Thursday, November 27, 2008

100 reasons why high school sucked

After checking out some Google Analytics, I found myself checking out other blogs that have mentioned some of my other blogs (it really is a worldwide web, huh?). Anyway, here's one that name-dropped the J.R. Watches Star Trek blog seemingly out of nowhere. One of this girl's entries was to do the following:

A) Go to Music Outfitters.

B) In the search function, enter the year you graduated from high school. Get the list of the 100 most popular songs of that year.

C) Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you hate, and underline or italicize your favorite.

D)Do nothing to those you don’t remember or don’t care about.

I checked her list (from 1985) and was immediately envious. Even though she claims she disliked most of the songs, I find the list overall to be pretty memorable. So it was even more disturbing when I checked out my year -- 1995. Man, I hated the music from my final year of high school! Most people my age are probably disagreeing right now. The 90s had grunge -- probably the defining musical genre of my generation. Unfortunately, A) I never appreciated grunge as much as I should have in high school and B) as this list clearly shows, there wasn't nearly enough of it in the middle of the decade. I would have welcomed a ton more grunge to this list.

Anyway, I'm about to do the little activity, but I'm doing it with changes.

Bolded are the songs I don't mind that much.

Strikethroughed are the songs I dislike/hate.

Italicized are the songs I don't remember at all.

And then just normal fonted ones are the songs that I have no feeling for one way or another.

1995

1. Gangsta's Paradise, Coolio
2. Waterfalls, TLC

3. Creep, TLC
4. Kiss From A Rose, Seal
5. On Bended Knee, Boyz II Men
6. Another Night, Real McCoy
7. Fantasy, Mariah Carey
8. Take A Bow, Madonna
9. Don't Take It Personal (Just One Of Dem Days), Monica
10. This Is How We Do It, Montell Jordan
11. I Know, Dionne Farris
12. Water Runs Dry, Boyz II Men
13. Freak Like Me, Adina Howard

14. Run-Around, Blues Traveler
15. I Can Love You Like That, All-4-One
16. Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?, Bryan Adams
17. Always, Bon Jovi
18. Boombastic/In The Summertime, Shaggy
19. Total Eclipse Of The Heart, Nicki French
20. You Gotta Be, Des'ree
21. You Are Not Alone, Michael Jackson
22. Hold My Hand, Hootie and The Blowfish
23. One More Chance-Stay With Me, Notorious B.I.G.
24. Here Comes The Hotstepper, Ini Kamoze
25. Candy Rain, Soul For Real

26. Let Her, w Hootie and The Blowfish
27. I Believe, Blessid Union Of Souls
28. Red Light Special, TLC
29. Runaway, Janet Jackson
30. Strong Enough, Sheryl Crow
31. Colors Of The Wind, Vanessa Williams
32. Someone To Love, Jon B.
33. Only Wanna Be With You, Hootie and The Blowfish
34. If You Love Me, Brownstone
35. In The House Of Stone And Light, Martin Page
36. I Got 5 On It, Luniz
37. Baby, Brandy

38. Run Away, Real McCoy
39. As I Lay Me Down, Sophie B. Hawkins
40. He's Mine, Mokenstef
41. December, Collective Soul
42. I'll Be There For You-You're All I Need To Get By, Method Man-Mary J. Blige
43. Shy Guy, Diana King

44. I'm The Only One, Melissa Etheridge
45. Every Little Thing I Do, Soul For Real
46. Before I Let You Go, BLACKstreet
47. Big Poppa/Warning, Notorious B.I.G.
48. Sukiyaki, 4 P.M.
49. I Wanna Be Down, Brandy

50. I'll Make Love To You, Boyz II Men
51. Dear Mama/Old School, 2Pac
52. Hold On, Jamie Walters
53. Keep Their Heads Ringin', Dr. Dre
54. The Rhythm Of The Night, Corona

55. Roll To Me, Del Amitri
56. Scream/Childhood, Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson
57. Freek'n You, Jodeci
58. I Wish, Skee-lo
59. Believe, Elton John
60. Carnival, Natalie Merchant
61. You Don't Know How It Feels, Tom Petty
62. Back For Good, Take That
63. Tootsee Roll, 69 Boyz
64. You Want This-70's Love Groove, Janet Jackson
65. Tell Me, Groove Theory
66. Can't You See, Total

67. All I Wanna Do, Sheryl Crow
68. This Lil' Game We Play, Subway
69. Come And Get Your Love, Real McCoy
70. This Ain't A Love Song, Bon Jovi

71. Secret, Madonna
72. Player's Anthem, Junior M.A.F.I.A.
73. Feel Me Flow, Naughty By Nature
74. Every Day Of The Week, Jade
75. The Sweetest Days, Vanessa Williams
76. Short Dick Man, 20 Fingers Featuring Gillette
77. Brokenhearted, Brandy

78. No More "I Love You's", Annie Lennox
79. You Used To Love Me, Faith Evans
80. Constantly, Immature

81. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me, U2
82. 100% Pure Love, Crystal Waters
83. Ask Of You, Raphael Saadiq
84. Sugar Hill, Az

85. Good, Better Than Ezra
86. Brown Sugar, D'angelo
87. Turn The Beat Around, Gloria Estefan
88. 'Til You Do Me Right, After 7
89. 1st Of Tha Month, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
90. Like The Way I Do If I Wanted To, Melissa Etheridge
91. I Live My Life For You, Firehouse
92. Dream About You-Funky Melody, Stevie B

93. Cotton Eye Joe, Rednex
94. Thank You, Boyz II Men
95. I'll Stand By You, Pretenders
96. I Miss You, N II U
97. Give It 2 You, Da Brat
98. Best Friend, Brandy

99. Misery, Soul Asylum
100. Can't Stop Lovin' You, Van Halen

Wow! Look how many I didn't even know! Obviously I wasn't very into the 90s R&B and rap scenes. I remember more songs from when I was 8 than when I was 18. And to those of you who are like, "Since when did Jon ever like Take That! and Sophie B. Hawkins?" I say I'm actually not fan at all. I just had to pad the positive numbers slightly (and I've found myself singing along to both of those songs). Hardly any of the songs that I mentioned that I liked would be songs I'd not tune the station from if it came on the radio.

Take a look at your list. Did you fare better?

4 comments:

Rhett said...

Dude... that's a good idea. I'm confused why that girl(?) named dropped the podcast, but whatever.

How's this for an idea. Wouldn't be cool to see a list of songs that you actually liked from that year? I have no idea how it would be possible to find, but I remember liking 1995.. and none of those songs are really that good.

joN. said...

here is where she mentions the podcast. it's pretty out of nowhere, but i'm glad she did it.

i suppose the list of songs we like from that year is the list we need to compile ourselves.

although maybe this list isn't legit. i mean look at how many of those songs i don't even know! actually, the system wasn't legit back then. maybe it's even less-so now. there's been so much flash-in the pan over the last 15 years. tons of those songs i couldn't even find on amazon and they were apparently the most popular at the time.

it was very easy to cross out the rednex song. didn't we hate that song pretty hard? that's the way i remember anyway. the reminisce about gentle ben put a smile on my face though.

Anonymous said...

Sweet, sweet 1995. Thankfully the radio stations in St. George hadn't heard of any of this music either. Best thing to happen that year: (What's the Story) Morning Glory? is released by the English rock band Oasis.

newby said...

'97 weren't much better. i even checked out billboard's top mainstream and modern rock lists. here are some of the better ones that made it to #1 in 1997:

"#1 Crush" Garbage, "Discothèque" U2, "One Headlight" The Wallflowers, "Staring at the Sun" U2, "The Freshmen" The Verve Pipe, "Semi-Charmed Life" Third Eye Blind, "The Impression That I Get" The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "Lady Picture Show" Stone Temple Pilots, "Gone Away" The Offspring, "If You Could Only See" Tonic

i swear we listened to ok music in the late 90's