GoGo Yubari's Top 100 Songs of the '90s

[GoGo Yubari]

Top one-hundred songs. Only one song allowed per artist. Song had to be released in the 1990s and at bare minimum be mostly recorded during the '90s (you'll understand why MUCH) later on. So anyway, I'll post videos and write quick blurbs and post YouTube videos and shit. So let's party!

100. "Circles" by Soul Coughing

Nineties as fuck. Like, this is an aggressively '90s song. Not the most aggressively '90s song I'll have on my list, but it's got the snarky Cake-esque talk-singing voice going for it and everything.

[GoGo Yubari]

99. "I Think I'm Paranoid" by Garbage

Takes me right back to 1999 when I first started to listen to alternative rock radio. I rarely listen to it these days but any time I do I'm immediately reminded of why I thought it was so awesome.

 

98. "Jump With My Baby" by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

Easily my favorite song to come out of the brief '90s "hey, let's make swing cool again" period. If this song doesn't make you want to dance, you are soulless. Totally without soul.

[Sousa]

The downside of this list is that now 100% of these songs are going to be stuck in my head and I will be perpetually reminding my family that I don't need to walk around in circles walk around in circles walk around in circles walk around in.

[Redefine Sick]

Your choice for Soul Coughing should have been Super Bon Bon, clearly.

[Guest mr. potato head]

#98 is good but it's no Zoot Suit Riot.

[GoGo Yubari]

96. "Celebrity Skin" by Hole

You know what I love about this song? Playing it on easy/medium drums on Rock Band. Seriously! The drum fills are so much fun to fuck around with, it's tremendous.

95. "Some Might Say" by Oasis

The only Oasis song I love. Legit. I like "Wonderwall" okayish, I enjoy "Fucking In The Bushes" (HA HA LOOK THAT TOTALLY IMPLIES SOMETHING DIRTY RIGHT AHAHA) but I almost don't count it for some reason, and I like... uh. "Go Let It Out?" I guess. But this is their best song. By the way, there's a Blur song on this list and the gap between this and that will pretty much sum my opinion up on the Battle For Britpop or whatever the magazines were calling it up.

[Sousa]

Zoot Suit Riot.

RIOOOOOOOT

Edited July 30, 2011 by Sousa

[GoGo Yubari]

95. "Still a Friend of Mine" by Incognito

Acid jazz; also a genre of music I like! This isn't actually my favorite song of theirs but it's definitely my favorite that was released in the '90s. Perfect sunbathing music, too.

94. "Definition" by Black Star

I never really worshiped at the altar of Black Star in the way a lot of hip-hop fans have, but there's no denying this is a great fucking single, with one of the greatest chorus hooks in hip-hop. Best alliance in hip-hop!

[GoGo Yubari]

 

93. "Novocaine For the Soul" by Eels

Yep, another detached-sounding talk-singing '90s alternative track. To me, songs like this and "Circles" by Soul Coughing are sort of what I always think of when I think about typical '90s music, and they definitely have their merits.

 

92. "Broken Bricks" by The White Stripes

The Stripes might not be what I'd associate as a '90s band at all, but they did release their self-titled in 1999 so it counts! And this song is fucking awesome, pure aggression and energy in what's probably their roughest and grittiest-sounding album. Great example of how to do a song that's less than two minutes long right.

[METALMAN]

I always forget what a good song Novocaine For The Soul is. What I liked about a lot of the alternative rock music of the 90s was that it was basically just pop music with more guitars. And good pop music at that. I Think I'm Paranoid is a great pop tune.

That White Stripes one is good fun. I've never heard them sounding so rough or so bad(in a good way). I'll try and remember to look into some more of their old stuff.

[Liam]

I love 'Novacaine For The Soul', brilliant song.

[GoGo Yubari]

91. "Supercrush" by Tiger Trap

Twee-pop! You know, any genre that's connected to power pop is probably going to be cool with me because I love a lot of power pop, and Tiger Trap was a fun little short-lived band. Really sugary and sweet and endlessly catchy.

90. "LOVE PHANTOM" by B'z

Yes, from twee-pop to Japanese arena rock. For real. For really really real. B'z are pretty much Japanese Aerosmith (to the point where they've played with them live on stage before), and this song is... well, it's Japanese arena rock. Sing-shouty lyrics, guitar riffs all over the place, and... uh, a spoken word intro in English and low-key intro that adds a delightful layer of "this is big and meaningful" pomposity to the whole thing. Never change, B'z.

[GoGo Yubari]

GoGo Yubari When He Was Eleven to Twelve proudly presents the next two songs!

89. "My Name Is" by Eminem

When I was eleven, Eminem was a gamechanger because here was this white rapper who was really dark and wickedly funny. Like, I was a huge Beastie Boys fan and I liked them more (and, of course, still do by miles. You will see the Beasties much, much later in this list), but they weren't edgy, and in 1999 I was all about dumb edgy things. And actually I still really like this song. I would never listen to it on a regular basis, but it's by miles Eminem's best "look how iconoclastic I am, look at all these dirty jokes I'm making, look at all these pop culture figures I'm skewering" song, in part because at that point he really is an unknown who just took music by storm. Plus, the beat is really, really memorable.

88. "Josie" by Blink 182

Also, in 1999 I liked Blink 182. This wasn't my favorite song of theirs (that was, of course, "What's My Age Again"), but this is the one that's really stuck with me and not left my music library, so this is the one that makes the top 100. Also, to reaffirm what Hammy said in his countdown, Hoppus >>>> DeLonge.

[GoGo Yubari]

87. "California" by Wax

I got into this song initially because of the video. That's an awesome video. Directed by Spike Jonze, as I just relearned today! But this is a great bratty pop-punk song (and let's face it, pop-punk is an incredibly bratty-sounding subgenre. See DeLonge, Tom), and that guitar hook will stay with me until the day I die. Unless it doesn't. But I think it will!

86. "I Don't Want to Grow Up" by The Ramones

One of the best "this is our last album and this is our epitaph" songs ever. Like, even if it's a cover, it's really fitting. Not The Ramones' best song ever, but their best song released in the '90s? Yeah, that's probably a relatively safe bet.

[GoGo Yubari]

85. "Little Black Backpack" by Stroke 9

My absolute favorite song in the fall of '99. I love it. It took me probably like a month or two to finally learn the name of the song and who played it because for some reason the radio DJs were weird about saying it, but yeah. I wish I could have seen them live when they were relevant so I could have sung the chorus along with a huge crowd, but I was twelve at the time and basically the only concert I'd been to at that point was Chuck Mangione. At a zoo. With my parents. (Which was great. He played "Feels So Good!" I love "Feels So Good!")

84. "Basket Case" by Green Day

To me, this is where they peaked. And then made good singles and all for like six years and then got really pompous. Fuck the rock opera song cycle bullshit, this is what I want out of Green Day.

[fr34k]

I'm definitely excited what this list is going to bring. A couple of songs I like so far, some I haven't even heard of. Considering that our taste is at least somewhat compatible, I'm going to check this thread a lot.

[GoGo Yubari]

83. "Another National Anthem" from Assassins

A great song from my favorite musical. It was tough between this and the probably much-more accessible "Ballad of Guiteau" or "Ballad of Czolgosz," but I have to go with the one I love the most. But seriously, check out the plot/off-Broadway cast recording of this musical start-to-finish if you're into that stuff. It's brilliant (Broadway revival is pretty good too, but nowhere near as good as off-Broadway). Plus it introduced me to Charles Guiteau, perhaps the most hilariously weird assassin in the history of the world.

82. "Insane in the Brain" by Cypress Hill

If I made this list a decade ago, this song would have been top five easy. Possibly #2. As you can see, it no longer holds that prestigious a position (it actually hadn't been in my music library for years up until this year) but when I listen to it now it takes all of twenty seconds or so for me to remember why I loved this song so much. Plus that beat. That is a tremendous beat.

[GoGo Yubari]

81. "Your Horoscope For Today" by Weird Al Yankovic

I love Weird Al's style parodies. I think they're quite often more funny than his song parodies, really. It was tough between this, "Albuquerque," and one of his polka medleys for the Weird Al Slot on this countdown, because of course there was going to be a Weird Al Slot. In the late '90s I think he was second only to the Beasties as my favorite musical act. And the Taurus horoscope is one of the funniest things he's ever written, so that's a plus.

80. "One Night" by Sean Lennon

Into the Sun is a really interesting album. Like, Sean Lennon tries a whole bunch of things on it, and some really work and some really don't. This one really, really works as long as you don't focus on it too hard. It's just a simple, straightforward song with like five lyrics and very pretty guitar accompaniment. This is also where the list sort of takes a jump in terms of how hard it became to order the songs in terms of how much I like them. There was actually another song here that had already taken a jump from #89 to #80, and then I thought about it more and raised it up a couple more slots. We'll see if it stays there later today or if it rises again.

[DMN in the House]

Some choices that actually surprise me out of GoGo... oh hi thar Cypress Hill!

'Josie' is, quite easily, the number one and the best Blink song.

[GoGo Yubari]

79. "Waltz #2 (XO)" by Elliott Smith

I love waltzes. And I really love waltzes in alternative music (see also: "Boxing" by Ben Folds Five). So unsurprisingly "Waltz #2" is my favorite Elliott Smith song. "Southern Belle" was a tough challenger, but it would take a hell of a song to beat a waltz.

 

78. "Supermodel" by the Presidents of the United States of America

An underrated song by the semi-unsung heroes of the Seattle scene. We revere them as local heroes here, of course, but everywhere else they're just the "Lump" band. I'm actually going to get to see them live for the fourth time in a month too, which is great because they're a hell of a live act. But really, listen to their first two albums, they're pretty consistently great and there are quite a few songs I could have put in this slot. (By the way, this is not the song that got bumped from #89. That's been bumped again, all the way into the 60s. Dun-dun-DUNNN.)