Music meme

[owlmoose]

Ganked and adapted from penrynsdreams.

A) Go to http://www.musicoutfitters.com

B) In the search box, enter the year you graduated from high school. Get the list of the 100 most popular songs of that year.

C) Italize the songs you liked, strike through the ones you hated, and bold your favorites. Do nothing to those you don’t remember or don’t care about.


1. (Everything I Do) I Do It For You, Bryan Adams
2. I Wanna Sex You Up, Color Me Badd
3. Gonna Make You Sweat, C+C Music Factory
4. Rush Rush, Paula Abdul
5. One More Try, Timmy T
6. Unbelievable, EMF
7. More Than Words, Extreme
8. I Like The Way (The Kissing Game), Hi-Five
9. The First Time, Surface
10. Baby, Baby, Amy Grant
11. Motownphilly, Boyz II Men
12. Because I Love You (The Postman Song), Stevie B
13. Someday, Mariah Carey
14. High Enough, Damn Yankees
15. From A Distance, Liette Midler
16. All The Man That I Need, Whitney Houston
17. Right Here, Right Now, Jesus Jones
18. I Adore Mi Amor, Color Me Badd
19. Love Will Never Do (Without You), Janet Jackson
20. Good Vibrations, Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch Featuring Loleatta Holloway
21. Justify My Love, Madonna
22. Emotions, Mariah Carey
23. Joyride, Roxette
24. Romantic, Karyn White
25. I Don't Wanna Cry, Mariah Carey
26. Hold You Tight, Tara Kemp
27. You're In Love, Wilson Phillips
28. Every Heartbeat, Amy Grant
29. Sensitivity, Ralph Tresvant
30. Touch Me (All Night Long), Cathy Dennis
31. I've Been Thinking About You, Londonbeat
32. Do Anything, Natural Selection
33. Losing My Religion, R.E.M.
34. Coming Out Of The Dark. Gloria Estefan
35. Here We Go. C+C Music Factory
36. It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over, Lenny Kravitz
37. Where Does My Heart Beat Now, Celine Dion
38. Summertime, D.J. Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince
39. Wind Of Change, Scorpions
40. P.A.S.S.I.O.N., Rhythm Syndicate
41. The Promise Of A New Day, Paula Abdul
42. I'm Your Baby Tonight, Whitney Houston
43. Love Of A Lifetime, Firehouse
44. Fading Like A Flower (Every Time You Leave), Roxette
45. This House, Tracie Spencer
46. Hole Hearted, Extreme
47. Power Of Love-Love Power, Luther Vandross
48. Impulsive, Wilson Phillips
49. Love Is A Wonderful Thing, Michael Bolton
50. Rhythm Of My Heart, Rod Stewart
51. Things That Make You Go Hmmmm..., C+C Music Factory
52. I Touch Myself, Divinyls
53. Tom's Diner, DMA
54. Iesha, Another Bad Creation
55. Something To Talk About, Bonnie Raitt
56. After The Rain, Nelson
57. Play That Funky Music, Vanilla Ice
58. Temptation, Corina
59. Can't Stop This Thing We Started, Bryan Adams
60. I Can't Wait Another Minute, Hi-Five
61. 3 A.M. Eternal, The KLF
62. Time, Love and Tenderness, Michael Bolton
63. Saideness Part I, Enigrna
64. Around The Way Girl, LL Cool J
65. I'll Be There, Escape Club
66. Cream, Prince and The N.P.G.
67. Now That We Found Love, Heavy D. and The Boyz
68. Show Me The Way, Styx
69. Love Takes Time, Mariah Carey
70. Cry For Help, Rick Astley
71. The Way You Do The Things You Do, UB40
72. Here I Am (Come and Take Me), UB40
73. Signs, Tesla
74. Too Many Walls, Cathy Dennis
75. Crazy, Seal
76. I'll Give All My Love To You, Keith Sweat
77. Place In This World, Michael W. Smith
78. Something To Believe In, Poison
79. Wicked Game, Chris Issak
80. Get Here, Oleta Adams
81. Round and Round, Tevin Campbell
82. Silent Lucidity, Queensryche ...shut up
83. I'm Not In Love, Will To Power
84. Piece Of My Heart, Tara Kemp
85. Real Real Real, Jesus Jones
87. Just Another Dream, Cathy Dennis
88. Everybody Plays The Fool, Aaron Neville
88. Strike It Up, Black Box
89. Rico Suave, Gerardo
90. Disappear, INXS
91. Groove Is In The Heart, Deee-Lite
92. All This Time, Sting
93. The One and Only, Chesney Hawkes
94. O.P.P., Naughty By Nature
95. Freedom 90, George Michael
96. I Saw Red, Warrent
97. Miles Away, Winger
98. Do You Want Me, Salt-N-Pepa
99. The Motown Song, Rod Stewart
100. Shiny Happy People, R.E.M.


I'm surprised at how many of these I don't recognize, at least not by title. Most of the artists look familiar, at least.

Comments

[dagas-isa.livejournal.com]

My first instinct looking at this... wow... you graduated a long time ago.
My second instinct is that the music from your year > music from my year.

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

Class of '91... which, yeah. Was a long time ago. Yikes!

I dunno, there was some pretty terrible music in the early '90s. I'd put it up against most any decade.

[dagas-isa.livejournal.com]

I am secretly in love with a lot of terrible music.

Also I have some traumatizing memories of a few of the songs off my graduation year list.

Well, not traumatizing, just ugh.

parron

[shockinglycool.livejournal.com]

KAYJAY YOU ARE OLD.

Re: parron

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, this has already been well established... ;)

[anzubird.livejournal.com]

how can you cross out Rico Suave??? think of all the freshmen we tortured with that song!

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

I certainly hold fond memories of it, for non-musical reasons. :) But from a musical perspective? No.

I have to say, this list strikes me as rather questionable. Where's the grunge? Nirvana, at the very least, should be on here.

[peachespig.livejournal.com]

I checked and Smells Like Teen Spirit is on their 1992 list. Now I KNOW it was released in 1991, I first heard it in 1991.... but maybe these guys only include songs in a single year, and it peaked in '92?

Other grunge would probably be too late to make it, but I didn't see Pearl Jam or Soundgarden in '92 either. It may also be that the "100 top hits" are based on the Billboard pop charts, which stopped being a useful record of what was actually popular around that time...

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine what it would be based on besides the Billboard Hot 100, since this was also around the time that singles sales stopped being a useful measure of anything (although I suppose iTunes may have changed that again). I don't know how anyone assembles a Top-40 station any more; pop music genres have just gotten way too fragmented.

I scanned the '92 and '93 lists and didn't see any grunge other than Nirvana at all. Maybe it's just because we were in college then, but it seemed like it was everywhere, and I knew hardly anyone who listened to Michael Bolton/Mariah Carey/etc.

[peachespig.livejournal.com]

this was also around the time that singles sales stopped being a useful measure of anything

Yeah, sometimes I get my nostalgia on for the mid-80s, when there was really just one music list that you could make yourself believe the whole country listened to. Bruce! Madonna! Prince! Those were the days, my friend. The days when I was twelve.

Maybe it's just because we were in college then

I think you nailed it right there. The "grunge" sound probably didn't percolate up to the top-40 until mid-decade. I see Goo Goo Dolls and Smashing Pumpkins in the '96 list.

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

I got my first radio as a Christmas present in 1983 or '84, so there's a part of me that thinks the pop music from that era is the ultimate pop music, accept no substitutions.

I think there is something to your assertion that bad pop music was worse in the early '90s than in other eras -- lassarina just posted her list, from 2000, and even the crappy stuff doesn't make me cringe as much as my memories of, say, Boyz II Men.

[lassarina]

Oh my God, Vanilla Ice. Vanilla Ice.

My year was 2000; I should do this. Except I mostly listened to country which doesn't seem well-represented. Or represented at all.

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

I'd actually forgotten that he had another song...

As I said to anzubird, I find this list suspect. Way heavy on the lite rock, given that grunge and alternative were just starting to take off at the time.

[lassarina]

Interestingly, country songs *do* show up on the 2000 list, although most of them were country songs that got pop releases.

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

If, as I suspect, this list comes from the Billboard charts, that's not too surprising. Wasn't that about the time the country cross-over craze got started?

[lassarina]

Yeah.

Although I did find some country songs on there that I know never made the cross-over; maybe they just didn't compile the right charts from the early 90's?

Alternatively I seem to recall country becoming more prevalent around the time I was in high school; maybe it's some kind of absolute rather than relative ranking? i.e. the 1991 charts were overwhelmingly pop because most stations were pop then?

[peachespig.livejournal.com]

GOD, the end of high school was a terrible time in music. Just terrible. Color Me Badd! Paula Abdul! BRYAN FREAKING ADAMS! How did they let that happen? How can we make sure it never happens again?

82. Silent Lucidity, Queensryche ...shut up

LOL Operation Mindcrime I liked pretty well.

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

How can we make sure it never happens again?

Considering the boy-band/Britney Spears era we just lived through, I fear it may already be too late...

[peachespig.livejournal.com]

I'll be honest with you: I'd take Britney and Xtina and BSB and friggin' N Sync over this list any day. Something about it is just so soul-crushing.

[3-2-1.livejournal.com]

Chiming in: I love most of these x1000 times more than what came out in 1999, at least on the mainstream Billboardy side of things.

But most people doing this seem to whine about the crappy music that came out when they graduated. Maybe it's the kneejerk response to hating high school or something.

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, see, I find that 1999 list far more palatable, despite the inclusion of the Backstreet Boys etc. You may be right that it's the high school association. Nostalgia doesn't make *everything* better.

[3-2-1.livejournal.com]

Also, I remember most of these songs from elementary/early middle school so these feel like happy kiddiehood songs to me.

I've been loving my recentish download of Billboard Hits of 1993, after years of being confused as to why I didn't recognize as many 80's songs as I should, not realizing I didn't start to listen to pop until around middle school, so the early 90's is just the right era of nostalgia for me.