50 Memorable Songs Of The Late 1990s That Apparently Only You Remember, Even Though They Were Totally On The Radio And Stuff

pride and joy of santa barbara california

Yeah I'm not too familiar with this one. "All I Want" and "Walk on the Ocean" are probably their best known songs, though they had a few other modest hits as well.

lol is that Monica

Friends soundtrack

I remember that one. Didn't know what the lead singer looked like - much more wholesome/clean cut look than most alternative acts.

wow, "Good Intentions" is quite pretty! slightly outside of scope here (1995) but totally fascinating to me. Toad the Wet Sprocket was a name I saw many times when browsing through the used CD bins, but I never actually knew what they sounded like. Would have guessed something harder-edged and "alternative," but in hindsight it seems like a perfect name for a "college rock about halfway between REM and Gin Blossoms" type of band. nice to finally learn that.

Dionne Farris opened for Bryan Ferry in 1995. She performed a 13-minute version of "I Know."

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Sunday, September 9, 2007 5:18 PM (thirteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

ah man

Sheryl Crow has a few qualifying songs here, I think --- at the least, her cover of "Sweet Child o' Mine" off the Big Daddy soundtrack, and arguably all of the Globe Sessions singles: "My Favorite Mistake," "Anything But Down," and one I've never ever heard called "There Goes The Neighborhood." This was basically a flop period for her between the total radio/MTV ubiquity of the s/t, and the poppy comeback of "Soak up the Sun" a few years later. Maybe some of these still crop up in certain playlists/contexts, but for me they are hazy memories.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CowwMR1hDPM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmIlUKo4dQc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJqmyOeOnWk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOw-ak2aJS8

And, not a single, but I could swear "Superstar" off the self-titled album got some half-hearted airplay towards the end of that release cycle. Implanted memory?

I feel like I definitely still hear My Favorite Mistake from time to time, but not really the other covers.

Though speaking of covers from the Big Daddy soundtrack, I also remember radio playing Shawn Mullins cover of George Harrison's What is Life at around this time, and that's certainly been forgotten.

Though looking at the charts it also might be a case of Sheryl Crow in this era still being a pretty big deal in Canada.

Yes, in Toronto, video/radio pIayed My Favorite Mistake a lot (even recently), There Goes the Neighborhood occasionally, and Anything But Down at least once.
Mildly successful cover versions of well-known songs don't tend to be revived very much, or remembered.

i sang "anything but down" at karaoke the other week, went over well

arguably all of the Globe Sessions singles: "My Favorite Mistake,"

SOMEBODY is not listening to light rock stations

"my favorite mistake" was a top 10 airplay hit and tbh was probably bigger than "soak up the sun"

Yeah, MFM is one of maybe four Sheryl songs I can count on hearing if stuck in a situation with a light rock/adult contemporary station playing all day.

It's a constant on in-store audio networks too.

this is reassuring lol cuz I partly loved "My Favorite Mistake" because no one much mentioned it at the time, therefore it felt like MY Shery Crow single.

TGS her best album imo

wow clearly i was way off about MFM! i personally have heard Soak Up The Sun wayyyy more times, but mostly thru retail/restaurant playlists I think.

Checking Spotify, I see MFM should be in her Top 10, but isn't for some reason. Surprised to see it would be at the near-bottom of that list (only 16 mil spins).

SUTS is her third-biggest on Spotify, after "All I Wanna Do" and "If It Makes You Happy".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWVWGKg-r1c

Tracy Bonham: "The One", her follow-up to "Mother Mother"

Which I see now was posted (and linkrotted) back in '12, so here's the follow-up to that, "Sharks Can't Sleep"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVl6ZzScxqk

For whatever reason, whenever Bonham comes up, I have to go look up "Mother, Mother" and try to remember what it sounds like. I think I started listening to alt-rock radio just a couple months after its moment in the sun.

"Sharks Can't Sleep" is pretty cool, SUCH a 1996 sound... that midtempo chug with the moody, kinda watery guitar figure on the verse, the pounding A A A A, B B B B chorus, and the little dip into 60s studio effects 2/3 of the way through. Does feel more like an album track, maybe even a good album-closer, than a single.

"The One" on the other hand feels a bit weighed-down by the post-grunge trappings. I can imagine a bouncier, power-poppier version of that chorus working better... fill out the space with backing vocals or a bit of keyboard or horns or something, rather than with that pummeling wall of distorted guitars.

I'm not sure if I've ever heard that before but if you played me the first 15 seconds I would've assumed it was Blur

(Sharks Can't Sleep, I mean)

Could Ben Folds Five's "Song for the Dumped" drift into this category long-term? Hard to imagine any teens glued to alt-rock radio at the time not remembering it, but has it had any shelf life at all? Can't remember hearing it anywhere in the wild in twenty years.

"Battle of Who Could Care Less" almost certainly qualifies. "One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces" also was apparently a single, with a music video, but I don't honestly believe that got on the radio and stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gBCdP7AfTE

Bush - Cold Contagious. Third US single off Razorblade Suitcase, and the gas was out of the hype tank. In my memory, the radio kept playing "Swallowed" and the Sixteen Stone singles, and quickly ignored this. It's a slow burn (or a slog if you're not 100% on board with grunge aesthetics), even in this four-minute edit of the six-minute album version. ("Greedy Fly," the second single, did much better on paper, and is probably not as forgotten, but still has to be one of their most obscure hits.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8TrkCObypE

Bush - Letting the Cables Sleep. This is a 2000 single from their '99 album, the one where they explored "electronica." In this case this means an OK Computer type sound, which I think is a more interesting fit for Gavin's voice and songwriting than the cluttered and exhausting "Chemicals Between Us." I always kinda liked it, and even put it on a mix CD once!

An aside: I know the 90s are back (and stuff), but are the kids really listening to Bush?

they're listening to kate bush instead

Bush was really fucked when they ran out of Nirvana albums to bite.

My friend has been doing a series on his blog which may be of interest here: writing up the songs from the Album & Modern Rock charts that _didn't_ cross over Pop.

https://vjbigsuit.wordpress.com/2022/02/14/fools-gold-vol-1-ready-for-a-good-time/

oh, that's fun! good method for digging up stuff in this zone. and would be an amazing resource for an equivalent thread on the early 90s (which is way further from my wheelhouse).

lol there's a Bush-knockoff BritGrunge band called Addict covered in the first entry!

I remember "Letting the Cables Sleep". I think my older brother also put it on a mix CD at the time circa 2000.

my other half put Addict - Monster Side on one of his first mixtapes for me. not heard it for 20+ years!

thanks for the blog link, enjoying this project!

razorblade suitcase is alright

"Monster Side," wow... yeah, haven't heard or thought about it in 20+ years, but every second of it was familiar.

More Brit Nerf Grunge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQTqX11zNjU

Feeder: "Cement"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc1ljqKNEMk

Feeder: "High"

The latter track popped up on the Can't Hardly Wait soundtrack.

Dionne Farris opened for Bryan Ferry in 1995. She performed a 13-minute version of "I Know."

That song is an absolute banger.

Self-XP Wow, reading Feeder's wiki--didn't know they were one of those Status Quo-style 'huge at home, barely known in the US bands'. 11 Albums!

25 Top 75 singles!

Who knew?

Only two of the original band members are left at this point?

Yeah, the drummer died in 2002.

I've always wondered, at what point does a band simply become a group of musicians operating under a name, a la most sports teams? Is it like the ship of Theseus? A friend of mine back in college once saw Herman's Hermits . . . without Herman.

it's from 2000 but "Shaniqua" by Little T & One Track Mike seemed like such a huge track when it came out, now I find that basically no one remembers it

I remember it! I saw the video on late-night MTV once, and never again. It stuck in my head for some reason.

that stuff was like its own distinct genre, like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgBYdsKqCsM

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BXzphHiHD8

I remember Bad Ronald debuting on MTV and thinking "wow, I guess anyone can be in a band now"

^^Did this start with Beck, or G.Love, or even Sublime?

Seems like the biggest hits of this style were "Hooch" by Everything, "Better Days" by Citizen King, and I guess "Steal My Sunshine" by Len. Good-timey Alternative Hip Hop Rock?

Sugar Ray probably fits in there somewhere too.

Beastie Boys possibly the year zero, and later on Gym Class Heroes ran with it all the way to the bank.

On a different tip, I'm not sure if this ever broke out of the "Alternative Station Sunday Night 'College Music' Show" circuit, but I did hear this on the radio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6pc-tWwccU

Drugstore (featuring Thom Yorke): "El President"