So. Here I go again, on my own. Going down the only road I’ve ever known. Like a drifter I was born to walk alone…wait. What? No, not like a drifter. Not like that at all. That’s a terrible song. Today I will talk about the opposite of that, I will talk about good songs from the 1980s.

I did this last year for the ’90s, after my wife Kristen and I talked enough about our theoretical lists for so long that we finally got up the momentum to make them happen. Now we’re onto the ’80s. I encourage you to check hers out too. She has good taste and is a much better music writer.

As hard as the ’90s list was to put together, I hypothesized that making such a list for the ’80s might be even more agonizing, and it absolutely was. For me the ’90s are more static. Maybe because I lived them and was the most aware of what was going on than I would ever be again, or I just have a clear handle on the predominant styles, so it’s rare to discover anything new that really grabs me. That’s not to say my ’90s list will never change. In fact, I just swapped out a few things on the playlist since its initial publication last March. But I’ll say I’m 95% confident the list will remain a great representation of my favorite 1990s music until I die.

For the ’80s, I’ll say more like 60-70%. I’m still discovering new-to-me ’80s and earlier stuff all the time. I’d go so far as to say this is possibly now my favorite decade of music. (Edit: Nah, it’s probably the ’70s.) Post punk and new wave have become favorite genres. It was a brilliant time for synth experimentation. Plus it’s the golden age hip-hop and the birth of shoegaze. I like that so many artists mixed electronic and instrumental influences together, but the production generally still has an organic, analog feel.

Similar construction and caveats to the ’90s list. I’m not trying to capture the zeitgeist, this is just some dude’s opinions. I’d expect it will shift and change as I revisit it, and I wouldn’t bicker about precise ordering. It’s just a snapshot of where I’m at on October 14, 2019. It’s a mix of stuff that represents larger genres, and stuff that is the Most 1980s to me, and stuff that I just like for whatever reason. In the end it feels like a painfully short list where I necessarily have to omit hundreds of great songs. Sure, I wanted more Echo and the Bunnymen and Smiths songs. I couldn’t find room for Janet Jackson or EPMD or The Psychedelic Furs. But it’s still a good group.

P.S. It should be 80 for the ’80s aesthetically but I didn’t think it’s fair the ’90s got ten more simply by being later. Think of it as 80 songs and 10 bonus songs if it helps you sleep.

P.S.S. The Michael Jackson Is Controversial caveat: I decided to just not consider him.

All right, here you go:

[Link to playlist]

And the ranked list:

Rank	Artist	Song
90	Billy Idol	Eyes Without a Face
89	George Clinton	Atomic Dog
88	Adam and the Ants	Stand and Deliver
87	LL Cool J	Rock the Bells
86	Prefab Sprout	Appetite
85	The Police	Spirits in the Material World
84	Guns 'n Roses	Paradise City
83	Minimal Compact	Statik Dancin'
82	The Soft Boys	Only the Stones Remain
81	REM	Radio Free Europe
80	The Associates	Skipping
79	The Teardrop Explodes	When I Dream
78	The Dead Milkmen	Punk Rock Girl
77	Bauhaus	Spirit
76	The The	This is the Day
75	Eric B. & Rakim	Paid in Full
74	Translator	Everywhere That I'm Not
73	Missing Persons	Destination Unknown
72	XTC	Mayor of Simpleton
71	Thomas Dolby	She Blinded Me With Science*
70	Huey Lewis and the News	Heart and Soul
69	Faith No More	We Care A Lot
68	Bruce Springsteen	Tunnel of Love
67	The Go-Betweens	Bye Bye Pride
66	ABC	The Look of Love
65	The Chameleons	Up the Down Escalator
64	Green on Red	Death and Angels
63	Bananarama	Cruel Summer
62	Spandau Ballet	True
61	Thomas Leer	West End
60	Big Daddy Kane	Ain't No Half Steppin'
59	Kraftwerk	Computer World
58	Husker Du	Books About UFOs
57	The Smiths	How Soon Is Now?
56	Big Country	In a Big Country
55	The Specials	Ghost Town
54	The Sugarcubes	Delicious Demon
53	Gary Numan	Remind Me To Smile
52	The Fall	New Face in Hell
51	Tears for Fears	Head Over Heels
50	De La Soul	Me Myself and I*
49	Billy Ocean	Get Outta My Dreams Get Into My Car
48	Simple Minds	Don't You Forget About Me
47	Public Enemy	Don't Believe the Hype
46	Faith No More	Falling to Pieces
45	Cutting Crew	Life in a Dangerous Time
44	Siouxsie and the Banshees	Cities in Dust
43	New Order	Blue Monday
42	The Bats	Round and Down
41	U2	Pride (In the Name of Love)
40	The B-52's	Legal Tender
39	Tears for Fears	Everybody Wants to Rule the World
38	Romeo Void	Never Say Never
37	The Clean	Anything Could Happen
36	New Order	Everything's Gone Green
35	The Names	I Wish I Could Speak Your Language
34	Killing Joke	Love Like Blood
33	Grandmaster Flash	The Message
32	Chaz Jankel	Number One
31	The Ocean Blue	Between Something and Nothing
30	Pixies	Where is My Mind?
29	Units	High Pressure Days
28	Van Halen	Panama
27	Biz Markie	Just a Friend
26	The Cure	Just Like Heaven
25	Bush Tetras	You Can't Be Funky
24	Talking Heads	This Must Be the Place
23	Echo and the Bunnymen	A Promise
22	Felt	Primitive Painters
21	Public Enemy	Fight the Power
20	Prince	1999
19	Bow Wow Wow	Do You Wanna Hold Me?
18	Eddy Grant	Electric Avenue**
17	Sad Lovers & Giants	Cloud 9
16	The Icicle Works	Whisper to a Scream
15	Altered Images	I Could Be Happy
14	Fine Young Cannibals	She Drives Me Crazy
13	They Might Be Giants	Don't Let's Start
12	Spoons	Nova Heart
11	New Order	Ceremony
10	The English Beat	Save It For Later
9	Joy Division	Isolation
8	Prince	Automatic
7	The Jesus and Mary Chain	Just Like Honey
6	Talking Heads	Once in a Lifetime
5	They Might Be Giants	She's An Angel
4	My Bloody Valentine	The Things I Miss*
3	Gary Numan	We Are Glass
2	They Might Be Giants	Ana Ng
1	Joy Division	Love Will Tear Us Apart

* These tracks aren’t on Spotify at last check, so the playlist has some bonus tracks inserted after the Billy Idol and George Clinton kickoff (because I just really like the playlist starting with those two).

**Also not on Spotify, but I’ve included a cover version on the playlist.

I’m not an AC/DC fan, but I can appreciate that they have a vision and they stick with it. I’m not really even a hard rock genre fan. Although I like the ’80s aesthetic when these kinds of bands were playing sort of cartoon-evil characters, with fully developed iconography, logos, and fonts. This is Spinal Tap territory, in that I appreciate it both as art and parody simultaneously. But I have a special place in my heart for one of AC/DC’s songs, which I think most people know, but have overlooked for the pantheon of greatness.

That song is “Thunderstruck.”

Thunderstruck is not exactly underappreciated. It was a huge, international hit, off an album that sold 5 million copies. It’s the third most-played AC/DC song on Spotify with over 130 million plays. But I think it’s not entirely appreciated, either. Rolling Stone panned the album* as bland, obnoxious AC/DC filler, and didn’t even mention this song among the highlights. “Back In Black” garners their greatest glory.

*They did mention, in saying that it was devoid of any new rock ideas, that it was still noteworthy that the band was churning this stuff out when Angus Young was “over thirty now and [Brian] Johnson is past forty”. Just noting this nugget for some future discussion about musicians older than me, an increasingly rare phenomenon.

What a Rock Song Should Do

It should build up excitement, then unleash it in a catchy chorus.
The basic idea of a rock song is that it combines melody and rhythm, developing into a catchy and memorable crescendo. The message is simple and direct. You are given the signal that night is to enter, light is to exit. Or you might as well jump. Or you are informed you will be rocked like a hurricane. Or, perhaps, that one may engage in an experience that will leave you utterly dazed, or if you will, “thunderstruck.”

It should induce head-banging, or head-bobbing for the over-30 set or neck safety conscious.
Check.

The performers should show some disregard for social norms.
There are no classic rock songs about getting one’s taxes done on time. Nothing about tucking your shirt in. No one is disposing of litter properly. Here, the lyrics, such as they are, and from what can be gleaned from Brian Johnson’s unnatural screeching, describe an epic Texas roadtrip where they hit it off with some ladies. I’m sure I could google the lyrics but people who google AC/DC lyrics are certainly missing the point. What is clear is that extremely good times were had, such that some or all of the parties involved were left in a state of being thunderstruck. At one point we are told explicitly that they “broke all the rules” and “played all the fools.” That’s right, fools. You messed with the wrong gang of Australian misfits.

Song Structure

Thunderstruck is 4 minutes and 52 seconds long. Here is its detailed structure:

0:00 – 1:05 – Intense buildup of Angus doing the electric string-tapping trick. Maybe it’s too simplistic to say that it feels electric when the tapping is done on an electric guitar, but the way notes are popping in and out of existence as the strings make contact with the frets hammers home the metaphor. Some growling “Oh-ow-ah-A-AH-wow-ow”s complement it, eventually joined by some bass drum and “Thun-dah!”s. This goes on for over a minute! Brian doesn’t even show up for over 50 seconds. More than 20% of this song is pure prologue. Imagine a 2-hour movie where they broke for the opening credits almost half an hour in. I love it. Total disregard for social norms! See 2:21, e.g., breaking all the rules.

1:05 – 1:53 – First verse, classic Brian Johnson, shrieking out a some rhyming nonsense and hard syllables until “You been… Thunderstruck!” Music bumps up the tempo and Brian takes a five-second breather before tearing into the second verse. Throughout this second minute, we are still building up elements, adding a second guitar and even more pounding. The initial string tapping still feeling like it’s leading to…something.

1:58 – 2:28 – Second verse containing the general outline of the Texas roadtrip. It’s heavy on vocal effort and light on details. Listen, the lyrics don’t matter. They aren’t supposed to matter. We aren’t listening to Tracy Chapman or Bob Dylan today.

2:28 – 2:43 – Bridge. Everything comes together for a few lines and lead guitar revving up. You’ve been……………..

2:43 – 2:58 – ….Thunderstruck! Finally, sweet, chorus! We have been waiting for more than two and a half minutes, building building building, and it’s here, and it’s glorious. Brian really believes in the concept of being thunderstruck by now. Thunderstruck! Yeah-Yeah-Yeah! Thunderstruck!

2:58 – 3:10 – Bridge 2, a little guitar fiddling about, until

3:10 – 3:26 – Power solo!

3:26 – 3:42 – WE STILL NEED MORE BUILDUP! At the 3:42 mark, 63% of the way through the song, after the solo no less, Angus goes back to the string-tapping well. As the tool he used to generate interest, priming the pump with still more of it this late in the song is dumping gasoline on the fire.

3:42 – 3:58 – Chorus 2

3:58 – 4:12 – A chant leading into the climax. In case you had concerns about the lingering nature of being thunderstruck, worry not: Yeah, it’s all right. We’re, doing fine.

4:12 – 4:52 – Chaotic outro mixing all the previous elements.

A typical rock song might go like:

• Brief intro
• Verse
• Chorus
• Verse
• Chorus
• Solo
• Verse
• Chorus
• Outro

Often there’s some kind of bridge in there between the verses and choruses, too. Here’s what Thunderstruck does instead:

• Super long intro
• Verse
• Chorus Nope! Another verse. I bet you really wanted a chorus there. You’re really going to be wanting it when it gets here.
• Finally, a chorus! See? Their trick worked.
• Solo
• Not bothering with a verse again, just re-charging with some intro material, and right to another chorus
• Crowd-friendly chanting
• Outro of Utter Chaos

Hard to say what credit the Youngs get compared to producer Bruce Fairbairn. But clearly all of them were confident to, yes, break all the rules.

Only AC/DC Could Make This Song

As implied, I’m not really an AC/DC fan, but appreciate that they are world-class rock performers. I take no sides in the great Bon Scott/Brian Johnson debate, either, but I think Brian Johnson is amazing in this song. He’s like 5’5″, built like a pile of cinderblocks, has worn the same newsboy cap and black tanktop since 1979, and shrieks in a way that no human should be capable. I can’t imagine any other singer providing the power necessary to pull this off.

He didn’t write the words though. Wikipedia shares a bit from Angus, discussing writing the song with his brother (they wrote all the songs) from a re-release’s liner notes:

Lyrically, it was really just a case of finding a good title … We came up with this thunder thing and it seemed to have a good ring to it. AC/DC = Power. That’s the basic idea.

This song is pure electric power, translated into musical form.

Final thought. There’s a known writing problem when you have a story about some technology or work of art that, in the context of the story, is especially amazing. Like if you have a fictional author and they’ve written the greatest novel of all time. So all the characters read it and they are blown away. But the author can never share any excerpts of this magic novel because the reader’s imagination will have built it up beyond something realistic. If revealed, it will most likely seem pedestrian. So one has to be careful about promising too much, or if the payoff isn’t going to be there, showing too much of the goods. Ultimately my thesis here is that “Thunderstruck” builds and builds and builds, and you think, the payoff is never going to come, or they’ve promised too much, but in the end it delivers. It lives up to its own hype. That’s right. You’ve been…thunderstruck.

Well, technically I “DuckDuckGo’d” it (“DuckDuckWent” it?) because I endorse DuckDuckGo for numerous privacy reasons. But I mostly ended up on YouTube anyway, negating any of that. The question of the day: Why a keytar? Is there a legit musical reason to use one, or are they just bitchin’? (Which is a perfectly good reason.)

Anyway the first thing that came up was in the genre of “home musician plays along with a song.” (A genre I estimate to comprise 40% of YouTube content and 1% of its views.) Here, a guy uses his keytar to recreate Slash’s solo from Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child o’ Mine”:

Why did this come up? Is it a “sweet” keytar solo? The performance is fairly tentative, probably he’s just comfortable enough with it to roll camera. But it sounds great! So I’m fine with the adjective being used here, but honestly it came up because of the song title. Everyone learns a lesson about metadata.

Did I learn anything about the keytar? In fact, I did! I now understand it has its own version of a whammy bar and a way to create a vibrato effect like you could do if playing strings.

I have only myself to blame, but I the particular adjective I thought to use meant I just had to skip a bunch of competing versions of “Sweet Child o’ Mine”.  Here was the first non-GNR solo:

A short one by a guy in his basement wearing pajamas. But pretty enjoyable video game music.

Did I learn anything about the keytar? I’m starting to understand the big question of the day. It’s somewhere in the liminal space between guitar and keyboard. If you want a keyboard sound, with guitar-like effects, this is the way to go. But I don’t know why you can’t just do this on a regular keyboard. I think you can, but it doesn’t look so boss. Like this:

Here I learned about the Finnish metal band Sonata Arctica and maybe the best keytarist in the world, Henrik Klingenberg. Wikipedia tells me he likes the keytar so he can wander around the stage as the mood strikes him, like the rest of the musicians. (Well, sorry drummers.) He also says his musical inspiration is taken from “life itself.” Only a keytar was going to allow Henrik to fulfill his musical vision.

Or maybe the best keytarist is…Belinda Bedekovic?

She’s Croatian and though maybe not as skilled as Henrik, I posit that she better captures the keytar zeitgeist, such as it is. I won’t link to it (you all know how the internet works) but I quickly discovered her Instagram account in which she poses in various states of undress, usually with her keytar. For no clear reason most of these pictures are actually displayed on her computer monitor, and the IG post is a snapshot of the monitor. Listen, if it leads to keytar inspiration, I am for it.

Conclusions: Why a keytar?

Interestingly, I think the keytar exists in two cultural spaces at once, which are typically separate. One: keytars are weird and stupid and should be laughed at, e.g., “Keytar Sales Down for the 425th Straight Month”. (I would totally buy a keytar for $14, btw.) And yet, e.g. “Rebirth of the Keytar!” So they are the dumbest thing, but still cool. Perhaps this is another extension of the increasingly pervasive dominance of what was once waved off as “nerd culture.”

So I don’t have a straightforward answer to articulate, but I am satisfied keytars are not simply for decoration. They are not guitars, and they are not keyboards. This is by design. They have a particular sound and feel. If you need one, you’ll know it, the same way you’d know the xylophone or cello was the right instrument for a particular task. Can you say that about a French horn? I can’t. I don’t know what they are for. Maybe next time I will DuckDuckGo the French horn.

My wife Kristen, who, along with being very cool and very smart, keeps a pop music blog. Recently she posted her Top 90 songs of the ’90s. For any self-aware entities familiar with the concept of music, is worth a read and a listen. We should also make it clear at this point that she is way better at writing about music than me.

(Edit: I’ve also now done an ’80s list.)

The two of us talk about music a lot, and are obsessed with countdowns. So we have frequently discussed putting together lists like this. But she actually followed through, so has inspired me to commit to the effort. I believed it would be fairly easy. I was super wrong. All of the qualifications and difficulties Kristen discussed w/r/t her list are thoroughly in play for me, too. Limiting to just 90 songs meant hundreds of very good songs didn’t make the cut, so I’m pretty much only including songs I’ve had obsessions about at some point. It’s impossible to really balance what I liked the most then vs. what I like the most now vs. what I’ve actually listened to the most vs. what is the Most 1990s For Me. All of those categories are represented here. Every time I revisited my list I rearranged things a little, so I have had to force myself to accept it will never be perfect, just good enough. So it’s in no way a permanent list, rather more like a snapshot of how I feel on March 25, 2018. Anyway, these are just some dude’s opinions, a dude who leans alt-rock/shoegaze as favorite genres, but dabbles across genres. I have absolutely overlooked things accidentally or on purpose, and under- or over-rated things throughout.

So here’s the list, with some commentary. Here’s the Spotify playlist.

Made some revisions October 2019. These are reflected on the playlist but not below.

1. Whale – “Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe”
   
   • I thought Kristen’s choice of Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” made for a fantastic #90. I like a good flyer pick for the last choice off the board. So I’m going with Whale’s nutty “Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe.” Whale are a bunch of weird Swedes that perhaps knew English. I pay little or no attention to lyrics, as my choices will eventually make clear, so I can forgive some good nonsense, but, my, what nonsense. The video is no less clarifying, which mostly consists of them wandering around a coal pit mugging for the camera. Still, it was an important song for me. I spent the early ’90s (i.e. high school) getting cleansed of my early indoctrination to Top 40, and Whale’s raucous bit of fun was an example of something that I loved and would never, ever sniff mainstream acceptance. Also worth noting that I generally hate all screaming vocals, so the fact that this one gets a little screamy is quite atypical.
2. Spacehog – “In The Meantime”
   
3. Toad the Wet Sprocket – “Fall Down”
   
4. En Vogue – “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It) ”
   
5. Cypress Hill – “Insane in the Brain”
   
   • Thoroughly childish. But so, so fun. I love that there is a vocal group whose entire concept is: we have one guy with a piercingly high-pitched nasal screech, and another guy who just repeats what the first guy says, with a peculiar vocal strain that sounds like he’s always attempting to lift a fridge. And it somehow works. Music is amazing.
6. Hole – “Doll Parts”
   
7. Red Hot Chili Peppers – “Breaking the Girl”
8. Green Day – “Geek Stink Breath”
   
   • Some of these choices represent full albums. Insomniac was probably my most-listened-to Green Day.
9. Pearl Jam – “Release”
   
   • My PJ interest begins and ends with Ten, but it was a major album for me, so this is the first of three entries in my list. This one is the closing track and not a single, but always really dug the melody.
10. Snow – “Informer”
11. Nirvana – “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle”
    
    • Another full album representative. If I was ranking albums, In Utero would be higher. Hard to pick any one song so I’ll go with a deep cut that never got much attention.
12. Guns N’ Roses – “November Rain”
    
    • I can’t believe how well GNR has held up. I thought this was so ridiculous back in the day. It still sort of is. But these guys are as much geniuses as they are idiots. Slash’s guitar performance is an all-timer.
13. Arrested Development – “Tennessee”
    
14. Hum – “Green To Me”
    
15. Oasis – “Wonderwall”
    
16. Magnapop – “Firebrand”
    
    • Magnapop is one of about a billion alt-rock groups with one or zero songs most anyone remembers. But Rubbing Doesn’t Help album is a quintessential ’90s favorite.
17. Primus – “Tommy the Cat”
    
    • Primus headlines the category of “Bands I Was Super Into When I Was Younger But Never Ever Listen To Anymore.” I still appreciate their talent and creativity but no longer have a niche for extended jams about disgusting food. Still, I owe “Tommy the Cat” a place in my list.
18. Weezer – “Pink Triangle”
    
19. Digable Planets – “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)”
    
20. Lenny Kravitz – “Are You Gonna Go My Way?”
    
21. Screaming Trees – “Butterfly”
    
22. Cornershop – “Brimful of Asha”
    
    • I think Cornershop is generally considered a one-hit wonder (at least in the U.S.), but the whole album is a rock/Indian/electronic fusion delight. I’ve actually recently discovered their larger catalog, and have been really digging them.
23. Nirvana – “Sliver”
    
    • In high school, all Nirvana CDs were on constant rotation. Over time, I sort of played out each one and they disappeared from the regular rotation. The Incesticide compilation is what comes back out the most, as it turns out.
24. Oasis – “Champagne Supernova”
    
    • I didn’t get Britpop at all at the time, but (with help from a lot of exposure via Kristen) I’ve come around on it completely. I don’t have a solid Blur vs. Oasis vs. Pulp opinion, and though I like tons of all their songs, Oasis is the only one that ultimately made the top 90 cut (twice).
25. Weezer – “Only In Dreams”
    
    • 1994 Josh cites the Blue Album as his favorite record.
26. Faith No More – “Midlife Crisis”
    
    • The ’90s were post-peak for FNM but they were still putting out some solid stuff.
27. Catherine Wheel – “Balloon”
    
    • Your warning shot that a lot more shoegaze is coming.
28. U2 – “Zooropa”
    
    • My U2 fandom peaked in the early ’90s, but survives through Zooropa. I didn’t discover Brian Eno until I was older, and he’s among my favorites now, so it’s not really surprising that I latched onto this album, perhaps their most Eno-est. Otherwise I think it’s a generally unusual choice for a favorite U2 album, its singles were weird experiments and as a whole has decidedly mixed reviews. But I think it established a template for Radiohead’s postmodern languor and I continue to listen to it. I’ll go with the title track/opener for my list.
29. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin – “Happy”
    
    • Tough call on which Ned’s song to include. Could’ve rolled with “Grey Cell Green” or “Walking Through Syrup.” They’d be on a slightly longer list.
30. Hum – “Little Dipper”
    
31. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones – “Where’d You Go?”
    
32. Green Day – “Longview”
    
33. Bel Biv DeVoe – “Poison”
    
34. Urge Overkill – “Positive Bleeding”
    
35. REM – “What’s the Frequency Kenneth?”
    
36. The Lemonheads – “Confetti”
    
37. Sponge – “Molly (Sixteen Candles)”
    
38. Liz Phair – “Supernova”
    
39. Spin Doctors – “Two Princes”
    
    • I really hate the decades-later trite hipster slamming of certain music of the time that seems maybe like too sincerely 1990s. Hootie and the Blowfish and the Spin Doctors both come to mind as regular targets of such Pitchfork-ish smarm. One can like them or not, but this usually arrives in the form of lazy, un-nuanced bashing. I don’t know why I’m even reacting to Pitchfork, honestly. That’s just what they want me to do. I’m just saying that, given how there’s a pretty reliable correlation between positive Pitchfork ratings and male band members’ beard lengths, you’d think they’d be into the Spin Doctors.
40. REM – “Ignoreland”
    
41. Lush – “Sweetness and Light”
    
    • You are all lucky I don’t have 12 Lush songs in here. As a shoegaze staple, more are coming.
42. Catherine Wheel – “Flower to Hide”
    
    • And 12 Catherine Wheel songs, for that matter. Also more coming.
43. Lilys – “Tone Bender”
    
44. Boyz II Men – “Motownphilly”
    
45. Semisonic – “Closing Time”
    
46. Naughty By Nature – “OPP”
    
47. AC/DC – “Thunderstruck”
    
    • I’m not an AC/DC fan as a rule but feel very strongly about this track. A full post about it has been in draft form for about a year. When I can satisfactorily articulate my complex opinions about it, I will complete the post and publish it.
48. Polaris – “Hey Sandy”
    
    • This is the theme song from The Adventures of Pete and Pete. I’m not trying to capture what I liked during the ’90s with this list. In fact, I never even watched Pete & Pete until Kristen introduced me to it in maybe 2008 or 9. But it was an instant favorite. It no doubt gets a boost from associations with the show and watching with K, but it’s still a good song (and a really good album as a whole).
49. Ben Folds Five – “Army”
    
50. Pearl Jam – “Alive”
    
51. Ride – “OX4”
    
52. Smashing Pumpkins – “Hummer”
    
    • This is a similar choice to “Frances Farmer…” and “Only in Dreams” in that I’m using it to represent full great albums, and by coincidence, my actual favorite track wasn’t one of the singles.
53. Skee-Lo – “I Wish”
    
    • Never heard this song until maybe 2-3 years ago. It’s amazing. Rock and hip-hop have a lot of braggadocio that I don’t really care for generally. This one is Skee-Lo’s lament about being short, stinking at basketball, and having a crappy car. Also it’s groovy as hell.
54. Radiohead – “Creep”
    
    • Most ’90s lists have 1-3 songs entitled “Creep.”
55. Luna – “23 Minutes in Brussels”
    
56. Hum – “The Scientists”
    
57. Catherine Wheel – “Show Me Mary”
    
58. New Radicals – “You Get What You Give”
    
59. Beck – “Loser”
    
60. REM – “Man on the Moon”
    
61. Blind Melon – “No Rain”
    
    • I bought a Blind Melon t-shirt in high school. Usually I dressed pretty standard for the period—flannels, jeans, Chuck Taylors. The Blind Melon shirt unnaturally stood out among the rest of the rotation and taught me about observation bias. Every time I wore it people noticed my clothing, and they didn’t notice otherwise, ergo, everyone thought it was the only thing I ever wore and teased me about it. I don’t know what the lesson is. High school is stupid, maybe.
62. Liz Phair – “Polyester Bride”
    
63. Radiohead – “Let Down”
    
64. TLC – “Waterfalls”
    
65. Deee-Lite – “Groove is in the Heart”
    
    • We often hang out with our neighbors on New Year’s because (a) they are nice, fun people we like and (b) no way I’m driving anywhere on New Year’s. One year we listened to an extended countdown of the greatest party songs of all time on the radio. We had certain disagreements with the list, so we brought together a list of our own personal favorites the next year. All four of us, with a variety of musical interests and backgrounds, brought this song. Hence: Greatest Party Song of All Time.
66. Everclear – “Santa Monica”
    
67. Presidents – “Peaches”
    
    • The greatest song about food ever?
68. Alice in Chains – “Would?”
69. Ride – “Leave Them All Behind”
    
70. The Sundays – “Here’s Where the Story Ends”
    
71. Harvey Danger – “Flagpole Sitta”
    
72. Screaming Trees – “Nearly Lost You”
    
73. They Might Be Giants – “The Statue Got Me High”
    
    • It’s hard to compare TMBG to anything not-TMBG, so I decided to settle for only one from them on this list. There could be…a lot.
74. Sponge – “Plowed”
    
    • The Rotting Pinata album is bloody brilliant, but still overlooked, despite having two singles a lot of genre fans would recognize.
75. Pearl Jam – “Even Flow”
    
76. Lush – “Nothing Natural”
    
77. That Dog – “Hawthorne”
    
    • Another lost gem album alert.
78. The Breeders – “Invisible Man”
    
79. A Tribe Called Quest – “Scenario”
    
80. Nirvana – “Come As You Are”
    
    • I mean, almost anything off Nevermind is fine here.
81. Pavement – “Cut Your Hair”
    
82. James – “Laid”
    
83. Catherine Wheel – “Crank”
    
    • If I have one 1990s music cause, it’s that Catherine Wheel deserved better. Go listen to Ferment, Chrome, and Happy Days now please.
84. All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors – “Your Imagination”
    
    • “All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors” might have the worst band name on my list. They are also lost to obscurity: they don’t even have a Wikipedia page. But they have (at least) three excellent psychedelic/electronic/shoegaze albums. This track is a noise monster.
85. Cracker – “Low”
    
86. Pavement – “Summer Babe (Winter Version)”
    
87. Ride – “Vapour Trail”
    
88. My Bloody Valentine – “Only Shallow”
    
    • My all-time favorite band. I find it hard to rank individual songs for them, so I’ll tuck the best Loveless representative here behind two others that meant a bit more as singles.
89. Hum – “Stars”
    
    • I settled on three songs on this list from one of my favorites, the painfully underappreciated Hum. ’90s alt-rock enthusiasts might remember this one, maybe. I got obsessed with them.
90. The Breeders – “Cannonball”
    
    • My ultimate ’90s song: important to me, and importantly OF the ’90s. It was a gateway drug into a wider world of music that wasn’t strictly radio-friendly, that didn’t make sense on the surface, but went for some deeper, lasting level.

And now, for something of even less interest than Deep Space Nine recaps. What follows is a sampling of my musical interests, in the form of my favorite songs of 2017. I am not qualified to sum up the year in movies, because I watched like five, total. I am not qualified to sum up the year in news, because it was depressing as hell and I avoided what I could. Music, by comparison, is something I both like and feel good about. Should you, the reader, care at all about this? Well obviously no you should not, but consider this:

• I am an avid music fan of discerning, well-rounded musical taste.
  • Though it is heavy on the shoegaze and electronic genres I frequent.
• I can confidently declare that none of these songs are objectively bad.

That said,

• I’m kind of old and absolutely out of touch with new pop music. This is no kind of attempt to capture the international, national, regional, or local zeitgeist. It doesn’t even capture the zietgeist of my house, which also features my wife, who is really good at music and is smart.
  
• It is just a list of stuff that:
  • I liked
  • happened to be released in 2017
  • happened to be heard by me, also in 2017.

That is all. Thank you.