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

Wow, Hitchhiker Joe...don't think I've ever heard that before, pretty damned catchy!

(It's '94, though, and very much an early 90s sound IMO - compare to, e.g., "New Age Girl" by Deadeye Dick - Classic or Dud? - which I think is sorta pushing it...what's the consensus?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVg5_gCeBRQ

Sprung Monkey - Get 'Em Outta Here (1998)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjBwe6IL10o

Sneaker Pimps - Spin Spin Sugar (1998/99, followup to "6 Underground")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX5qtSzcZ0A

Luscious Jackson - Ladyfingers (1999, an album after "Naked Eye")

weirdly, that last one sends my brain directly to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM4uwLTiDPU

Lisa Loeb - I Do (1997 - still hear this from time to time)

"I Do" had a surprisingly long shelf life--I still hear it in grocery stores and casual dining restaurants.

Yeah, it's definitely a grocery store song - - weird. Peaked at #17 on Billboard...but it got to #3 on the "Adult Top 40" chart which might be a secret gateway into grocery store heaven.

o wow i didn't know it was that big a hit initially, i just remember it as a 'failed followup' i actually liked, always thought she was a fox. still hear it on occasion on magic 102, it's definitely in that recurrent top 40 that's made its way onto adult contemporary where it will stay in the playlists until it's simply outdated. btw pfork gave that loeb album an 8.8 - http://web.archive.org/web/20010707042005/pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/l/loeb_lisa/firecracker.shtml

I'd heard the poppy single "I Do" on the radio, but I couldn't make myself get the album. It's kind of like how Bailey can't get too close to the booze on "Party of Five," lest he relapse into his alcoholism.

hahahaha this has to be some clever hack of archive.org

And so I was talking to Beverly on the phone tonight. I casually mentioned that I'd gotten the new Lisa Loeb CD, and as far as I could tell, no eyebrows were raised. She doesn't know about me and Lisa, about what we used to have. I hung up the phone and turned on the TV and caught the tail end of "I Do" on VH-1... the part where she's squirming around on pink shag carpeting, not wearing any pants.

Here we go again.

woah i had totally forgotten about this one, five years before 'i'll be there for you' and technically a bigger hit (#14 vs #17). this isn't bad, second tier crowded house - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmjQVoHrXe0

Hey guys, remember when Seven Mary Three went Country Rock?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUGXzs5E7kM

No!

The playlist is really giving me more time with ones that I probably checked out when they first got shoutouts in this thread but which I didn't really absorb - and man. "Hopeless" is pretty great. The R&B version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" though is... O_o

Ha, I'm sure I said this upthread, but it's the first version I ever heard! It was totally trying to capitalize on the success of the Fugees' cover of "Killing Me Softly" earlier that year and improbably got played on the r&b station here all that fall. I remember my cousin had the cassinle which in no way indicated they were white ladies. Wasn't until I tracked the video down on youtube that I even realized this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6bHXjWZjtY

Guster in general. Added that and "Airport Song," which I had utterly and totally forgotten about until just now. At the time I thought it was pretty cool!

woah i had totally forgotten about this one, five years before 'i'll be there for you' and technically a bigger hit (#14 vs #17).

yeah "I'll Be There For You"'s US chart placing was a victim of Billboard's antiquated calculation method still in use at that time that combined radio airplay and physical sales of a single to determine popularity. IBTFY wasn't available as a single (or even their album until it was added to later pressings), and achieved the #17 placement on radio airplay alone.

(Billboard's charting algorithm still a mess today but that's a subject for another time and place).

Tracy Bonham - "Mother Mother"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK0GgLKUU_I

Prophetically, the album this was from also included a song called "One Hit Wonder"

Haha google and I just talked abt this song last weekend

Google=goole.

ok i'm bout to drop a ton of these on you:

Huffamoose - "Wait"
Mack 10 - "Backyard Boogie"
Goldfinger - "This Lonely Place"
The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band - "Blue On Black"
Mya f/ Silkk The Shocker - "Movin' On"
Neil Finn - "She Will Have Her Way"
Playa - "Cheers 2 U"
Lenny Kravitz - "If You Can't Say No"
DJ Quik f/ El Debarge and 2nd II None - "Hand In Hand"
Raphael Saadiq f/ Q-Tip - "Get Involved"
Mystikal and Outkast - "Neck Uv Da Woods"
Rah Digga - "Break Fool"
Lit - "Zip-Lock"
Jimmie's Chicken Shack - "Do Right"
Juvenile - "U Understand"
Sammy Hagar - "Mas Tequila"
Naughty By Nature f/ Zhane - "Jamboree"
Our Lady Peace - "One Man Army"
Sugar Ray - "Falls Apart"
Chris Cornell - "Can't Change Me"

Dammmmmn, quite a list there!

"If You Can't Say No" really captures the feel of this thread for me...got a lot of airplay at the time, I totally remember it, could sing the chorus as soon as I saw the title, but never liked it, haven't heard it since 1999 for sure. "Fly Away" really blotted out the other stuff from that album. Remember "Black Velveteen"? Only heard that a couple times, think it might have been bigger in Europe maybe.

"Falls Apart" and "Zip-Loc" maybe too big of hits to count? But then, I guess they don't really get played much anymore.

Ugh, "Blue On Black."

"Can't Change Me" reminds me of Soundgarden's "Bleed Together," which was the bonus song added to liven up the greatest-hits CD, and got a decent amount of alt-rock airplay IIRC.

Just updated the playlist with all of the above, except Spotify duckers "Bleed Together" and "Can't Change Me," I think. Also threw in Our Lady Peace, "Starseed," which I always liked. It's from '94 originally but I never heard it on the radio until the Armageddon soundtrack, for which it was ostensibly remixed. Anyway, Our Lady Peace seem to be kind of essential to our mix here.

(Golfinger's career also tracks this pretty well - - - I was tempted to also add "Mable (She's The Bomb)" but couldn't be sure how lost and forgotten that one is.)

"Blue on Black" was the #1 Mainstream Rock Track for 1998 in Billboard.

Yeah, I was wondering about that one.

"Blue On Black" is still huge and gets tons of recurrent plays, it just felt like the kind of thing that would be considered 'forgotten' on ilx

"Starseed" was a pretty sizable hit in '95, definitely more remembered than most of their singles from the actual late '90s

Wait, really? "Superman's Dead" and "Clumsy" were HUGE where I was at. I know "Naveed" got some play back in the day but "Starseed" was totally new to me when Armageddon dropped.

DJ Quik f/ El Debarge and 2nd II None - "Hand In Hand"

I discovered it a few months ago and loved it.

i said "most" not "all" -- the Clumsy singles were definitely bigger but "Starseed" was much more popular than "Naveed"

Neil Finn - "She Will Have Her Way"

I was a Crowded House fan but this one was one of the first examples of which I was aware of how aging singer-songwriters got hip by adding drum loops and scratching and weird post-Froom sounds: the late nineties/2000's equivalent of McCartney using Linn drums and synclaviers.

Yo I totally remember that Jimmie's Chicken Shack single

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAez4hlV-Fo

Mxpx - I'm OK, You're OK

not sure how heavily played this was on the radio, as opposed to The Box, but I dug it. Anyway, I feel Mxpx fit the vibe of the thread enough to merit more than just one song in the playlist. Amazingly, the video isn't on Youtube. The gimmick is that a snow globe keeps getting passed from one character to another through a series of unlikely coincidences and run-ins...and the band is playing inside the snow globe! Whee!

Have we talked about Cadlebox?

Banditos by the Refreshments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmujs348H5o

omg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O94CW_tIEzU

Er. I now see that "Starseed" was mentioned, not very far upthread at all.

Wow, Hitchhiker Joe...don't think I've ever heard that before, pretty damned catchy! (It's '94, though, and very much an early 90s sound IMO - compare to, e.g., "New Age Girl" by Deadeye Dick - Classic or Dud? - which I think is sorta pushing it...what's the consensus?)

Yeah, true. I suppose these are more early 90s than late 90s. They don't possess the darker undercurrent of late 90s music (even though "Hitchhiker Joe explicitly brings up people being brutally butchered and eaten).

Rah Digga - "Break Fool"

^^love this, had it on some tony touch cassette

1. I have been in a band that covered "Banditos." And I don't mean in the 90s, I mean in the last 5 years. Dude from The Refreshments now leads an apparently well-regarded group called Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers.

2. Tracy Bonham had a way better song than "Mother, Mother" released as her second single:

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

3. You know who has a new record out? K's Choice, that's who.

Mya f/ Silkk The Shocker - "Movin' On"
Mystikal and Outkast - "Neck Uv Da Woods"
Jimmie's Chicken Shack - "Do Right"
Juvenile - "U Understand"Naughty By Nature f/ Zhane - "Jamboree"
Sugar Ray - "Falls Apart"
Chris Cornell - "Can't Change Me"

I remember these!

Little T and One Track Mike - Shaniqua Don't Live Here No More (technically released in 2001 but feels very 90s)
some cover version of M's "Pop Muzik" that shoehorns in references to "Spice Girls, Britney"... no idea who did this
Ideal - Get Gone
Silk - If You
Carl Thomas - I Wish

also:

Citizen King - Better Days (and the Bottom Drops Out)
Fastball - Fire Escape (only remembered the line "I don't wanna make you mad/I don't wanna meet your dad")

I had that Citizen King song stuck in my head last week

"Fire Escape" is great - I believe it got mentioned upthread but happy to have it recognized again. Very pleasant tune.

I'm counting "Falls Apart" in despite its relatively high pop profile, as it's the biggest Sugar Ray single to be excluded from the abridged Sugar Ray singles poll ...seems a good indicator that its former ubiquity has really faded.

Re: Pop Muzik - - Wiki says "Other remixes and remakes recorded by other artists have come from all sides since its creation, including Marcus' "Pop Muzic 2001", eX-Girl in 2001, and by Junior Vasquez and the Dub Pistols in 2003." The Marcus version seems to fit your description:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EiogMvt0YU

Sadly, it's from 2001 and wow, does it ever sum up the "transitional period."

Carl Thomas is 2000, not sure what to do with that one. The piano part is REALLY familiar - I feel like I heard this a bunch on the quiet-storm station that would sometimes be on in the background at my last job. May not be so forgotten!

man, that rah digga song is great. I remember a guy in high school having a big crush on her, picture in the clear sleeve of his three ring binder, etc., but I don't know that I ever heard her music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhBt2PgGryM

"I WANT THE PRODIGY REALLY LOUD"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxj60CNxftc

uggggggggggh was pretty okay with forgetting all about Athenaeum

added to the playlist along with Oleander, who they reminded me of, with their trudging late grunge hit "Why I'm Here."