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

[GoGo Yubari]

77. "Ray of Light" by Madonna

Seriously! I never realized how much I loved this song until... actually, probably last year when I was looking for some random additions to this list. It's a perfectly crafted dance-pop song and it beat out "Vogue" which for a very very long time was my favorite Madonna song (out of the... like two or three Madonna songs I really like?). And every time I listen to it my love for it grows.

76. "Let Me Go" by Cake

Cake is one of those bands that is never going to be on my top favorites list but will always consistently be a band I really enjoy when they pop up on shuffle. Maybe the best '90s sing-talk act of all time, but really I like songs like this that are more earnest and uptempo than, say, "Going the Distance." If I do a Top 100 Songs of the '00s list, expect a Cake song to rate much higher than 76.

[GoGo Yubari]

75. "Anchor" by Letters to Cleo

Things I am a sucker for: powerpop! Female lead singers in bands! Uptempo music that sounds like it could have been in Clueless or somesuch! And this is pretty much all of that. Great song, and I really like Letters to Cleo even if I don't listen to them much.

 

74. "The Light" by Pharoahe Monch

I think I briefly heard an excerpt of it in an episode of Daria years ago and was like "what the fuck, that was a really cool four seconds of music, I must find the song this is from." And so I did. I think I like this song more for the beat and the chorus than the actual rapping. Which isn't to say that the rapping is bad but rather that the beat is so good and the chorus is very catchy too. Seriously, that beat. Wonderful.

[SeanDMan]

haha, I forgot about "That's Your Horoscope For Today". I'm born in December so it took some time to get to mine but the first part definitely seems applicable. >_>

[Skummy]

"Circles", B'z, "I Don't Wanna Grow Up", Eels and fucking Tiger Trap? Yeah, this is the best list yet.

[METALMAN]

Waltz #2 is an incredible song. Love it.

Ray Of Light is a good tune as well, although Justify My Love might be my candidate for best Madonna song of the 90s.

[GoGo Yubari]

Fuck yeah, someone else who knows Tiger Trap! Actually, maybe I already knew you knew Tiger Trap, Skummy, and then I forgot. Hm.

73. "Unbelievable" by EMF

OHHHHHHH! The best cheesy '90s one-hit wonder (or, one-hit wonder Stateside, anyway?). The fact that I barely heard it when it was actually popular was probably kind of a plus too, so I instead really got into it in my I'm Going to Listen to Everything on This VH1 One-Hit Wonders Countdown phase. (If I ever did a countdown for the '70s? Oh, you know "Me and Mrs. Jones" by Billy Paul will be on that list.)

72. "Pretend We're Dead" by L7

Now where do I know this song from? Oh, right, San Andreas. Dated jokes aside, I love the lyrics to this song so much. It's a brilliant jab at manufactured faux-grunge too-cool-to-care rock, probably second only to "In Bloom" by Nirvana when it comes to '90s stealth-parody songs.

[METALMAN]

I hate Unbelieveable. Sorry. I hate pretty much all songs of that ilk (you know, the ones with that drum beat. All those Happy Mondays and Happy Mondays Mk IIs.) from that time period.

Pretend We're Dead more than makes up for it though. I also know it from San Andreas. The alternative station on that game was brilliant.

[GoGo Yubari]

I cannot blame anyone for hating "Unbelievable" ever.

[RPS]

Great list so far GoGo. I don't love everything you've included so far, but you've got a wide ranging taste that makes for interesting "who will appear next on the list?!" quality.

[GoGo Yubari]

71. "Gravity Grave" by The Verve

By far my favorite Verve song. I love long, sprawling songs that I can properly lose myself in, and this is one of four or five 7+ minute songs on this countdown.

 

70. "Sunday Shining" by Finley Quaye

Heard this when it was featured on this one awesome music blog (Aquarium Drunkard) a few years ago and it stuck with me ever since. I should probably listen to other songs by him at some point. This might be a plan.

[GoGo Yubari]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dojb_mo1fZY

69. "Call My Name" by The Brilliant Green

No, I don't have any clue what that image in the YouTube video is about. Upbeat, sunny Japanese pop rock with the added bonus of fairly coherent English lyrics (I think this was from their brief period in the late '90s/early '00s where there was talk that they might do stuff in the US or something). Plus, this song has bongos if you listen hard enough. Who even uses bongos? Apparently The Brilliant Green do sometimes!

68. "No Rain" by Blind Melon

A quintessential '90s single. A '90s music list without "No Rain" is no list at all, I say. I was never into the music video with the bee girl, though. Screw you, bee girl.

[GoGo Yubari]

67. "Once Upon a Time" by The Pogues

I was going to say this is my favorite non-"Fairytale of New York" Pogues song, and then I remembered "Body of an American" which is way better, but also released in the '80s. But this is very nice too, fairly straightforward and sentimental lyrically and seeing as I have "One Night" on my list too already it can be safely assumed that I have an appreciation for that sort of thing.

66. "Tidal Wave" by The Apples in Stereo

Fun Trick Noisemaker. What a fucking album. Wonderful summer album, in my opinion. This song is probably the highlight, just non-stop energy coursing forth like... um. A tidal wave? Yeah. That could have used some work. Also, this song was apparently on The Adventures of Pete & Pete, making it even cooler.

[GoGo Yubari]

65. "Fade Into You" by Mazzy Star

This is the song that was originally at #89. It was there until Saturday hen I stopped, thought, and realized that it was fucking ridiculous for this song to be that low. It's absolutely gorgeous. I think I must have been in a period of not being into it, but I can't fathom why because it hits so much of what I love in music. In any case, this wrong has been righted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaaV0IOzgcM

64. "You" by Ayumi Hamasaki

Oh, Ayumi Hamasaki. Basically from 2000 to 2002ish I thought she was the best ever and so awesome and omg JPop yay, insert anime smiley I can't actually do on EWB because it gets reformatted here! And, like, the thing is now I haven't actually sought out any of her music in a good half decade at bare minimum? But I still love the songs I have, because they're so representative of that period of my life and because honestly, they're pretty good for what they are. "You" especially, because I love the piano and string sections and all. And then I searched for the song on YouTube and found a bunch of hideous remixes that sounded like DDR had vomited all over them and I had to upload this version myself. Maybe Katsuya knows what version this one is officially, but I don't. I just know I like it.

[GoGo Yubari]

Okay, I'm really really tired but I want to do an update before I go to bed so this is the drunken karaoke edition of this list.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrhHH3_t218

63. "Scenario" by A Tribe Called Quest

HERE WE GO YO HERE WE GO YO SO WHAT'S SO WHAT'S SO WHAT'S THE SCENARIO HERE WE GO YO HERE WE GO YO SO WHAT SAY WHAT SO WHAT'S THE SCENARIO BO DO THIS BO DO THAT BUT SOMETHING SOMETHING 'CUZ BO CAN'T RAP and then Busta Rhymes shows up what the fuck that is awesome

62. "Closing Time" by Semisonic

I KNOW WHO I WANNA TAKE ME HOME I KNOW WHO I WANNA TAKE ME HOME I KNOW WHO I WANNA TAKE ME HOME TAKE ME HOME (yes this is another quintessential '90s single. Wanna fight about it?)

[LL!]

I just participated in a flash mob to "Closing Time" a few weeks ago. I was helping a friend promote the movie Friends With Benefits. It had actually been the first time I had heard the song in a long time. It's so 90s it hurts.

[GoGo Yubari]

60. "The Great Beyond" by R.E.M.

Any song that namedrops Fred Blassie is A+ in my book.

59. "Sometimes" by My Bloody Valentine

I got into this song by hearing it in Lost in Translation. It's great, though any time I've played it for family they've hated it because of all the dissonance/reverb/what-have-you. And I guess to be fair, Loveless as an album is one I haven't really gotten into properly, but this song is still pretty wonderful.

[Liam]

Have at least two songs that will appear on my list, so naturally pleased with some of the choices. Good stuff.

[Boulder]

Bee Girl grew up hot:

http://www.myspace.com/35345566

[GoGo Yubari]

Wow, that's kind of surreal. Good for her.

58. "Forget Me Not" by Bonnie Pink

Bonnie Pink is, by miles, my favorite J-Pop artist, probably because her music doesn't often succumb to the diabetes-inducing overproduced WAI WAI SPARKLE SPARKLE ELECTRIC GUITAR SOLO stereotypes that most JPop does. My favorite song of hers (and my Pop Prom theme for like the last three years) was released in the '00s, so instead I'm going with "Forget Me Not" which is pretty straightforward and singer-songwriter-y.

57. "Ole" by the Bouncing Souls

Yeah, this one is all El Generico. In fact, now that I think about it it's stupid that I didn't put it on my list for Favorite Wrestling Themes, because that music makes his entrance at wrestling shows a full-on event in and of itself. LittleDaniel and SDM, you know what I'm talking about! Eh? Yes? But even on its own merits the song is great. It was my finals season anthem for Winter Quarter at college last year and everything.

[LittleDaniel]

Yeah, this one is all El Generico. In fact, now that I think about it it's stupid that I didn't put it on my list for Favorite Wrestling Themes, because that music makes his entrance at wrestling shows a full-on event in and of itself. LittleDaniel and SDM, you know what I'm talking about! Eh? Yes?

It was weird that we were waving around the Canadian flag when only 1/3 of us were Canadian, but yes, that entrance is awesome.