Everyone who knows me also knows that I have a weird obsession with the 90’s. Their music, dramatic teen soaps and cheesetastic movies are where it’s at and I still find a way to work them into my regular conversation. So it was fitting that my next playlist be a 90’s throwback. Have you ever watched one of those VH1 specials and thought hey I love all of those songs? Well that’s pretty much how I made this playlist. I checked out all the one hit wonder alt hits of the entire decade and put this jam fest together for your ears. Some of them are multi-hit wonders but who cares; it’s a bunch of good songs that make you want to wear flannel and get grungy. Hope you enjoy! (Reading my blabfest for each song=optional of course.)
1. Semi-Charmed Life-Third Eye Blind Here’s a classic 3EB song that everyone thought was fun and upbeat and when you listen to the lyrics it’s actually about being addicted to crystal meth. NBD but HBD. Fun/Possibly Really Embarrassing Fact: I’ve seen Third Eye Blind in concert not once…but twice. I paid both times too so who’s the real sucker here? Great concert for drunken college kids who just want to get their feels out and mosh, might I add. However, the lead singer took it a little more seriously than that and had an interlude mid-jam to talk about how much he loves performing and going onstage and traveling the word. Yeah, yeah bro, you’re on a makeshift stage in front of a river and your entire crowd is 18-20 year olds who did shots before this and are all about to boot, let’s get back to Jumper now, shall we?
Best Lyric: “With a tick-tock rhythm and a bump for the drop, And then I bumped up, I took the hit I was given, Then I bumped again, and then I bumped again” YA DRUGZ. Slash pretty much all of the lyrics are the best because this song is catchy AF.
2. Freshmen-The Verve Pipe Is this song REALLY depressing? Yeah, pretty much. But it’s also the epitome of the 90’s alternative vibe and it would be criminal to not include it on this playlist. Heavy drug references and also pretty sure they’re singing about someone dying but hey…we were only freshman so no blamesies.
Best Lyric: “Stopped a baby’s breath and a shoe full of rice, no” WHAT does this mean. So mysterious and edgy with rice shoes.
3. I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)-The Proclaimers LOVE SONG OF THE CENTURY, amirite? This guy’s like hey I’m determined to be yours so I’m gonna sing about it. I can totes get down with that. Also this song had a resurgence in How I Met Your Mother–for all fans (pre-series finale from hell) you’ll recall this was the song that was stuck in Ted’s old car cassette player and sound tracked all of Ted and Marshall’s college adventures. Ah, the good ole days.
Best Lyric: “And when the money comes in for the work I do, I’ll pass almost every penny on to you.” GIMME ALL YOUR MONEY. Just kidding, the Proclaimers probably shouldn’t have offered that up so freely.
4. Barely Breathing-Duncan Sheik Duncan is heartbroken, guys. I’m suspecting he got cheated on because he’s being really dramats and saying he can barely breathe now that she’s gone. I’m fine with him being whiny about getting dumped hard though because he’s all sensitive and cute and it’s a good song for when you just need to let out your feels.
Best Lyric: “It must have been that yesterday was the day that I was born” The hipster songwriter way of saying “I wasn’t born yesterday” is sooo much cooler.
5. No Rain-Blind Melon This is a great song to make a funny voice and sing along to because this guy already kind of has a funny voice to begin with. Seriously, try it. So I guess I didn’t realize there’s like 10 lyrics that they just repeat over and over again until I looked it up. It’s kind of a cute love song though, bro just wants someone to hang out with and watch the rain and stuff.
Best Lyric: “So stay with me and I’ll have it made” D’awwwwww.
6. Counting Blue Cars-Dishwalla This song is kind of weird. But you know what, equal opportunity. I love it cause it’s a nice think about the world and religion jam. Why is a song called counting blue cars provoking me to think about religion? Well that would be due to the fact that they refer to God as a woman. Is God a woman? This little kid seems to think so. THINK ABOUT IT while you count dem cars.
Best Lyric: “We said, “Tell me all your thoughts on God, ‘Cause I would really like to meet her, and ask her why we’re who we are.” WHO ARE WE? WHO IS GOD? Deep, bruh.
7. Hold My Hand- Hootie & The Blowfish I decided to throw you for a loop and choose the not so obvious Hootie hit. Yes, I understand that Hootie technically were never one hit wonders and they hung around for a while but it’s not a 90’s alt playlist without them, so just let it happen. Plus now that Darius is 100% country, I’ll do anything to erase his remake of Wagon Wheel from my memory. 90’s Hootie doesn’t wear a cowboy hat; he literally just wants to hold my hand. I love a good handholding, especially coups style, so by all means Hootie, grab on.
Best Lyric: “Yesterday, I saw you standing there, your head was down, your eyes were red, No comb had touched your hair.” What a nice way to describe a girl’s dirty hair. He still wants to hold paws even though she clearly hasn’t showered.
8. Save Tonight- Eagle Eye Cherry The song that occupied many a graduation and goodbye mixes. It’s the official YOLO of the 90’s. You only have one night left together so live it up! Interesting fact that I learned from one of the Barstool bloggers on twitter is that Eagle Eye Cherry is legitimately the musician’s name, not a band name. I didn’t really fact check that, so don’t hold me to it. I basically just read something on Twitter and repeat it as fact on a fairly regular basis so you should all probably be concerned.
Best Lyric: “So take this wine and drink with me, and let’s delay our misery.” Wine is def the stuff for delaying misery, until you wake up the next morning with a wine hangover, which is the real pits.
9. You Get What You Give-New Radicals Such a feel good song from the New Radicals as they preach to keep on keepin on. This song is filled to the brim of AIM profile lyrics (aka I definitely at one point had “You’ll be ok, follow your heart <3” in my jujubean8731 aim prof. NO SHAME.) While they’re being totes inspirational they also find time to tell celebs that they hate how rich they are and will kick their ass in. Classic.
Best Lyric: “You’re all fakes, Run to your mansions, Come around, We’ll kick your ass in.” No really. RUN. These guys have big feet.
10. Bittersweet Symphony-The Verve This one is actually depressing AF but because it’s set to some nice classical violin beats it suddenly tricks you into thinking you like adult music and you forget that they’re singing about how life is just about getting money and dying.
Best Lyric: “But I’m a million different people from one day to the next.” Multiple Personality Disorder in a nutshell.
11. She’s So High-Tal Bachman What kind of a name is Tal? Who knows, but he must be a real catch because he wrote a whole song about how this girl is basically a goddess. If I had a quarter for every time a guy was so swept away by my beauty and grace that he wrote a song all about it, I would still not have enough quarters for a load of laundry in Boston. Seriously, you guys got any spares? Anyway, Tal thinks he’s a piece of dog shit compared to this girl and I would like to see pics because this seems a little extreme.
Best Lyric: “First class and fancy free, She’s high society.” It’s no secret how much I love the term fancy-free and he rhymed it with high society. WHAT a guy.
12. Two Princes-Spin Doctors This is hands down the original Rude! by Magic. Except guess what? It’s been 10+ years since it came out and I don’t want to pull my hair out of my head when I hear it. I welcome this song, whereas after one month of Rude being on the radio I wanted to stomp on over to wherever Magic was probably meditating near incense and tell him to shut the hell up. Anyway, the Spin Doctors were like hey we’re kind of just regular guys and your dad will probably hate us but I’ve got bedroom skills and I’ll love you like nobody’s biz. Yes, please.
Best Lyric: “You marry him, your father will condone you (How ’bout that now) You marry me, your father will disown you (He’ll eat his hat, now)” Let your dad eat his hat, girl!
13. Breakfast at Tiffany’s-Deep Blue Something I can’t lie to you guys. I’ve never seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I get that it’s a classic and Audrey Hepburn, blah blah blah, I hate black and white movies. Whoops secret’s out. Even though I’ve never seen the movie, I still have enough sense to know it’s cute as shit that these guys are using it to pick up chicks. We both like Breakfast at Tiffany’s? BOOM. Let’s hang. Unfortunately it doesn’t work out for the best, but hey they tried.
Best Lyric: “You’ll say the world has come between us, Our lives have come between us, Still I know you just don’t care.” So dramatic. The WORLD has come between us. Settle down and watch the movie with him.
14. Steal My Sunshine-Len Here’s another one of those, hey this song is kind of quirky and ohhh wait it’s about doing drugs. Got it. Just kidding I really don’t, I just think it’s catchy. I will never ever know the lyrics to it and I’m kind of ok with it because they’re suuuuper weird. At least this chick can still spell “later” while she’s high. Don’t ever try to steal someone’s sunshine (CODE: DRUGS) though because I’m guessing that shit would get real dicey.
Best Lyric: “My sticky paws were in to making straws out of big fat slurpy treats.” HAHA sticky paws.
15. How Bizarre-OMC I mean the title of this song pretty much sums it up best. It’s real bizarre and I can only assume as a pure and innocent girl that it’s also about drugs as was clearly the trend here. Please let me know if you have some insight. Either way it’s a head bopper and I’m pretty sure it was in the award-winning flick The Parent Trap camping scene so that just makes it more esteemed.
Best Lyric: “Elephants and acrobats, Lions next monkey, Pele speaks righteous, Sister Seena says funk.” Um. Drugs, right?
16. Fly-Sugar Ray. Again, Sugar Ray definitely had more than one hit, but Mark McGrath just had a big death hoax so we’re going to cut him a break here as he comes back from the dead. Sugar Ray was so 90’s it hurts. Mark and that soul patch did things for a lot of ladies. He was also clearly pretty cocky if he thought statues crumbled for him but whatevs.
Best Lyric: “Love can make you hostage wanna do it again.” SO romantic. Hostages.
17. If You Could Only See-Tonic This is a real angsty song that I included for those days when you just want to whine it out. This guy is wah-wahing about how much this girl loves him and justifying why he’s being with her or something. He obviously never recovered/pulled it together because we basically never heard from Tonic again but this is a nice slow jam for your dramatic times alone.
Best Lyric: “Seems the road less traveled, Show’s happiness unraveled, And you got to take a little dirt, To keep what you love.” YEAH. Be a man and rub some dirt in it.
18. The Impression That I Get- Mighty, Mighty Bosstones What a zesty song. Yes I used the word zesty and I wasn’t referring to salad dressing. I was referring to a couple of guys wearing suits and ripping on the sax. Also mad props for a cool band name. Too bad they didn’t get anywhere with it. This song is about never knocking on wood so I guess these two zoot suits have been pretty darn lucky or something.
Best Lyric: “Have you ever been close to tragedy? Or been close to folks who have? Have you ever felt the pain so powerful, so heavy you collapse?” Starting off the song with 21 questions, interesting style here.
19. Closing Time-Semisonic Ah, the classic GET THE HELL OUTTA THE BAR song. Except what’s even worse is that they used to play this at our middle school dances to tell us to get outta the gym. Um, we don’t need any prompting there, guys, we have a strict curfew and our moms are waiting in the parking lot to pick us up. Anyway, another mix-up, this song was actually written about the lead singer having kids and how much his life was going to BLOW once they popped out. Kind of gives you a little perspective, huh? Take someone home from the bar STAT or you’ll waste your fun years and have to go home to your kids and wife instead so HA.
Best Lyric: “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end” I mean obviously. Like yearbook quote of the century. Mind blown.
20. Tubthumping-Chumbawamba Obviously couldn’t end the mix on a downer. This song is REAL weird but that’s what makes it so great. These Swedes are singing about drinking and Danny boy and who knows what else. You know what I learned though? It’s a great song to put on when you’re dragging while getting ready to hit the town and need to be re-energized. Cause you’ll get up again and you won’t want to be kept down. TIME TO RAGE.
Best Lyric: “Pissing the night away”-Totally a phrase that foreigners sound classy saying but ‘Muricans just sound like trash monsters.
10. Every time a child screams, cries or acts like a general turd, I feel fabulous that I can take a full day to become an amoeba on the couch, shove chips into my chip hole and never ever have to deal with a screaming or crying child. Three cheers for a kid free life!
The Salty Ju 