90s songs that take us back
There is a decade that lives in muscle memory. You hear the opening four bars of something, and you are no longer where you are. You are somewhere else entirely, in a car or a bedroom or a gymnasium that smells exactly the way it did the first time you heard that song.
That decade is the 1990s.
The music of that era was not one thing. It was grunge from Seattle and R&B from Atlanta, and Britpop from Manchester and quiet storm from nowhere in particular, and somehow it all shared the same radio dial. These are twelve of the songs that have never really stopped playing.
Image Credit: Shimelle Laine / Wikimedia Commons.
Losing my religion, R.E.M. (1991)
R.E.M. released this as the lead single from Out of Time and watched it become the biggest song of their career despite having no chorus, no electric guitar, and a title that meant something different from what most listeners assumed. The mandolin figure at its center became one of the decade’s most recognizable hooks.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
Black hole sun, Soundgarden (1994)
Soundgarden wrote this in fifteen minutes, or so the story goes. Chris Cornell said the melody came to him fully formed while driving. The music video, with its fish-eye distortions and suburban grotesquerie, became one of MTV’s most played of the year.
Image credit: Wikipedia
Creep, Radiohead (1992)
Radiohead nearly buried this song, considering it too derivative and too simple. Radio disagreed. It became their U.S. breakthrough after initially struggling in the U.K., and the guitar chord that jolts the song out of its verse became one of the most imitated moments of the decade.
Image Credit: Amazon.com.
No scrubs, TLC (1999)
TLC closed the decade with one of its sharpest singles. Written by Kandi Burruss and Tameka Cottle, it defined a specific kind of romantic rejection with a precision that connected immediately. It spent four weeks at number one and won the Grammy for Best R&B Song.
Image Credit: YouTube/Oasis.
Wonderwall, Oasis (1995)
Oasis released this from What’s the Story Morning Glory and watched it become the decade’s most covered song and most requested at open mic nights across the English-speaking world. Noel Gallagher has spent years expressing ambivalence about it. The rest of the world has not.
Image Credit: Amazon.
Dreams, The Cranberries (1992)
The Cranberries released this as their debut single and established Dolores O’Riordan’s voice as one of the defining sounds of the early 1990s. The song’s unhurried confidence and her unusual delivery made it immediately distinct from anything else on the radio.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Bittersweet symphony, The Verve (1997)
The Verve built this around a sample from an orchestral Rolling Stones arrangement, cleared the rights, then watched them be revoked after release. Richard Ashcroft lost the songwriting credit for years. The rights were returned to him in 2019.
Image credit: Manfred Werner / Wikipedia
Torn, Natalie Imbruglia (1997)
Natalie Imbruglia released this as her debut single, and it topped charts across Europe and Australia. It had been recorded twice before by other artists without breaking through. Her stripped-back version turned it into one of the decade’s best-remembered breakup songs.
Image Credit: Sven-Sebastian Sajak / Wiki Commons.
Good riddance (time of your life), Green Day (1997)
Green Day did not expect this acoustic departure to resonate the way it did. Billie Joe Armstrong wrote it as an acerbic goodbye to a former girlfriend. It became the closing music at graduations, memorial services, and the final episode of Seinfeld, which may be the most accidental cultural achievement of the decade.
Image Credit: Inside Creative House/iStock
Wrap up
The 1990s produced more distinct sounds in one decade than most eras manage across several. These are just the ones that come back unbidden, at the right frequency, on the right day.
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