Listening to 80 years of Billboard: Part 6: 1990s

[cnoocy]

“Don't cry for me, next-door neighbour”

The 1990s

The 90s are my last year of high school, my college years, and my first years as an independent adult. Which are not years in which I was doing a lot of radio listening, so I know some of the really big songs, and I didn’t have as personal a connection with them as with the 80s and 70s ones. So my big associations are things like singing along to “You Don’t Know How It Feels” in a car with friends and hearing “Cryin’” on the radio while staying up very late playing Populous with my brother, both of which happened during summer or winter breaks from college.

The ‘90s are sometimes called rap’s golden age, which tracks with what I heard here. I’m not a huge rap listener, but I was very impressed by the variety of rap music that starts showing up in this decade and into the next, very much like the variety of rock that you see from 1954 to 1964. Not all of it’s good, but it’s very much the decade of a lot of different things being tried.

And then there’s the weird rock that shows up in the 90s. “Tubthumping" is by a group of politically involved anarchists. For all that "Hook" was played constantly, the lyrics are an interesting metatextual take on songwriting. The first two verses of the video (https://youtu.be/pdz5kCaCRFM) do a good job of illustrating this, but then it sort of collapses into band shots, mocking the watcher, and Paul Shaffer. And “Justified And Ancient” is a collaboration between an anti-corporate Discordian band and a country music legend about a fictional conspiracy organization. When I started this project, I wasn't expecting direct references to the Illuminatus trilogy.

"Epic" by Faith No More: #75 in 1990
"What It Takes" by Aerosmith: #91 in 1990
"Unbelievable" by EMF: #6 in 1991
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana: #32 in 1992
"Tennessee" by Arrested Development: #40 in 1992
"Mysterious Ways" by U2: #57 in 1992
"Friday I'm In Love" by Cure: #71 in 1992
"Justified And Ancient" by KLF & Tammy Wynette: #86 in 1992
"Can't Help Falling In Love" by Ub40: #3 in 1993
"Cryin'" by Aerosmith: #60 in 1993
"Mary Jane's Last Dance" by Tom Petty: #77 in 1994
"U.N.I.T.Y." by Queen Latifah: #82 in 1994
"You Don't Know How It Feels" by Tom Petty: #61 in 1995
"Good" by Better Than Ezra: #85 in 1995
"Breakfast At Tiffany's" by Deep Blue Something: #39 in 1996
"Hook" by Blues Traveler: #60 in 1996
"Not Tonight" by Lil' Kim: #46 in 1997
"Tubthumping" by Chumbawamba: #69 in 1997

Comments

[yomikoma]

Breakfast at Tiffany's will forever remind me of our conversation about it :D :D :D

[cnoocy]

Scene: a phone call in 1996. Cnoocy is in Somerville, MA and Yomikoma is in Peoria, IL.

C: My wife and I like that somg "Breakfast at Tiffany's" that's on the radio.

Y: Well, that's one thing you've got.

[yomikoma]

And then Cnoocy HANGS UP and Yomikoma cackles alone in Peoria.