High School Music Meme

[vovat]

From slfcllednowhere:

Go to http://www.musicoutfitters.com
- Enter the year you graduated from high school in the search function and get the list of 100 most popular songs of that year.
- Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you hate and underline your favorites. Do nothing to the ones you don't remember/care about.

Actually, I'm not sure there are any songs on this list I particularly liked, although there are quite a few I don't recognize based on the titles, so I guess it's possible that some of them were good.

1. Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix), Los Del Rio - You HAD to remind me of that song, didn't you, Music Outfitters?
2. One Sweet Day, Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men
3. Because You Loved Me, Celine Dion
4. Nobody Knows, Tony Rich Project
5. Always Be My Baby, Mariah Carey - I'm not a fan of it, but I don't know that I'd put it in the "hate" category.
6. Give Me One Reason, Tracy Chapman - Same deal with this one. The person singing it WAS a woman, right? I mean, "Tracy" can be a guy's name.
7. Tha Crossroads, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
8. I Love You Always Forever, Donna Lewis - I remember this, but never had any strong feeling towards it.
9. You're Makin' Me High/Let It Flow, Toni Braxton
10. Twisted, Keith Sweat
11. C'mon N' Ride It (The Train), Quad City Dj's
12. Missing, Everything But The Girl
13. Ironic, Alanis Morissette - Okay, not sure about "hate," but the fact that she wrote an entire song about a word she never bothered to look up in the dictionary is annoying. Another oddity about it is how there's that one part where she kinda sings in tune, but then goes right back to screeching.
14. Exhale (Shoop Shoop), Whitney Houston
15. Follow You Down/Til I Hear It From You, Gin Blossoms
16. Sittin' Up In My Room, Brandy
17. How Do U Want It/California Love, 2Pac
18. It's All Coming Back To Me Now, Celine Dion
19. Change The World, Eric Clapton
20. Hey Lover, LL Cool J
21. Loungin, LL Cool J
22. Insensitive, Jann Arden
23. Be My Lover, La Bouche
24. Name, Goo Goo Dolls - Assuming this is the song I think it is, anyway.
25. Who Will Save Your Soul, Jewel - I never particularly liked or disliked Jewel's music. It's pleasant enough, I guess.
26. Where Do You Go, No Mercy
27. I Can't Sleep Baby (If I), R. Kelly
28. Counting Blue Cars, Dishwalla
29. You Learn/You Oughta Know, Alanis Morissette - So were these played together, like "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions"? I was not aware. The fact that "You Oughta Know" is apparently about Dave Coulier is pretty amusing.
30. One Of Us, Joan Osborne
31. Wonder, Natalie Merchant
32. Not Gon' Cry, Mary J. Blige
33. Gangsta's Paradise, Coolio - Hey, "Amish Paradise" came out in 1996. You mean that didn't chart? {g}
34. Only You, 112 Featuring The Notorious B.I.G.
35. Down Low (Nobody Has To Know), R. Kelly
36. You're The One, SWV
37. Sweet Dreams, La Bouche
38. Before You Walk Out Of My Life/Like This And Like That, Monica
39. Breakfast At Tiffany's, Deep Blue Something - It got a little irritating, but never really fell into the "I'm going to smash the radio if I hear this again" category.
40. 1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin' New), Coolio
41. The World I Know, Collective Soul
42. No Diggity, BLACKstreet (Featuring Dr. Dre)
43. Anything, 3t
44. 1979, The Smashing Pumpkins - I don't remember this song, but I was never a fan of the Smashing Pumpkins in general.
45. Diggin' On You, TLC
46. Why I Love You So Much/Ain't Nobody, Monica
47. Kissin' You, Total
48. Count On Me, Whitney Houston and Cece Winans
49. Fantasy, Mariah Carey
50. Time, Hootie and The Blowfish
51. You'll See, Madonna
52. Last Night, Az Yet
53. Mouth, Merril Bainbridge
54. The Earth, The Sun, The Rain, Color Me Badd
55. All The Things (Your Man Won't Do), Joe
56. Wonderwall, Oasis - I dislike Oasis on principle, but I guess this was actually one of their better songs.
57. Woo-hah!! Got You All In Check/Everything Remains Raw, Busta Rhymes
58. Tell Me, Groove Theory
59. Elevators (Me and You), Outkast - They were around back then? I did not know that.
60. Hook, Blues Traveler
61. Doin It, LL Cool J
62. Fastlove, George Michael
63. Touch Me Tease Me, Case Featuring Foxxy Brown
64. Tonite's Tha Night, Kris Kross
65. Children, Robert Miles
66. Theme From Mission: Impossible, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen - I seem to recall somebody complaining that they changed something from the original theme, but I don't recall what.
67. Closer To Free, Bodeans
68. Just A Girl, No Doubt - Never particularly cared for them, although that semi-recent Gwen Stefani song "Sweet Escape" is pretty catchy.
69. If Your Girl Only Knew, Aaliyah
70. Lady, D'angelo
71. Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First), John Mellencamp
72. Pony, Ginuwine
73. Nobody, Keith Sweat
74. Old Man and Me (When I Get To Heaven), Hootie and The Blowfish
75. If It Makes You Happy, Sheryl Crow
76. As I Lay Me Down, Sophie B. Hawkins
77. Keep On, Keepin' On, Mc Lyte
78. Jealousy, Natalie Merchant
79. I Want To Come Over, Melissa Etheridge
80. Who Do U Love, Deborah Cox
81. Un-Break My Heart, Toni Braxton
82. This Is Your Night, Amber
83. You Remind Me Of Something, R. Kelly
84. Runaway, Janet Jackson
85. Set U Free, Planet Soul
86. Hit Me Off, New Edition
87. No One Else, Total
88. My Boo, Ghost Town Dj's
89. Get Money, Junior M.A.F.I.A.
90. That Girl, Maxi Priest Featuring Shaggy
91. Po Pimp, Do Or Die
92. Until It Sleeps, Metallica
93. Hay, Crucial Conflict
94. Beautiful Life, Ace Of Base - Probably one of the better songs on the list, at least as far as the ones I can remember.
95. Back For Good, Take That
96. I Got Id/Long Road, Pearl Jam
97. Soon As I Get Home, Faith Evans
98. Macarena, Los Del Rio - Again? Once wasn't enough for this crap-fiesta to make the charts?
99. Only Wanna Be With You, Hootie and The Blowfish - Hey, Hootie, ever heard of enunciation?
100. Don't Cry, Seal

I've heard some people say that they considered the best music to be what came out in their senior years of high school. I can't say I agree. I wasn't really into much music until college, and even that usually wasn't stuff that got played much on the radio. Really, I couldn't have listened to the radio in college even if I'd wanted to, since the school was in a mountain valley that very few signals reached, aside from the campus radio station. Nor is stuff from my high school years old enough to have the nostalgia value of the eighties music from my childhood. But really, I would have thought there'd have been SOMETHING on the list that I would have liked.

Comments

[slfcllednowhere.livejournal.com]

39. Breakfast At Tiffany's, Deep Blue Something - It got a little irritating, but never really fell into the "I'm going to smash the radio if I hear this again" category.

The thing that gets me about that song is how stupid a reason it is for the narrator to try to get the girl back. It's not their favourite movie, or the movie they saw on their first date or anything like that. It's a movie they both "kinda liked," and she's not even sure if she can remember it! That's pretty pathetic. Is that really the best you can come up with, Deep Blue Something guy?

I like more stuff on your list than I did on my list, and I think there's less completely shitty stuff too. Music is getting worse.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

39. Breakfast At Tiffany's, Deep Blue Something - It got a little irritating, but never really fell into the "I'm going to smash the radio if I hear this again" category.

The thing that gets me about that song is how stupid a reason it is for the narrator to try to get the girl back. It's not their favourite movie, or the movie they saw on their first date or anything like that. It's a movie they both "kinda liked," and she's not even sure if she can remember it! That's pretty pathetic. Is that really the best you can come up with, Deep Blue Something guy?

I guess that's supposed to be amusing, or something. I'm not saying it succeeds at that, mind you.

Music is getting worse.

I don't know if that's entirely true, but I think it might be true of the stuff that makes the charts. I don't know. There have always been plenty of both good and bad popular songs, but there no longer seems to be anything that almost everyone likes. The music world is more fragmented now than in my youth, I think.

[annamatic.livejournal.com]

See... this song came out when I was in college and I have fond memories associated with it. It was just kind of a halcyon time. I get nostalgic for it. Same thing with that song with the endless title by the Primitive Radio Gods, Standing By A Broken Telephone Booth With Money In My Hand (I think).

[annamatic.livejournal.com]

And my birthday's 11-17! (Two years earlier, but still.) :D

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

On a similar note, I started putting together a lyric-guessing list as per your influence. But I did the list of the year I graduated once-- as well as just about every other year I could come up with an excuse for-- so can't justify posting this one again...

29. I think this means the record company considered it a Double A-side, though I don't know if they even still sold cassette tape singles in '96, let alone 45s.

66. Think it was me-- the thing that was wrong with this movie version of the Mission: Impossible theme is that in an attempt to make it a dance number they put it into some ordinary time whereas the original was in 5/4 time, which is what gives it an uneasy edge as if it seems to be skipping a beat and is what makes the song so cool to begin with. You get rid of the 5/4 time and it's not a cool song anymore.

98. I'm actually kind of surprised this version made it onto the list-- this is the original Mexican version of the song-- which, having heard it in Mexico before the song became popular here, I have always liked a whole lot better than the stupid American version.

[colbyucb.livejournal.com]

Totally stealing this. Though I wonder if there is going to be anything I actually liked that made the charts in '04 :/

[vovat.livejournal.com]

29. I know they had cassette singles that late, because I remember seeing one for Weird Al's song "Gump." I bought the CD version, though, having just recently gotten my own CD player.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I'm starting to think that most of what made the charts in EVERY year was crap.

[colbyucb.livejournal.com]

True. Some years were better than others, though. Marginally.