NME's "Best Tracks of the Nineties"

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?

Yeah, I've never thought of it that way.

There was this "Britpop" dj night I used to go to in the mid-nineties (does that concept sound weird to UK ppl or was that a thing there, too?) anyways, it was a long walk from my place to the club and invariably i had to pee by the time i got there. on more than one occasion i walked in while that song was playing. somehow it made even waiting in line for the men's room seem like a cool thing to be doing. also the video of course justifies the existence of music videos

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

― nicky lo-fi

Yeah, that's totally fucking crazy.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy)

yeah the list screams out some kind of pathology at work, i'm just not sure what to properly label it

went with "fade into you" & also considered "unfinished sympathy"

torn between girls and boys/fade into you/bittersweet symphony, girls and boys is so massive it's just hard to argue with. and even though i greatly prefer opal to mazzy star, fade into you is undeniably good

of course the other fifty contains all the real gems

There are totally 78 songs better than Groove Is In The Heart, it's just the NME hasn't picked any of them.

"Jump Around" is overplayed - but it's objectively probably the best song on this list, so I voted for it.

Objective schmobjective.

There's no such thing.

It's totally objective! I imagined I was someone else and asked myself which song was the best, and the answer was still "Jump Around".

i'm hard-pressed to name a song on the list that isn't better than tori fuckin' amos.

if you're someone who privileges jump around above "i missed the bus" then i don't even know what to say to you

say again?

i was being hyperbolic but that song is way better than jump around, which is something from the nineties that like "the heights" i'm still trying to forget

if someone says "word to your moms/ i came to drop bombs" they should probably be on a lot of lists, but best of the nineties is not one of them

"jump around" is fine and good, but yeah top 100 of the decade is pushing it... especially since the list contains no nas and no biggie.

I imagined I was someone else and asked myself which song was the best, and the answer was still "Jump Around".

That's such a weird way of looking at it.

Yeah, it would have been more productive if he imagined he was someone else and asked the other person which song was the best.

I imagined I was my mum and she said she didn't like Jump Around at all.

I imagined I was me and Jump Around was still shit.

I imagined I was God, and it did offend mine ears, and I smoted with a great smite all those responsible for such an abomination.

whoever i imagine i am, "jump around" remains overplayed

Who'd have known House Of Pain were so existential?

"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

In fairness they put Basket Case a lot higher and that objectively is the best Green Day song of the 90s, by which I mean ever.

Welcome To Paradise is better, you johnny come lately ;-)

2,000 Light Years Away ftw

GREEN DAY SINGLES POLL
WORST Single By Green Day or the Offspring

jump around" is fine and good, but yeah top 100 of the decade is pushing it... especially since the list contains no nas and no biggie.

I'm not saying it's better than Nas or Biggie - just better than the other stuff on this list. I'd rather have voted for a Cypress Hill track - but they're not on here either.

that's going insane..

Of these, 'Da Funk'

Regulate!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

only 19 hours left til I find out that I was the only one who voted for Ash

only a kid at the time, but i reckon 'still life' is by far the best suede track. i think 'common people'... not only the best song of the 90's, it seems to perfectly put its finger on that kind of vulgar class tourism that alot of folk seemed to be indulging in the latter part of that decade.
i reckon daydreamer by menswear should be on the list.

no YOU fuck off.

i think 'common people'... not only the best song of the 90's, it seems to perfectly put its finger on that kind of vulgar class tourism that alot of folk seemed to be indulging in the latter part of that decade.

this is the most exquisite 'valuable new poster' post to date I think

I would actually like some clarification wrt that statement. What vulgar class tourism are you refering to, dex?

this is the posh kids in dufflecoats/ tony blair and his everlasting glottalstop thing. Azaera, read/listen to the lyrics of Common People, it's a clearer explanation than anything you'll get here.

See, irony does not work terribly well in a post..

See, I am half asleep and hadn't yet read the, uh, context. anyone join me for a coffee? I fucking need it.

I'm having one now. Cheers. (blk, no sug)