8 Songs That Spit the '90s at You

Posted on 05-13-2011 by T Fazzanno (Timhotep)
URL for sharing: http://thisorth.at/5ihl
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Oh, the nineties. It was a time of rampant, post-modern cynicism, wrapped in flannel aged to a mellow perfection, that wasn't too cool to bop when the neon sun was just right. Say what you want about the mopey, apathetic Gen X-ers, but they had a fun streak to them woefully absent from today's terminally cool hipster hordes. Even the almighty grand poobah of slackers, Mr. Kurt Cobain, had a sense of humor, allowing himself the occasional wry smile at just how much the world sucked.

Here's a fanciful trip down memory lane, paved with some of the nineties' brightest and best radio hits. You may note that I haven't included anything post-1998. Where's Britney? Where's Christina? Where's Backstreet? And if you really want to push it, where are LFO and 98 Degrees? Well, hopefully in some deep circle of hell. But if you must insist, I'll have to cover them at some later date, in "Songs of the Downfall of Western Civilization."

1. No Doubt - "Just a Girl"

Gwen Stefani, if you had been a "rich girl" back in 1996, you would have kicked the shit out of yourself. Here is the only Gwen Stefani I know, rocking harder than 80% of her shaggier, male-r counterparts, squealing her angst for all to hear. I am still astonished that this song was as big as it was. If you play this tune at a middle school dance today, I give it thirty seconds tops before everyone stops dancing and one kid cries.

Catchy though it may be, it is thrash-y enough to get every skinhead on the block pogo-ing like nobody's watching - and few people would, because everyone would run for his life. Almost two decades of shoddy covers by lesbian high school bands haven't captured that pure moment of sugary-sweet rage that Gwen squeezed out before she decided that feminism is actually kind of boring and big pretty dresses are better. Sigh.

Rare uncensored shot of the demon living in Gwen Stefani's abs

2. Green Day - "Basket Case"

When the grunge wave got too self-important and humorless, good old Green Day arrived to put the fun back into hating your parents. It was sunny day music for the pissed off, purple-haired cretin in all of us. Good thing Green Day broke up back in 1997, or they might have ended up pissing out a limpid high school graduation staple song and instantly castrating themselves. Even worse, they could have continued recording into their ripe old age and re-styled themselves as balding arena rock gods with a cheesy Broadway song and dance spectacular to their name. But the "What if?" game is scary, so let's stick to the memories.

"We're going to stay young and relevant FOREVER! Am I right guys? I'm pretty sure I'm right."

3. Gin Blossoms - "Hey Jealousy"

What I love about the Gin Blossoms is that they are clearly a bunch of jocks trying to bang the artsy chick with glasses by pretending to be sensitive. Your long wavy hair fools no one, square-shouldered lead singer. When they weren't writing this song, the Gin Blossoms were brushing up on their collegiate, intellectual conversation with such gems as "Oh yeah, I love Sart-truh. He's super...existentialist and, like, shit."

Even within the song, they can only hold the dark, tortured, poetic act down for so long - there is a glaring invitation for the girl to whom the song is written to join Mr. Blossom in his bad-ass ride and flee the cops at top speed. There's no catching this stud with his rippling quads pumping the gas! Your rouse is a thin one, Gin Blossoms, but you get points for realizing that the '80's were over and for trading in the letterman jacket for flannel and sadness.

"We had a bitchin' time at this queer bashing- I mean BOOK READING! IT WAS A BOOK READING!"

4. Lisa Loeb - "Stay (I Missed You)"

This is the artsy chick who the Gin Blossoms were trying to bang. Stand your adorable ground, you mountain of saccharine angst! I picture the guy about whom it's written and I can see nothing but a pretentious asshole in faded skinny jeans and a tweed jacket. It was the dream of every droopy youth that if he just looked sad enough and occupied a remote enough corner at the school dance, Lisa Loeb would take him away on her magical twee chariot to a land of make-believe, shittily earnest poetry, and babydoll dresses - oh lord, the babydoll dresses.

If you know this man, please kill him. I will give you my collection of Lisa Loeb posters.

5. The Offspring - "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)"

From the files of most random band to hit it big ever comes the Offspring, a formerly pretty dark and tormented bunch of lads that probably for shits and giggles whipped up this super-weird hip-hop inflected mess and skyrocketed to the top of the pops. If you don't fondly recall skanking badly to this song at your fifth grade dance, you are dead to me.

"Do I HAVE to be famous? But I'm so weird looking..."

6. Hootie and the Blowfish - "Only Wanna Be with You"

Crappy lyrics version embedded because the official video is unembeddable.
Click here to see the original (and if you're a Dan Marino fan)

Or, as I like to call it "Ooonamanamananandoooooo." This song is sung in such a lazy drone that it seems like Hootie, or whatever the hell the guy's real name is, wants to be with you less than he wants to be with his fat bag of barbiturates. But of course, caring was way 1969 by the enlightened '90's, so Hootie justly caught the cultural wave. Don't get me wrong -- lazy, un-enunciated delivery has been a pop music staple since the days of Dion and the Belmonts (I don't know who they are, and neither do you), but Hootie sounds like he took a running slide through a tub of liquid rohypnol, fell into some pants, and showed up at the studio. Thus, this song is quintessential Gen X - catchy and fun, but no one involved really had to care. And thank god for that. Because caring is creepy.

Even their promo photos are painfully boring.

7. Merril Bainbridge - "Mouth"

Apparently Merril didn't get enough mileage out of everyone in her immediate vicinity continually commenting on her cuteness, so she had to write a super-cute song and make a super-cute video so everyone in the universe could know how cute she is. There is even a keyboard solo that is somehow as cute as a fat tap-dancing baby. I have trouble not liking this song because I envision Merril frowning her no doubt painfully cute frown at me in disapproval. She'd probably then speak of her disapproval in Australian (which is drunk English).

She was only a baby and a manatee away from cutest album cover ever

8. Nirvana - "In Bloom"

Yeah I know, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," yadda yadda yadda, anthem of a generation, eat me. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was an attention grab so that Nirvana could produce the true anthem of a generation: In Bloom. What makes this song so much better-suited to the so-called disaffected generation is that it is a song written by a band that clearly doesn't like you and doesn't care to entertain you about how much you suck. The outrageously awesome guitar solo (or, rather, guitar murder) 2/3s of the way in is literally an attempt to get you to turn the song off. The chorus theorizes a gun-toting head-stomper who likes to "Oi!" along to Nirvana's gutbucket-y choruses, without having a clue as to what they are about. You can't really hate on someone for misinterpreting your lyrics, Kurt; you yourself don't seem to have a handle on what the hell you are actually talking about.

I adore Nirvana more than most (and probably more than is healthy), but I cannot help but be tickled by the contempt with which Kurt greeted his fans. Witness this third follow-up to the seminal "Teen Spirit" video embedded above, in which the band merely screws around with a video budget fat enough to buy six or seven full-grown people.

At least the bassist didn't found a really mediocre follow-up band that won't go away. He just...went away.

Just for good measure, here's Nirvana: Live from the MTV Studios. Can you believe this used to be MTV? Can you imagine how bad that room must have smelled?