90s Anthems

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Total is by far one of the most underrated R&B groups of the 90s. Written by and featuring Missy Elliott, this sexy song about losing your cool over your boo is catchy and bouncy. “Trippin” would become the biggest hit of their career after going to No.7 on the Billboard Hot 100. 47: 702 – Where My Girls At One of the most unforgettable videos of the decade, Keith Sweat’s “Twisted” was a three-minute murder-mystery-romance that helped to launch the second wave of the R&B impresario’s career. A runaway hit, “Twisted” is infectious and danceable, and Sweat’s distinctive vocal style makes it a song only he could have pulled off. 36: Erykah Badu – On & On When “Mo Money Mo Problems” arrived in the summer of 1997, Diana Ross’ hiccupping sample and Kelly Price’s sashaying lamentation as ubiquitous as a heat wave, Biggie Smalls had been dead for four months. Mase and Puff Daddy—then nearing the release of their respective debuts—took the lead, playfully plodding through opening verses and goofing on Tiger Woods and Bryant Gumbel in a paradoxically ostentatious video. In that life-after-death context, it was impossible not to hear the song’s tragic irony, like a warning by and for B.I.G. about the fate that may await such a contentious and ostentatious superstar. But the anthem’s enduring power stems from its moral simplicity, epitomized by Biggie’s monstrous minute-long verse, buried in the second half: Stay true to your roots and crew, even as you aspire for the cover of Fortune. This was never a song about dying or problems, really; it was a song about living through a moment’s madness, of making it out intact and sane. –Grayson Haver Currin

More than 20 years after its initial release, “It’s Friday night and the weekend’s here, I need to unwind” remain some of the most resonant words in R&B history. With a swinging beat and soft, lush production, Zhané’s “Hey Mr. DJ,” from the duo’s debut album, Pronounced Jah-Nay, is the perfect representation of R&B’s prime objective: to be the sonic expression of the soul of the everyman and everywoman. 4: Montell Jordan: This Is How We Do It Spiderbait enjoyed a brief moment of recognition in the US when “Calypso” was featured in the great teen comedy 10 Things I Hate About You, though fans of the spiky Aussie pop-punk band probably would’ve been more familiar with “Buy Me a Pony.” It’s amazing to think of how many hooks Spiderbait could cram into songs that weren’t even two minutes long. Saint Etienne – Only Love Can Break Your Heart (1990) Very little of what Elizabeth Fraser sings on Heaven or Las Vegas – and the Cocteau Twins’ discography as a whole – sounds like anything in the English language, but her voice possesses an uncanny evocative power. The way her wordless vocals swirl around Robin Guthrie’s guitar on the luminous “Cherry-Coloured Funk” can practically induce rapture. There’s a reason why critics sometimes referred to Fraser as “the voice of God.” Concrete Blonde – Joey (1990) After suffering through heartache Deborah Cox is surprised to find a new love possessing the key to her heart. The unlikely, gospel-inflected hit helped establish Cox as a household diva of the 90s and eventually became a gay anthem, thanks to a remix by Hex Hector. 62: Tamia – So Into You The widow of Notorious B.I.G., Faith Evans’s musical talent is often overshadowed by her personal life. But the church-choir-bred vocalist had a talent that was leaps and bounds beyond many of her peers. Honeyed and at once yearning and comforting, Evans’ velvet voice skims over this wistful romantic ballad with depth and precision. 71: Silk – Freak MeTevin Campbell was everyone who ever tried to find the courage to talk to their crush. “Can We Talk” was all about the angst of teenage love, longing and words left unsaid. 41: Hi-Five – I Like The Way (The Kissing Game)

Oasis have two further songs inside Greatest Songs of the 90s Top 10 – ‘Wonderwall’ at Number 3 and ‘Live Forever’ at Number 5. ‘Champagne Supernova’ narrowly missed out on the Top 10 at Number 12. Let’s clear up a common misconception: Despite the apparent lustfulness of its opening verse (“You let me violate you / You let me desecrate you”) and the chorus, Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” is not a sexy song. Its lyrics are not about desire, but an all-consuming self-hatred that makes you want to use someone else as a means to your own annihilation. That being said, “Closer” has a groove that’s as unsettling as it is undeniable – it’s “I Want Your Sex” for nihilists. Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991) Written and produced by the legendary Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, this inspiring gospel/R&B song reminds listeners to, “keep your head up to the sky” and “to hold on to your dreams.” In 1991, this song went all the way to No.3 on the Hot R&B/Hip Hop songs chart. 63: Deborah Cox: Nobody’s Supposed To Be Here

Belly: “Feed the Tree” (1993)

The 4 Non Blondes got their start in the San Francisco bar scene, especially lesbian bars, which garnered them a significant following of queer women. Having perfected the blueprint for early 90s R&B songs, New Edition proved they were no longer just a fresh-faced boy band and were all grown up with “I’m Still In Love.” The second single from the fittingly titled Home Again album saw the group reunite with frontman Bobby Brown along with their veteran production team of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to create a sensual jam that stormed the charts. 55: Dionne Farris – Hopeless When Mother Love Bone frontman Andrew Wood passed away in 1990, his former roommate Chris Cornell teamed up with two of Wood’s bandmates – guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament – to pay tribute to their fallen comrade. Though its members would go on to scale greater heights in Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog was a formidable act in its own right, as proven by the chart success of the supergroup’s eponymous album and its lead single, “Hunger Strike.” It’s one of grunge’s earliest works, and one of its most essential. That Dog – Minneapolis (1997)

Putting their “Freek’n You” of days of Jodeci behind them, brothers K-Ci and JoJo Hailey returned to their traditional roots with their side project, Love Always, consisting of more wholesome R&B fare. When JoJo penned “All My Life” for his daughter, he had no idea it would become the duo’s longest-running number-one single of their career and one of the most popular wedding songs of all time. 60: Sade – No Ordinary Love No decade is a musical monolith, but seeing the best songs of the ‘90s listed all in one place, the era seems especially scattered. History has boiled it down to grunge and gangsta rap on one end, boy bands and Britney Spears at the other, but it’s the stuff in the middle and on the fringes that makes the period difficult to sum up.It was his first single since his arrest by undercover police officers for performing a lewd act in public, which prompted him to come out as gay. The lyrics to the song disparage the incident and include the lines “I’d service the community, but I already have, you see” (he was given community service for the incident). Michael has said he wanted to lighten the stigma around cruising, and, for me, it lightened the stigma around being gay in general. Leave it to Mariah Carey, the girl next door, to make pure lust sound so naive, so syrupy sweet, that it could be read as something pious to a passerby. Leave it to a diva at the height of her fame to describe being horny as feeling “kinda hectic inside,” and to articulate it by singing more dizzying runs than an amusement park’s worth of rides. It feels right that she wrote, produced, and recorded “Fantasy” in only two days, roughly the amount of time a person can live solely on the giddiness of a flirtation and the anticipation of an eventual release. Here’s what love at 26, the age at which she put out the song, could feel like. It’s what you want love to feel like for the rest of your life, too. Played during the closing credits of The Lion King, the song was originally to be performed by characters from the movie , but John objected to its comical nature. He wanted it to follow “Disney’s tradition of great love songs” and said it had the potential to be used to “express the lions’ feelings for each other far better than dialogue could”.