So I had a hard time picking for this theme, largely because I Love The Nineties. I love the cheesy top 40, I love the grunge, I love the New Jack Swing, I love the weird alternative stuff that got played once and then forgotten, blah blah blah I have way too much nineties music. But anyway. A selection. Beth Orton - Live as You Dream and Someone's Daughter Is it folk? Is it pop? Is it singer-songwriter? Is it electronic? I have no idea! -buy Belly - Feed the Tree and Gepetto. Weirdo sweet-voiced pop music from the other half of Throwing Muses. -buy- Blake Babies - Girl in a Box and Out There Before Juliana Hatfield took off for greener pastures, she was making lyrically disturbing janglepop with the Blake Babies. Out There is maybe more of a foreshadowing of her solo work. -buy- Cowboy Mouth - How Do You Tell Someone and Take It Out on Me Stomping Southern rock and roll with a country twist. -buy- Everclear - Pale Green Stars and Twistinside The monster hit from this album was Santa Monica, but I never really liked that song. Pale Green Stars starts off Art Alexakis' oeuvre about children with imperfect parents, somewhat heartbreakingly, and Twistinside is a slacker's theme song. -buy- Garbage - Only Happy When It Rains and Vow A band comprised of three producers and a hot redhead Scottish chick. It had to go somewhere, didn't it? -buy Geto Boys - My Mind is Playing Tricks on Me and Still Ah, gangsta rap. Parents hated it, kids bought it in droves, and Tipper Gore tried to ban it. Good times. -buy- L7 - Wargasm and Pretend We're Dead Wargasm samples Yoko Ono to make a sadly still-relevant point about war, and Pretend We're Dead mocks conformity and the Moral Majority in equal parts. -buy- The Sundays - My Finest Hour and Here's Where the Story Ends Dreamy, jangly, and very English, with an emphasis on the 'mustn't grumble' attitude. Tin Tin Out made a hideous remake of Here's Where the Story Ends a couple of years ago, and I am still upset about it. -buy- HUM - Stars Guitar-heavy, otherworldly one hit wonder. Sadly so, because this was a fantastic song from a fantastic album. -buy- P.M. Dawn - Set Adrift on Memory Bliss Hey, remember the feud between KRS-One and Prince Be, when KRS-One charged the stage during a P.M. Dawn concert, and trash-talking ensued? That was awesome. -buy- Stacey Q - Two of Hearts I seem to remember the video, where she had her hair teased up high and doing a 'dance move' that consisted of her scissoring her fingers together. Or maybe I'm just hallucinating. -buy- Blackstreet - No Diggity The catchiest part is the sample, which doesn't even have words, just a hum that's somewhere between blues and gospel. I have no idea what this song is actually about, which doesn't make it any less great. -buy- Rancid - Salvation (m4a format) Singalong pop punk, with a shouted Ramones-style chorus. I wanted to drag out ...And Out Come the Wolves, but, um, I can't find it. -buy- Eve6 - Inside Out Hello, lyrics that make no sense. Hello, misplaced intensity! Why so glum? -buy- October Project - Ariel My gut feeling is that the song is based on The Tempest, but it could just as easily be, I don't know, Disney's The Little Mermaid or something. I like the orchestral melodrama, anyway. -buy- Color Me Badd - I Wanna Sex You Up My mother hated this song. Which meant I loved it. -buy- Tony Toni Tone - If I Had No Loot Sing it with me: "New Jack SWING, comin' atcha!" -buy- Lit - My Own Worst Enemy They kind of sound like a less fratboyish version of Sugar Ray. It's another "Baby, I'm sorry I'm such a loser but I love you" song. -buy- B-Rock and the Bizz - My Baby Daddy I'm not sure if this song is funny or sad or both. The male and female vocals are the best part. -buy- Donna Lewis - I Love You Always Forever Syrupy sweet top 40 cuteness, destined to be played at a thousand and one weddings. -buy- Dog's Eye View - Everything Falls Apart It's about fatalism. Or masochism. Or being a martyr. Catchy tune, though. -buy- Gina G - Ooh Aah...Just a Little Bit It has no redeeming musical value whatsoever, which is what makes it great. -buy- House of Pain - Jump Around I'm from MA, and I grew up in the nineties. So naturally this song got played at every single middle school dance I went to. -buy- Fuel - Shimmer I think it's the same Fuel who did Hemorrhage in My Hands. But this is a much prettier song. -buy- The Posies - Ontario See Blake Babies above. Lyrically twisted, bitter power pop. This was awesome for my teen angst. -buy- The Story - So Much Mine It may well be about meeting an old lover on the street, but I have a suspicion that it's actually about mothers and daughters. Do I detect a flute? -buy- The sad thing is that I could have kept going.