NME's "Best Tracks of the Nineties"

Not the most exciting ever list, but I went with "Everlong"

― justfanoe (Greg Fanoe), Wednesday, May 16, 2012 2:48 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark

ditto

what a wonderful list~~

underworld, saint etienne, or beasties

Pulp- 'Common People'
Radiohead- 'Paranoid Android'
Beastie Boys- 'Sabotage'
Daft Punk- 'Da Funk'
Blur- 'Song 2'
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds- 'Into My Arms'
Warren G- 'Regulate'
Underworld- 'Born Slippy'
Massive Attack- 'Unfinished Sympathy'
Portishead- 'Glory Box'
Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue- 'Where the Wild Roses Grow'
Mazzy Star- 'Fade into You'
Daft Punk- 'Around the World'
Blackstreet- 'No Diggity'
Beastie Boys- 'Intergalactic'
Saint Etienne- 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart'
R.E.M.- 'Losing My Religion'
Supergrass- 'Caught by the Fuzz'

voted Primal Scream.

quick attempt at my top 10 (no order):

the White Stripes - Cannon
Pavement -Loretta's Scars
Olivia Tremor Control -Holiday Surprise 1, 2, 3
Ween - Push The Little Daisies
Palace - More Brother Rides
Le Tigre - The The Empty
Built To Spill - Car
PJ Harvey - Sheela Na Gig
Neutral Milk Hotel - The King Of Carrot Flowers, Part 1
The Flaming Lips - Felt Good To Burn

Oh, I didn't see Portishead in there.

Me neither, but I'm not too gutted as Glory Box is nowhere near my favourite cut from Dummy; it's a record on which most of the album tracks are better than the singles imo.

This is true, but I went with Glory Box anyway. There are a lot of good songs here, though.

McAlmont & Butler - 'Yes'

Small question: how many of the current NME staff are old enough to remember these songs clearly first-hand? Or are they just relying on received "wisdom" or back-to-back Xfm?

i don't think you can blame for not being old, sir. no one has a choice over when they were born.

i feel like i've seen 'common people' listed on these fuckin' lists more often than i've ever listened to it. and i've listened to it, like, a lot.

Ash- 'Girl from Mars'

This justifies the entire list. Besides that it's all the same shit we've seen in plenty of other "best of the 90's" things.

Cornershop - Brimful of Asha (Fatboy Slim remix)

Didn't Pitchfork include this as well? Why do they choose the Fatboy Slim version??!

Because that's the version most people know

No Diggity vs Fade Into You vs Motorcycle Emptiness

― Goodbye 20th Centipede (NickB)

Because that's the version most people know

I had no idea. Among people I know IRL this is definitely not true.

That's the version that made Number1

Ohhhh I get it... Yeah I don't live there.

From that list, Kelis - Caught Out There.

Not voting - I agree that too many of these tracks have been overplayed and overexposed to the point where they induce mild nausea.

Not voting either. I love most of these songs but they're so overfamiliar now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-30nX3a6IF4

How is Lazarus (aka the correct choice in a poll like this) overplayed?

(other than in my house of course)

House Of Pain- 'Jump Around'

That track underwent a renaissance in the late 90s and ended up being played at every cheesy club night ever for the rest of time.

How is Lazarus (aka the correct choice in a poll like this) overplayed?

the boo radleys being played anywhere ever even for half a song would be too much

xpost What, "Common People"?

What, as in "lie on the floor and let it wash over you" too much?

for like my immediate group of acquaintances, "Common People" is like "Let it Be" or something. I have no idea where everyone even heard it the first time because it certainly wasnt on American radio and I don't remember ever seeing it on MTV even though I'm pretty sure it had a video.

I heard it on John Peel, I think it was a 'session', had to wait about 4 months before it came out properly.

Just looked it up, Sept 1994 was the Peel session recording, and the single came out 22 May 1995.

I was going to say 6 months, thought that may have been exaggerating, but h.

xxpost, I meant Jump Around. I think the first time I heard it again I remember thinking "hey I remember this, this is great!" but then it got wheeled out every weekend and now I just cringe.

Common People? Probably on Radio 1, an evening session or something. I don't remember too well. It got loads of play in the UK, although I never really appreciated it properly until Bill Shatner and Joe Jackson covered it in 2004 for some reason. Pulp always seemed too seedy and adult for 14-15 year old me. All the songs were about class and sex and pimpliness whereas I just wanted gut lords and marching. I like them a lot more nowadays than I did back then.

Yeah, but you guys are english, i grew up in the land of Everclear and OOOOOOOHHH GOT U WHERE I WANT U YEAHHHH SUFFA SUFFA U KNO IT GET NO RUFFA

i feel sorry for americans who like "common people". like, you didn't even have to suffer it irl and you willingly went out of your way to make it part of your life?

For them, Common People is only for Christmas.

Sod it, I'll vote for Common People just to aggravate lex

aggravate lex is for life..

Actually, looking at these songs again in the cold light of day, I like a lot of them. Really like them. Some of it's residual affection from being a teenage (and there's enough distance betwixt then and now for me to quite like them again), and some of them I think are genuinely just really good songs. I still think the bottom half of the list (i.e. the bit not in the poll) is more ILM-friendly, though.

Huh, just realised 'Caught Out There' wasn't a hit in the UK until March 2000.

(Realised meaning it suddenly struck me and I had to go to everyhit.com to check)

NME thinks there are 78 better songs than "Groove Is In The Heart?!"

Yeah, that's totally fucking crazy.

the boo radleys being played anywhere ever even for half a song would be too much

― liberté, égalité, beyoncé (lex pretend)

Great stuff Lex.

Did you honestly click on this thread thinking the list would be full of Tori Amos and En Vogue? Is it more fun to click on these threads so you can get yourself all wound up and shout about how much you hate Pulp and Radiohead (Again) then to actually go on other threads and talk about music you like. It just seems like a waste of time and energy to me.

I saw Pulp premiere “Common People” on stage at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane just before Xmas ’94 – JC said it was the first time they’d played the song live.

This was of course before Pulp and Cocker’s careers were effectively reduced to this one song for the convenience of lazy/computer-led oldies radio.

I think the age thing is important because the current NME is I think viewing this period in part as history rather than something they themselves lived through (since I perhaps lazily assume that most of today’s scribes there were too busy kicking a ball in the street in the nineties to bother with music).

I was kicking a ball in a field for a lot of it.

Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) being on the longer list is kinda funny because that's clearly the choice of people mostly too young to have been there at the time.

No Diggity til I die

and then, some Diggity.

"Good Riddance" is hilarious, i would like to think even the worst US publications know better to pick that as the best Green Day song of the 90s

god the 90s sucked.

what are people's thoughts re bittersweet symphony these days? i am a u.s. person so i guess i wasn't overexposed to it. maybe it's corny or whatever but i still think it's great

I like it! Particularly since it doesn't really sound like anything else from that period apart from the lyrical preoccupations - - it kind of cuts through the mix in a given playlist, yknow?