? His three 90’s albums were great. Full of proper, special Brit Pop songs. Rollerblade, Kite, Caravan, The Man You Used To Be the list goes on. This Toppermost piece I did where I got fans (including Gary Crowley and our own @Rigid-Digit) to choose the songs I wrote this which says it all about Nick’s 90’s imperial phase…

    “The trilogy is that good and should be known well enough to guarantee him Saturday evening at Glastonbury status without having to play a single Haircut 100 track. Yep, that good.

    https://www.toppermost.co.uk/nick-heyward/

    • Glad to hear it, Dave. And just think! No one has even nominated Crazy by Aerosmith, Freak Like Me by Adina Howard, or (most egregiously of all) This Is How We Do It by Montell Jordan yet!

  34. All over the shop, a mess and mass of genres…..
    A slow scan through my i-tunes and these were the best of what actually seems to have been a great decade.
    Hey Joe/Black Uhuru
    Finisterre/June Tabor & Oyster Band
    How Long Will I Love You/Waterboys
    Put the Message in the Box/World Party
    Equinox/Davy Spillane
    Little Things in Life/Green on Red
    One Way/Levellers
    Country Feedback/REM (but I prefer most the Live on Jools Holland live version with BJ Cole, 1998)
    Black Sky/Shakespears Sister
    Shine/Charles & Eddie
    Your Ghost/Kristin Hersh
    Gradually Learning/Rockingbirds
    4th of July/Aimee Mann
    Mr Jones/Counting Crows
    Ring on the Sill/Cowboy Junkies
    Jerusalem Tonight/Emmylou Harris
    Big Gay Heart/Lemonheads
    Fade Into You/Mazzy Star
    Regret/New Order
    Pog Ain Oidche Earrach/Runrig
    Some Fantastic Place/Squeeze
    Cherry Dress/Anthony Thistlethwaite
    Give the Anarchist a Cigarette/Chumbawamba
    Sanvean/Dead Can Dance
    Power of Two/indigo Girls
    Glory Box/Portishead
    Bordertown/The Walkabouts
    McDougall’s Pride/Ashley McIsaac
    Supervixen/Garbage
    Two Hearts/The Jayhawks
    The Queen and the Soldier/Kate Rusby & Kathryn Roberts
    Yayli/Loop Guru
    Protection/Massive Attack
    Hymn/Moby
    Secret Heart/Ron Sexsmith
    Pacing the Cage/Bruce Cockburn
    The Oakham Poachers/John Kirkpatrick Band
    Pearl’s Girl/Underworld
    Not Dark Yet/Bob Dylan
    Another Night In/Tindersticks
    La Femme d’Argent/Air
    Bongo Bong/Manu Chao
    The Sea/Morcheeba
    Lovers of Light/Afro-Celt Sound System
    Malheureuse/The Balham Alligators
    Walk away Renee (Version)/Billy Bragg
    Nothing Compares 2 U/Jimmy Scott
    6/8 War/Leftfield
    I Try/Macy Gray
    Stranger on the Square/Jackie Leven

    • Oh, this is a great list.

      How Long Will I Love You – absolutely, beautiful song.

      Very nearly chucked Big Gay Heart in the OP. A song I go back to over and over again: he really did make it all look so simple at times. That middle eight.

      I went through a big Levellers phase circa Levelling The Land. Haven’t listened to that album in a long, long time, but may give it a spin this weekend.

  35. It’s really interesting perusing these lists. There was so much more going on than I remember at the time. I’ll definitely be having a listen to some of the tracks in this thread to see if I remember it all!

  36. here are some off the top of my head, there may well be a few repeats but there you go

    TLC – Sumthin’ Wicked This Way Comes Creep or Waterfalls could just have easily made it here, but this slow burning non-single off the excellent CrazySexyCool has always hit me just right

    The Afghan Whigs – Crime Scene, Part One gritty, cinematic, sweeping, this is a perfect album opener

    Kate Rusby – Our Town one of those covers that is better than the original. Wistful and melancholy, I’m not crying, you’re crying

    Lo Fidelity Allstars – Disco Machine Gun A banger. No further questions.

    Underworld – Rez That nagging synth riff is perfect, it’s like the end scenes of Close Encounters if Devil’s Tower was a disused warehouse somewhere and all the scientists were pilled up ravers

    Rancid – Olympia, WA Could have been anything off …And Out Come The Wolves. Sometimes three chords, a big chorus and a few Oi! Oi! Oi!s is all you need

    Primal Scream – Come Together the album version, mixed by Andrew Weatherall. Basically a perfect piece of music

    and which one inevitably leads me to

    The Sabres Of Paradise – Wilmot it’s like an old Kia-Ora advert gone voodoo

    Wildchild – Renegade Master what a hook

    and seeing as the big film of the month is going to be Dune, have a couple more early 90s rave bangers from Eon

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4AIsI5QKzU

    • Oh my god – the Lo Fidelity Allstars. I was obsessed with Disco Machine Gun. Obsessed.

      I dragged like ten people to watch them live, all enormously unimpressed. I still love Vision Incision.

      The memory has also conjured to mind this, which I was listening to a lot at that time.

  37. A few from me
    Billy Bragg – Tank park Salute
    Aimee Mann – I’ve Had It
    Belle & Sebastian – Sleep the Clock Around
    Eels – Last Stop: This Town
    Mercury Rev: Goddess on a Hiway
    G.W. McLennan – Lighting Fires
    Nick Cave – The Ship Song
    Michael Head & The Strands – Something Like You
    Tom Petty – Wake up Time
    Willard Grant Conspiracy – Evening Mass
    World Party – Is It Like Today

    • Quite a few 90s Nick Cave tracks worthy of any shortlist, but The Ship Song is an excellent suggestion.

      I once lived with a Nick Cave superfan who was absolutely horrified when his then girlfriend (who was Cave-agnostic, at best) arrived home one evening and announced she was to interview the great man. I believe the sheer injustice of the situation caused them to break up shortly thereafter.

    • Good call on the Billy. My favourite of his from that decade is King James Version, which has one one of the all-time great opening lines:

      He was trapped in a haircut he no longer believed in

    • Delighted to see G W McLennan making an appearance, @Charlie Gordon. That is a fine song.

      That’s a fine album. No complaints about Aimee, Billy, Mercury, B & S, Willard etc either.

  38. Waaaaaay too many tunes for any realistic shortlist – seems to me the best available method is a sort of word association where you say a year and immediately answer with what first comes to mind. Thus…
    1990: Public Enemy – Welcome To The Terrordome
    1991: Primal Scream/The Orb – Higher Than The Sun
    1992: Suede: To The Birds
    1993: The Boo Radleys – Lazarus
    1994: Manic Street Preachers – Faster
    1995: Tricky – Hell Is Round The Corner
    1996: Underworld – Juanita/Kiteless/To Dream Of Love
    1997: Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci – Patio Song
    1998: Pulp – This Is Hardcore
    1999: Aphex Twin – Windowlicker

  39. I had convinced myself, like others, that the 90’s was pants. Clearly from some of these memories, I was wrong.

    Of course, the best song from that decade was Aura by The Church. From their sprawling magnum opus Priest = Aura which killed grunge.

  40. A small addendum:

    Rainmaker – Sparklehorse
    Weightless Again – The Handsome Family
    Balinese Dancer – Chuck Prophet
    Ship Song – Nick Cave & the bad seeds
    Do you love me? – Nick Cave & the bad seeds

    At the risk of overloading the Nick Cave content, I’d also include Where the Wild Roses Grow…

    • @Freddy-Steady

      I suspect the majority on the site prefer the more quiescent Cave which emerged later – but I always preferred his earlier stuff, when it could be defined as Bad Seeds material, rather than Cave with a backing band. I missed The Birthday Party at the time, so I suppose I started listening with The Firstborn is Dead…and Let Love In is a storming album!

  42. @fitterstoke

    I did work backwards from Let Love in, of course I did! A great back catalogue but yes, a bit like Killing Joke, I prefer the melodic stuff to the more shouty stuff. Got Carnage due to drop through my letter box any time soon.

  43. So many great songs above, a wonderful thread (and a Spotify playlist wouldn’t go amiss) but amazed to see so little:
    Teenage Fanclub (v edited list) – Everything Flows, The Concept, What You Do To Me, Starsign, Hang On, Gene Clark, Don’t Look Back, Neil Jung, Going Places, Start Again, Ain’t That Enough, Planets, etc.
    Or much Julian Cope to be honest!
    And of course The Osmonds by Denim.

      • Also:
        Music non-stop (The Mix version) – Kraftwerk
        Taneytown – Steve Earle
        Saturday – Sparklehorse
        Constant craving – KD Lang
        Monday – Wilco
        Meet ze Monsta – PJ Harvey
        A change would do you good – Sheryl Crow
        Red Right Hand – Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
        Renegade Master – Wildchild
        Breathe – The Prodigy
        That don’t impress me much – Shania Twain
        My favourite game – The Cardigans

  44. After seeing the tweet below yesterday I was going to start a new thread based on “Stars” but I thought it really belonged here on Bingo’s uber thread. I’m with the tweeter on this 100%. I’ve never hidden my love of Simply Red. The songs “Stars”, “Something Got Me Started”, ” For Your Babies” absolutely belong in a thread about the best songs of the 90’s. Would anyone else here admit to listening to “Stars” more than “Nevermind” or “Screamadelica”? You know what hill I’m on…

  45. In all the excitement, I somehow forgot my single favourite track of the entire decade: Mogwai Fear Satan.

    I was tremendously excited by Post Rock when it first emerged. Rock lyrics are so often tedious that it seemed a blessing to do without them, and I spent many happy hours wandering the soundscapes of Slint, GY!BE, Tortoise, Explosions in the Sky, Mono, et al. There was something universal and quite moving about it all.

    Mogwai Fear Satan, however, towered above the rest in my affections.

    If a cheap musical trick defined the 90s, it was probably the jarring quiet/loud/quiet dichotomy. You heard it in everything from Pixies to Nirvana to Nu Metal and all over the early work of Mogwai. Nowhere, to my mind, has that cheap trick worked so perfectly as in Mogwai Fear Satan.

    There’s that gentle, martial sounding build, the suggestion of a maelstrom to come. There’s the sturm und drang of the guitars crashing in and then receding, over and over, with varying degrees of distortion; howling endlessly into the void. The whole thing has this incredible sense of propulsion, likes it’s constantly accelerating towards something nameless. When I first heard it, it reminded me of Heroin by the Velvet Underground in that sense, but without the stupid shock tactics of Heroin’s lyric. The sheer urgency of it all.

    What sets MFS apart, however, is the flute. That gorgeous flute line, dropping in to the quieter moments and applying salve to the wound before it all begins again. The way it takes us to the close of the track as the rest of the music begins to slow and quieten, the transcendent feeling of peace created by the eventual absence of all that chaos.

    I listened to Mogwai Fear Satan a million times in the late 90s. It comforted me in tough moments, and helped me make sense of some of what was going on inside me. It made me feel less alone on days when that was exactly what I needed. Years later, when I first listened to Dream House by Deafheaven (which would be up there with my favourite songs of the last decade or so), I immediately caught an echo of MFS. It was so ugly and angry, but still familiar and comforting all the same.

    I’m not sure it could ever be said to define the 90s, but I’ve never stopped loving it, and I can’t imagine I ever will. It’s an absolutely brilliant name for a song too – Mogwai were always good at that.

  46. Addendum….

    A few from the old guard:

    Prefab Sprout – One of the Broken
    Leonard Cohen – Anthem
    Neil Young – Prime of Life
    Morrissey – Someone on Your Side
    Paul weller – Clues
    Tom waits – Black Wings
    Van Morrison – The Days Before Rock’n’Roll
    Robert Wyatt – A Sunday in Madrid
    REM – Electrolite
    Barry Adamson – Achieved in the Valley of the dolls (achtung @dave-amitri)
    Nick Heyward – The world
    Terry Hall – Moon on Your Dress…

    ….also nothing says the 90s more to me than I Remember Punk Rock by Vic Reeves.

        • And, contrary to popular demand, there’s more:

          No Time – Whiteout
          Moebius – Orbital
          Worlds In Collision – Pere Ubu
          I Had to Serve You – HiJack
          Another Girl’s Name – Ocean Colour Scene
          Monday – Wilco
          Towers of Dub – The Orb
          Wreck of the arthur Lee – Robyn Hitchcock
          Don’t Ask Me – PiL
          Miss World – Mice
          City Bright Stars – Lightning Seeds
          Talking to the Spirits – MC900 Ft Jesus
          Valentine – Willie Nelson
          It’s Up To You – Steinski
          Hanging Upside Down – David Byrne
          When She’s Gone – Electronic
          Fine Time – Cast
          People Get Ready – Brand New Heavies
          I’m Ready – Caveman
          Don’t You worry – Beloved
          Dry the Rain – Beta Band
          Pianos & Clocks – Aztec Camera
          Rough it Up – Blade
          Kingdom – Ultramarine
          Body & Soul – The Blue Nile
          I Wouldn’t Normally Do… – PSBs
          Pocket Calculator (The Mix version) – Kraftwerk
          After All – Frank & Walters
          Time Wraps Around You – Velvet Crush
          Smile – Supernaturals
          Hayfever – Trashcan Sinatras
          Love Gets Sweeter Every day* – Finley Quaye

          (*yes you did read that right)

          • I heart Finley Quaye. Very happy memories of watching him play a sunny Notting Hill Carnival shortly after the first album. Will always stand up for Even After All.

            Amazed it took us this long to get Dry The Rain. I’d also add Dog’s Got A Bone.

            As for Orbital, will only add SATAN! SATAN! SATAN! SATAN!

            • I think many associate the Betas with the noughties. The Three EPs is a very “long tail” album in terms of its impact, To be fair, they did two albums in the noughties and a standalone single (To You alone/Sequinsizer) and there isn’t a duff note on any of them: the earlier and more famous recordings veer violently from genius to unlistenable. There’s a lesson in there about consistency not being everything.

              I’m rambling, I half expect this post to be interrupted by a double-tracked Steve Mason going “Hmmmm-mmmmmm”

  47. Kelly Willis – What I Deserve
    Sugar – A Good Idea
    Steve Earle – Telephone Road
    Lucinda Williams – Still I Long For Your Kiss
    Whiskeytown – Everything I Do
    Ron Sexsmith – Strawberry Blonde
    Fountains of Wayne – Red Dragon Tattoo
    Nick Lowe – The Beast in Me
    All Saints – Never Ever

  48. That Whiskeytown tune is a cracker. My favourite of theirs from the 90s is Dancing With The Women At The Bar.

    Not sure if we’ve had it yet, but; Leavin’ by Shelby Lynne, anyone?

  49. Back to this because unforgivably I’ve not yet mentioned Billy MacKenzie. Some of his solo releases during the 90s were his best. “Wild and Lonely” while released in 1990 as The Associates was Billy solo really. Its a fantastic poppy treat that contains “Just Can’t Say Goodbye” which if produced by SAW would have been number 1 for weeks. His true solo album “Beyond The Sun” is absolutely beautiful and emotional and exquisite. The track I’m choosing to share though cones from BEF’s Music of Quality & Distinction Volume 2 album. It’s his cover of Deniece William’s “Free” from 1991 it also appears on the 1998 BEF ‘Best Of’ album. Just give yourself 4 minutes of lovely…

  50. A few more from me:

    Deceptacon by Le Tigre
    Pony by Ginuwine
    Keep Their Heads Ringing by Dr Dre
    If I Could Turn Back Time by Cher (what a banger)
    Dreamer by Livin Joy
    Never Tear Us Apart by INXS
    Say My Name by Destiny’s Child
    Inner City Life by Goldie
    You Make Me Wanna by Usher
    Two Princes by the Spin Doctors (admit it)
    Walking on Broken Glass by Annie Lennox
    Ghost Chase by Atari Teenage Riot
    No Rain by Blind Melon (so good)
    Nitro by The Offspring
    Connection by Elastica
    When I come Around by Green Day
    Swallowed by Bush
    What I Got by Sublime
    What’s Up by 4 Non Blondes
    74-75 by The Connells

    Oh, the 90s.

  52. Can’t believe I forgot these:

    Cece Peniston – Finally
    Young Disciples – Apparently Nothin’
    Skee-Lo – I Wish
    DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince – Summertime
    Kriss Kross – Jump
    and (dare I say it?)…
    Whigfield – Saturday Night 😀

  53. I’ll change my mind in 10 mins but:

    Oasis – Live Forever
    Manics – Faster
    Suede – Metal Mickey
    Primal Scream – Loaded
    Black Grape – Reverend Black Grape
    Bjork – Isobel
    Saint Etienne – Nothing Can Stop Us
    Stone Roses – Love Spreads
    Crowded House – Distant Sun
    Charlatans – Tellin’ Stories

    I bought the NME every week for most of that decade and I think it shows.

      • I’d have One Love or Something’s Burning. “2C” is unforgiven for me. I put my life in the hands of a rock’n’roll band and they threw it all away.

        Golden Greats is a lovely album, while I’m here. Genuinely what Second Far Too Bloody Long Coming could have been,

        Charlies-wise, am I alone in having a soft spot for Me In Time? Crikey, that’s thirty years old now too. In other words, it’s as old as Wonderful Land by The Shadows was then.

        I wish I hadn’t said that.

  54. Here’s a varied few that I dug at the time:

    Sound of da police – KRS-One
    Long snake moan — PJ Harvey
    A cure for pain — Morphine
    Crush with eyeliner — REM
    Ride on — Little Axe
    Words of advice — Material, feat William Burroughs
    I’ll shoot the moon — Tom Waits
    Bulls on parade — Rage Against the Machine
    3D Lifestyle — Greg Osby
    The white man’s got a god complex — Public Enemy
    Wide open spaces — The Dixie Chicks
    The things I used to do — Albert Collins
    Farmer in the city — Scott Walker
    Doll parts — Hole

  55. Sound of Da Police is such a good shout. You rarely hear it these days, which is odd given how on point it is.

    The 90s chat has had me listening to Live Through This a lot in the last few days. It’s a great album, they were a great band and Doll Parts is a brilliant song.

  56. Judging by the above lists, I seem to have been a ’90s-dodger for the most part.
    Odds and sods from Portishead, Pulp, Jah Wobble, KLF, Julian Cope, The Orb, Waterboys and Garbage and that’s pretty much It, for me.
    That was about the time I quit smoking (including forswearing the naughty weed) and started dabbling in computers and t’internet.

  57. I have a playlist called ‘Flawless’ & it’s exactly what it says on the tin. Songs I like that I do not believe I will never tire of.
    Tracks on that playlist from the 90s are (in no particular order);
    Depeche Mode – Enjoy The Silence
    Regular John – Queens Of The Stone Age
    Ex-Factor – Lauryn Hill
    On The Avenue – Aztec Camera
    The Rhythm Of The Night – Corona
    Dammit – Blink 182
    Meet Ze Monsta – PJ Harvey
    Let Down – Radiohead
    Rockin’ Chair – Oasis
    Good Grief – Foo Fighters
    Waterfalls – TLC
    Still – Macy Gray
    Just A Girl She Said – Dubstar
    Ladies & Gentleman We Are Floating In Space – Spiritualized
    Sleep The Clock Around – Belle & Sebastian
    Tonight We Fly – The Divine Comedy

    • I like this list a lot. I think you’ve picked the right Spiritualized track, although I also have a soft spot for Shine A Light.

      I realized earlier that we’ve had nothing so far from the mighty 69 Love Songs by the Magnetic Fields, so will nominate Busby Berkeley Dreams and Kiss Me Like You Mean It.

      A few more that sprung to mind on my commute:

      California Stars – Billy Bragg & Wilco
      Try Again – Aaliyah
      Roots Bloody Roots – Sepultura
      Tonight, Tonight – Smashing Pumpkins
      The Private Psychedelic Reel – Chemical Brothers
      Gone Til November – Wyclef Jean
      On & On – Erykah Badu
      Devil’s Pie – D’Angelo
      Rain Showers – Sizzla
      Traffic Blocking – General Degree
      I’m Going Down – Mary J Blige
      Ice Cream – Raekwon
      Ain’t No Right – Jane’s Addiction
      Closer – Nine Inch Nails
      Highway 29 – Bruce Springsteen
      Scentless Apprentice – Nirvana

  59. Three more that I can’t believe have been overlooked until now:

    Steal My Sunshine – Len
    Break Stuff – Limp Bizkit (c’mon people – we’re so obviously slacking here)

    and particularly, this piece of absolute 90s genius….

  60. Here are 10 songs from the 1990s that I love.
    Some of them have been mentioned by other Afterworders, but hey, that’s OK.

    Elvis Costello – Couldn’t Call it Unexpected No.4
    REM – Find the River
    Ayub Ogada – Obiero
    Grant McLennan – Coming Up for air
    Lal Waterson & Oliver Knight – Midnight Feast
    Jackie Leven – Jim O’Windygates
    Elliott Smith – Bled White
    XTC – Easter Theatre
    Magnetic Fields – I Don’t Believe in the Sun
    Divine Comedy – Tonight We Fly

  61. Producing a playlist for this thread is a real labour of love.
    I’ve a long way to go still, but maybe listening to what we have so far will jog your memories.

    Enjoy!

  64. This came up at karaoke the other night. Absolute banger:

    Comes in the great 90s tradition of windswept, piano-led balladry, with lengthy narrative videos and lots of blow-dried hair/wind machines.

    See also, this classic, with a video that is completely unacceptable in 2021.

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