Modern Rock #1 Hits of 1999

None of these songs are "good" but the best ones are "ok," although it seems like I may be alone in thinking "Learn To Fly" is "ok." I have vivid good-times memories attached with pretty much all of them, except maybe "The Chemicals Between Us" which is clearly the worst song listed here and I've never met anyone who liked it.

Everyone was like "zomg Freak On A Leash video soooo good he says 'GO' and the bullet changes direction and almost hits a fat kid jumping into a pool" and it was actually the lamest video ever.

yeah I can't remember what Bush's audience WAS in 1999.

my sister was a massive fan of its predecessors (and remix album) and bought this one but to my knowledge she never played it more than twice.

This answers my own question.

xpost

40-year-old dudes with frosted tips, iirc.

looooool

BT was a fan?

oh god, the frosted tips plague was something i'd managed to completely forget about

voted for Creed, the most important band of their generation

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

That Lit song is so much fun to karaoke.

please tell me why

x-post - It is! See my earlier Rock Band comment. It's really fun.

These polls have made me remember strongly why I thought I was growing up in the worst decade, as a teen in the late '90s.

"Please tell me whyyyyyyyyyyy-eyyyyyyy!"

I feel the pain of alla y'all who were apparently born just a handful of years after me. You definitely got the shitty end of the modern rock stick.

Luckily, almost every other type of music was steering well clear of nadir territory right about then.

because the only modern rock songs that existed in the 90s were the songs that hit #1

I was 18 at the time and into about half of this stuff, although right around the corner is my discovery of indie rock and virulent rejection of the singles I had once embraced. The fact that rock radio went whole hog for nu-metal was just the seal on the coffin. This actually isn't the most objectionable list of songs...I think much shittier stuff was getting a lot of airplay this year, with a general drift into down-tuned dreary drags and distortion a la Staind, or even things like the Chris Cornell single

I have low hopes for the 2000 list though.

Everlast, "What It's Like" - easily the worst thing here, and inescapable too. IIRC the followup single was the same moronic Life Lessons wheezed over acoustic crap
Sugar Ray, "Every Morning" - pretty good. Not as good as "Fly" or "When It's Over" - chorus a little too sing-songy but still well-done.
Lit, "My Own Worst Enemy" - I like this - a little too glossy maybe but beats the nu-metal wave. Catchy! I like singing along with his weird intonations and I think I've praised the guitar sound on ILX somewhere before.
Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Scar Tissue" - very pretty. I bought the CD single. A friend of mine thought he was singing something about the Burgess Shale, which still cracks me up.
Creed, "Higher" - horrible, maybe almost as bad as Everlast, and not even as earwormy as "My Own Prison."
Bush, "The Chemicals Between Us" - dumb, but not terrible. I really don't remember this getting the same kind of airplay as these others.
Foo Fighters, "Learn to Fly" - not a patch on the previous batch of singles and in hindsight, perfectly foresages their plunge into being a latter-day meat n potatoes rock band. At the time I liked this a lot though and gave the album a lot of spins.
Limp Bizkit, "Re-Arranged" - boring, dreary, I will take their uptempo shithead workouts over this kind of thing any day
Blink 182, "All the Small Things" - great single - killer chorus, singalong, lyrics are memorable though largely not worth it.

Voting Blink just over Lit and RHCP. Favorite things mentioned upthread: She's So High, What's It Gonna Be?!, Beautiful Stranger, Hanginaround, You Get What You Give, What's My Age Again, Fast As You Can, Army, Into the Void, Whiskey in the Jar, and yeah, Cowboy.

God, Meet Virginia was awful though!

Oh, and I also feel "The Dolphin's Cry" deserves a shoutout for tuneless, inflated badness.

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^^ ILX's #1 Train fan irrc.

hey, soul sister

lol

Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken
Your some dude, always stickin'... up for you?

I am currently listening to Train's cover of "Umbrella" and it is surprisingly, shockingly good

are you suggesting that Rihanna cover "Hey Soul Sister"

I am now!

Everlast, "What It's Like" - i'm sorry y'all but this was a great song
Sugar Ray, "Every Morning" - this is ok but my choice sugar ray song is "someday" by a mile
Lit, "My Own Worst Enemy" - really great. voted this.
Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Scar Tissue" - liked this too. actually i rather liked all three of the big singles from this album, though the album itself was too dull for me to get through
Creed, "Higher" - um. well. sometimes i like to be all contrarian and defend "with arms wide open" but i don't think i can do that for this song
Bush, "The Chemicals Between Us" - had to youtube to even remember this one
Foo Fighters, "Learn to Fly" - this is good
Limp Bizkit, "Re-Arranged" - i like this. and actually basically all the singles from this album.
Blink 182, "All the Small Things" - also lovely

after reading thru this whole thread i am actually beginning to think 1999 may have been an unusually good year for mainstream music in general... or maybe i just feel that way b/c it was 'a happy time 4 me'

i always forget about goo goo dolls' "black balloon". great song, really beautiful.

I do love me some "Break Stuff."

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

it's just one of those days

I only had the Limp Bizkit album. I must have bought it right before discovering Radiohead, elitism.

meh I'm done with 'Break Stuff' or 'Nookie', but 'Re-Arranged' and 'N 2 Together Now' ain't bad

but I voted 'Scar Tissue'--I like the first two singles from Californication (though the title track is awful imo). Also thought 'Learn to Fly' was the next to last good Foo single (before 'Times Like These' which reminds me a little of QOTSA)

I fuck with upbeat Limp Bizkit jams. If nothing else, they were a good party band.

"Californication" really is the worst, the rhyme scheme is like Cajun Man: The Song

rev otm

"Break Stuff" had the most swearing I had heard in a song up to that point (maybe after Offspring's "Bad Habit").

"Next in line to get fucked up -- Your best bet is to stay away motherfucker!"

ugh my old roommate and his brofriends would scream along to my own worst enemy while doing shots before the club

i'm seriously reduced to deciding between Higher and Scar Tissue

wait no i'm not i thought Higher was something else

she's so hiiiiiiiiiiiigher, higher above me, she's so lovely

is what it should be

i think i used to get angry whenever everlast came on

and then i had to sit through him at an hfsmas holiday nutcracker, those minutes took their damn time ticking by

Creed is "Higher," Tal Bachman is "She's So High"

or maybe you realized that, i'm confused. but yes, Everlast is the fucking worst.

everclear was alright tho

yeah they had some decent tunes