Modern Rock #1 Hits of 1999

"What's It Gonna Be!?" is Busta Rhymes/Janet Jackson in 1999, "How's It Gonna Be" is Third Eye Blind in 1997

my captain lorax memorial fav rock/alt singles of 1999 list:

Rage Against The Machine - "Guerrilla Radio"
KoRn - "Falling Away From Me"
Incubus - "Pardon Me"
Metallica - "Whiskey In The Jar"
Train - "Meet Virginia"
Limp Bizkit - "Rearranged"
Nine Inch Nails - "We're In This Together"
System Of A Down - "Sugar"
Garbage - "When I Grow Up"
Counting Crows - "Hanginaround"
Kid Rock - "Bawitdaba"
No Doubt - "New"
Sugar Ray - "Someday"
Blink 182 - "What's My Age Again?"
Lit - "Zip-Lock"
Kid Rock - "Cowboy"
Third Eye Blind - "Anything"
Jimmie's Chicken Shack - "Do Right"
The Goo Goo Dolls - "Black Balloon"
Ben Folds Five - "Army"
Staind - "Mudshovel"
Sammy Hagar - "Mas Tequila"
Lamb - "B-Line"
Lit - "My Own Worst Enemy"
Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Around The World"
Limp Bizkit - "Nookie"
Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Scar Tissue"
Our Lady Peace - "One Man Army"
Moby - "Honey"
Sleater-Kinney - "Get Up"
Pavement - "Spit On A Stranger"
Sugar Ray - "Falls Apart"
Chris Cornell - "Can't Change Me"
Fiona Apple - "Fast As You Can"
KoRn - "Freak On A Leash"

Nine Inch Nails - "We're In This Together"

this is a fucking monster song and one of my favorite NIN tracks period

Vogue, Justify, Erotica, Deeper, Fever, and Rain are all like easily top 15, sure, but idk I really *really* like "Beautiful Stranger"

NIN - "Into the Void" would've been on my list at the time.

yeah it's a shame that "We're In This Together" kinda tanked as a radio single, sounded so huge and anthemic to me

"What's It Gonna Be!?" is Busta Rhymes/Janet Jackson in 1999, "How's It Gonna Be" is Third Eye Blind in 1997

My bad -- I confused spring '99 with spring '98.

Actually I like TEB's "Never Let You Go" more than I did then.

The Busta song is rad.

I can't abide most of the pop stuff from that year either (Ok, loved "steal my sunshine" and eventually warmed to "believe" somewhat) but really the only thing I really liked abt 1999, in retrospect, was meeting my future husband.

I bet. '99-2000 was a horrible nadir for rock radio.

For some reason, this period always conjures up Tal Bachmann and Joshua Kadison in my brain. For that reason alone, I'm inclined to agree.

oh I forgot about Garbage's "Special." Good one.

Man, some dude, it says a lot about this period that the only song I like even a little bit from the first half of your list is by Sugar Ray.

"She's So High" was great! but that was a total pop/adult contempo thing, rock radio didn't touch it

Hah, I remember the first time I heard "Believe" in Dec. '98 (?) and thinking "man, it's too bad for Cher that there's no way she's going to have as big a hit with this as she deserves." And then ruefully remembering that first impression the second, third, fourth and five-hundredth time I heard it.

'99 was pretty much the year when almost every rap metal song i like was released

But I was almost completely off the radio/MTV teat at that point, so my judgment wrt anything along those lines probably isn't to be trusted.

Kadison was way earlier, no?

(I liked "She's so high" too)

Lamb - "B-Line"

oh I didn't see this on the list on the first scan-through, FUCKING WONDERFUL

The Goo Goo Dolls - "Black Balloon"

A little underrated, as unabashedly "Iris, Part 2" as it is.

in my top twenty:

Sleater-Kinney - "Get Up"
Pavement - "Spit On A Stranger"

"black ballon" is pretty gorgeous. Didn't even know it was a single.

Sure sign this was modern rock's nadir: It was also the era I probably came closest to listening to rock music with any regularity.

All I remember liking from '99-ish is Fiona Apple, Midnite Vultures, trip-hop-esque stuff like Lamb and Beth Orton, and a buttload of Elephant 6 stuff. Way way way into Remedy, but that was the absolute tail-end of '99, iirc.

Oh, The Hot Rock was good, too. Took me a long time to properly get into that Pavement record, though.

I was way way into Midnite Vultures, more than I needed to be, maybe because Prince hadn't released a good album in three years.

the saddest late 90s lols of all

I was way way into Midnite Vultures, more than I needed to be, maybe because Prince hadn't released a good album in three years.

OTM (except four years)

It's still a good record but I make allowances for the plastic funk stuff now and prefer the likes of "Beautiful Way" and "Milk and Honey."

It's honestly probably still my favorite Beck album. And the last one I really liked.

yeah it's a pretty "and now Napoleon Dynamite dances!" album

haha

Oh now you've done it.

man people still underrate Emancipation

Give it up. At least 90 minutes of that album flat out sucks.

^^

in any event it's hilarious to say "I was starved for anything that resembled Prince in the late '90s because it had been three whole years since Emancipation"

1998 had some occasional moments of quality on rock radio but this is dreadful... by now I was firmly in my too cool for school phase listening to Belle and Sebastian, Sunny Day Real Estate, Magnetic Fields, Stereolab, and whatever caught my eye on the Spin year-end lists.

almost voted for "All the Small Things" for being very 1999 yet not inspiring rabid hate unlike many of the other tracks, but "Learn to Fly" is by far the most listenable.

My #1 in '99 was the Vengaboys' "We Like to Party!" Not modern, not rock--in fact, thoroughly ridiculous. I loved it.

― clemenza, Tuesday, May 29, 2012 10:45 AM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's OK. I fucking love that song.

This is Lit by a country mile. It's a tune and it's really fun to sing on Rock Band - just FYI. The rest of these are fucking awful.

Oh all the small things isn't awful but I'm still voting Lit.

Lit was my vote too. It's been kind of tarnished by cheap, easy needledrops in bad movies, but so have the Isley Brothers.

"All The Small Things" is totally awful, come on

guys stop misspelling the titleo f "All The Small Theengs"

hahaha

idk. I have a soft spot for most Blink singles.

'My Own Worst Enemy'... although, I'd rather not hear any of these again anytime soon.

It's not awful! It's . . . catchy?

Blink seems like a band that would be fun to hang out with for controlled amounts of time but I would consider jumping into traffic if they made me listen to too much of their music

the idea that you can't find ten singles she released during that time period that aren't better than "Beautiful Stranger" is laughable

It's not, DJP--not if you think it's as incredible as I do, and it did finish fourth in P&J that year. (Being John Fogerty's birthday yesterday, it's a perfect time to mention how CCR-like "Beautiful Stranger"'s musical track is.)

i'm okay with this list -- "learn to fly" is one of the best modern rock songs either, and i loved that lit song when i was 11 and heard it this weekend for some bizarre reason and still loved it! "every morning" and "all the small things" aren't nearly my favorite singles by either sugar ray or blink, but still pretty dope -- and hey, i like "scar tissue". i was in middle school once, too

1. learn to fly
2. my own worst enemy
3. every morning
4. all the small things
5. scar tissue