This week we're going to be counting down our list of the top 200 tracks of the 1990s. We've done a few of these decade lists on Pitchfork. Last year around this time, we ran down our 500 favorite tracks of the 2000s as part of larger project looking at the decade in a series we called P2K. In years past we've done lists of albums from the 70s, 80s, and 90s and songs from the 60s. But P2K aside, it's been a while since we reached back to look at the music of a decade. The time feels right for listening to and talking about the 90s.
In the last couple of years of indie music, you've been able to hear pretty clearly where younger artists who came of age in the 90s got some of their ideas. Talking about a new band, if you say that the synths in a track sounds "ravey" or that a band sounds like "classic indie rock" or that a production choice hearkens back to 90s R&B, people will have a sense of what you're talking about. These sounds are in the air. Though the 80s have been back in a big way for longer than most can remember, more artists are revisiting the sounds of the 90s and putting them into a new context.
Decades of music get more interesting over time. That's partly because some of the music is carried forward and becomes something new in the hands of the next generation, but also because it's never clear what will later seem embarrassing, what might vanish and re-emerge as an overlooked classic, and what will disappear completely. Over time, all of those things happen simultaneously, continuously shaping what a decade of music might mean. One track or album or artist can move fluidly between these categories, and people are going to disagree about what goes where.
In that respect, this list was different from any we've put together. For the first time, the age of the writer being polled had a huge impact on how he or she understood the music of the decade at hand. When Nirvana hit in late 1991, a couple of us were in our early 20s, while more than a few others were still in grade school. That gap proved to be an interesting puzzle. The further we got into voting, the more it became apparent that there were so many sides to the 90s story that it made sense to tell as many of them as possible. So unlike any big list we've ever done, we've only included one song per artist in order to take in as much as we can. Because of this approach, we've also included a collection of "See also" tracks to go deeper into the specific bands, sounds, and scenes. All song titles-- including the top 200 selections and the additional tracks-- link to YouTube searches so you can listen as you go. You can also hear most of the songs in our Spotify playlist.
You'll notice that a number of write-ups here mention the video for the song under discussion. The 90s were the first full decade when pop music was experienced as an a/v phenomenon for its duration. Videos were huge, and pop stars were also video stars, but MTV's "120 Minutes" meant that smaller bands also got to share in the fun. Be sure to check out last week's Top 50 videos of the decade to watch some of the very best, including videos for a lot of the songs mentioned here.
Next week we'll be back with a feature that takes a broader look at the decade, reaching beyond just music to talk about pop culture as a whole, so tune in for that as well. Thanks for reading. We'll return with album reviews on Tuesday, September 7.
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200. Transformer 2
"Fruit of Love (Techno Mix)"
[Profile; 1992]
"Fruit of Love" landed at a time when dance music was quickly fracturing into various subgenres-- from ambient house to production house to gabba to hardcore. "Fruit of Love" managed to incorporate elements from a number of these strains, featuring both a new agey pan flute alongside a pulsing Moroder-inspired bass. But the Italo-house piano stabs and diva vocals imploring the listener to "c'mon c'mon... raise your hands" are the beating heart of the tune, presaging the sunny nu-Balearic beat of the Tough Alliance and Delorean. It both encapsulates the splintering nature of dance music in the early-90s and resists easy classification, a euphoric house side that provides its own ecstasy. --Tyler Grisham
See also: Liquid, "Sweet Harmony"; Jam & Spoon, "Odyssey to Anyoona"
____199. Lambchop __
"Your Fucking Sunny Day"
__[City Slang; 1997]
In their near quarter-century run, the country-soul of Nashville's Lambchop has yet to enjoy the commercial success of bigger-than-indie-rock successors like labelmates Arcade Fire and Spoon. But like the bulk of Lambchop's magpie catalogue, "Your Fucking Sunny Day"-- the spry, sly and sardonic gem of 1997's Thriller-- at least predicts the ornate ambitions of indie rock's subsequent decade. The horns swell and glow. The crisp guitar line leaps and swivels. And with a vocal performance that's somehow cocksure but completely diffident, Kurt Wagner, one of the decade's true auteur bandleaders, sounds like a most unlikely pop star. --Grayson Currin
See also: Lambchop, "Soaky in the Pooper"; Pernice Brothers, "Overcome By Happiness"
198. Dillinja__
"The Angels Fell"
__[Metalheadz; 1995]
Fallen angels is about right. This track from prolific South London producer Dillinja captured jungle as it transitioned from raw breakbeat aggression into something more moody and cinematic. An early release on Metalheadz, the imprint started by the hyper-ambitious Goldie, it samples the eerie ambient-jazz of Vangelis' Blade Runner soundtrack imbuing the physical menace of his rhythms with the crazed genius charisma of Rutger Hauer: debonair, brutal, and dangerously unpredictable. But deadly panache is only half the story. Among all of jungle's furiously fast rhythms there may be none so purely head-wrecking as this multi-tiered monstrosity, simultaneously torpid and quicksilver, the one-two punches of its kicks bruising your ribs over bass flushes that sound like your entire nervous system shutting down. --Tim Finney
See also: Adam F, "Metropolis"; Metalheads, "Kemistry"
197. Danzig
"Mother '93"
[Def American Recordings; 1993]
In 1993, "Mother" was a five-year-old nugget from Danzig's instant-classic first album. So it was weird to see the former Misfits frontman, in all his ripped glory, enter MTV rotation thanks to a live version that improbably hit big. But then, "Mother" may be the greatest car-radio scream-along that metal gave us during the 90s-- Glenn Danzig's thugged-out Elvis wail tied to a brutally effective song about exposing otherwise sheltered people to a dark universe of music, one that Danzig himself pretty perfectly represented. And as it turned out, a whole lot of us did want to find hell with Glenn. Naturally, even Beavis and Butt-Head approved. --Tom Breihan
See also: Tool, "Sober"; Rocket From the Crypt, "On a Rope"
196. Tindersticks__
"City Sickness"
__[This Way Up; 1993]
Quick, what was Melody Maker's album of the year in 1993? No, it wasn't Suede's self-titled debut or Blur's Modern Life Is Rubbish; it was Tindersticks' debut, a brave and spot-on choice. That album by the Nottingham, England, sextet has perhaps the oddest mix of Continental elegance and discordant clang of anything released in the decade, and amid its opulent sprawl, "City Sickness" stands out as a fluid and graceful peak. Its simple but beautiful strings and easy rhythm give molasses-voiced singer Stuart Staples ample space for his take on the loneliness of crowds and bouncing in and out of love. --Joe Tangari
See also: Tindersticks, "Tiny Tears"; The Divine Comedy, "Tonight We Fly"
195. Cutty Ranks
"Limb By Limb"
[Fashion/VP; 1993]
Like a lot of mid-90s dancehall, the half-dozen digital layers that make up "Limb By Limb"'s rhythm mesh to create a kind of perpetual motion effect-- it fades out but you're pretty sure it's still bumping along somewhere. The effect is to make the MC riding the beat seem just as inexhaustible-- in Cutty Ranks' case his stentorian brutality comes off as effortless. But the track has a secret weapon, too, a pitched-up second voice like a vicious cyborg anti-conscience, playing even badder cop to funny, scary effect. It's no surprise that the song, with its DJ SS remix, became a key text for London's burgeoning jungle scene as well. --Tom Ewing
See also: Leviticus, "Burial"; UK Apachi With Shy FX, "Original Nuttah"
194. Boyz II Men
"Motownphilly"
[Motown; 1991]
Watching the "Motownphilly" video today is like receiving a transmission from another planet. In what universe did this make sense? Four preppy dudes singing doo-wop harmonies over Dallas Austin-produced New Jack Swing, shouting out cheesesteaks and South Street, doing the dorkiest "sexy" dance moves ever on the Delaware River waterfront. Michael Bivins of Bell Biv DeVoe (and formerly New Edition) makes a cameo, rapping from a toilet seat while reading a newspaper. OK, Boyz II Men were never cool-- did any one of the four of them even have a discernable personality?-- and the lameness only deepened as they went on to hold the charts hostage with treacly ballads like "End of the Road" and "I'll Make Love to You". But here, they managed to deliver one of the most ebullient and danceable documents of the early 90s hip-hop/R&B crossover. --Amy Phillips
See also: Shai, "If I Ever Fall in Love"; Jodeci, "Stay"
193. Positive K
"I Got a Man"
[Island; 1992]
"Man, I can't fucking believe this. How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?" As the opening dialogue lifted from Die Hard 2 attests, Bronx-born rapper Darryl Gibson's biggest hit was a sequel. Three years after getting brutally rejected by MC Lyte on duet "I'm Not Havin' It", Positive K returns to the same premise for "I Got a Man", this time raising failed pickup attempts to blockbuster proportions. The old-school sample (taken from the 1979 proto-hip-hop classic "That's the Joint" by the Funky Four +1) is perkier, the repartee wittier, and the woman who isn't having it now has a (hilariously relatable) motivation-- not that Positive's trying to hear that. He's too busy rapping both the male and female parts (that's him, pitch-shifted). Ayo technology. --Marc Hogan
See also: Skee-Lo: "I Wish", Sagat, "Funk Dat"
192. Harvey Danger
"Flagpole Sitta"
[Slash; 1998]
Right from the start, Seattle's Harvey Danger wanted to bite the hands that fed them-- not just the corporate machines that co-opted youthful dissent, but the fickle backbiting post-Nirvana "punk rock" subculture that treated credibility like a credit card. Think of "Flagpole Sitta" as a slightly more mature and jaded version of Green Day's "Longview". In Harvey Danger's world-- a world where their caustic candor shared Billboard real estate with such alternative rock landmarks like as the Barenaked Ladies' paean to Chinese chicken and the Goo Goo Dolls' big ballad crossover-- the couch is falling apart, the TV broke years ago, and the self-loathing has reached such levels of agonizing irony that when singer Sean Nelson hits one of his many fish-in-barrel bullseyes, you have to wonder if even he believes his own bullshit. --David Raposa
See also: Superdrag, "Sucked Out"; Nada Surf, "Popular"
191. Digable Planets
"9th Wonder (Blackitolism)"
[Pendulum; 1994]
While Digable Planet's debut "Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)" may have resonated with a wider audience, it was 1994's follow-up "9th Wonder (Blackitolism)" that stands up best today. With a breakbeat that reverberates with the airy echoes of a 45 set to 33 1/3rd and the laid-back precision of Bronx DJ vet Jazzy Joyce's scratching, the song retained the group's casual bohemian relaxation without the self-conscious "jazz-rap" affectation of their more popular 12". And while the group's rapping still twisted around in an unhurried cadence, the increasing references to Five Percent philosophy suggested that they had begun to articulate a more culturally centered outlook. --David Drake
See also: Brand Nubian, "Slow Down"; Us3, "Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)"
190. Refused
"New Noise"
[Burning Heart; 1998]
Neck-and-neck with Blur for the best "whoo" in a modern rock song for the 90s, "New Noise" was pointed at the exact same commercial jugular as "Song 2", but Refused had a decidedly different approach and attitude. Somewhere between ripping off D.C. hardcore mainstays the Nation of Ulysses with his first band and ripping off the soulful garage-rock of the Make-Up with his next, singer Dennis Lyxzén took the lead single from the band's wildly, unexpectedly ambitious album The Shape of Punk to Come as an opportunity to take aim at pretty much every rock band running. They all got their ears singed by this one, with nothing but some smoke and ghostly drum-and-bass effects left in the wake of the bullet. They almost had to break up after something this powerful. --Jason Crock
See also: Born Against, "Born Against Are Fucking Dead"; Drive Like Jehu, "Luau"
189. The Sundays
"Here's Where the Story Ends"
[Rough Trade; 1990]
With a sound derived from the Smiths and Cocteau Twins, the Sundays presented a more polished version of guitar jangle than many of their shaggier indie contemporaries. Behind Harriet Wheeler's winsome vocals, "Here's Where the Story Ends" expertly inhabits the blurred intersection between nostalgia and regret. Wheeler's jilted narrator feels ill at ease and tongue-tied, and she spends most of the song kicking herself for the things she's said and done. Yet when she sings with bittersweet affection for a "little souvenir of a terrible year" it is easy to imagine that for many listeners this song has become just such a keepsake. --Matthew Murphy
See also: Everything But the Girl, "Missing (Todd Terry Remix)"; The Softies, "Hello Rain"
188. Halo Benders
"Virginia Reel Around the Fountain"
[K; 1998]
Before Wolf Parade we had the Halo Benders, a Pac-NW indie rock supergroup featuring Doug Martsch of Built to Spill and K Records and Beat Happening founder Calvin Johnson. That they're mostly forgotten now outside of International Pop Underground devotees makes some sense-- their three full-lengths were heavy on ramshackle indie charm and a little light on memorable songs. "Virginia Reel Around the Fountain" from 1998's The Rebels Not In is the exception that proves the rule. During the opening instrumental section, the spacey guitar and bassline that manages to be both urgent and melancholy set the stage for Martsch and Johnson's dueling vocals, in which each seems to inhabit a completely different song. Martsch is singing about loneliness and wonder with untouchably innocent tenor, while Johnson raps in his baritone, talking about belly buttons and rhyming "savage" and "cabbage" because... well, they rhyme, so why not. It sounds messy, and it is, a little bit. But it's the glorious kind of mess that weds absurdity to heart-on-sleeve emotion, which also happens to be a pretty good definition of indie rock at its best. --Mark Richardson
See also: Beat Happening, "Tiger Trap"; Heavenly, "C Is the Heavenly Option"
187. Arab Strap
"The First Big Weekend"
[Chemikal Underground; 1996]
One of the lost legacies of Britpop is how its devolution into 60s-obsessed consensus-building seemed to galvanize and motivate artists on the fringes of UK indie. The "Brit" half of Britpop rarely spoke to or included even kids from provincial towns, let alone Scotland or Wales; no surprise then that many of the outsiders who emerged in 1996-97-- Super Furries, Belle and Sebastian, Gorky's, Hefner, Mogwai-- came from those nations.
The most outsider of all may have been Arab Strap, whose sing-spoke, hung-over slowcore aesthetic was announced with the singular "The First Big Weekend", a song that catalogued a weekend out in summer 1996. Were this a Britpop song it would have been a pint-hoisting, sloppy ballad or a chirpy celebrations of good times. Arab Strap had pints too (lots of them); and they had good times. But they also detailed the mundane and the frustration of it all-- watching "The Simpsons", public ordination, run-ins with ex-girlfriends, insomnia. And when it came to that summer's defining Britpop moment, the England-hosted Euro 96, they weren't singing "football's coming home" and dreaming of a championship like their neighbors to the South; they got so drunk that morning they slept right through the game. --Scott Plagenhoef
See also: Black Box Recorder, "Child Psychology"; Hefner, "Lee Remick"
186. Isolée
"Beau Mot Plage"
[Playhouse; 1999]
As the 90s wound down, the early-decade innovations of minimal techno were starting to filter into other areas of dance music. Where artists like Basic Channel had taken techno to new extremes of repetition and irradiated textures, later producers were folding these ideas into more emotive, sexually charged and dancefloor-friendly grooves. In 1999, Berlin producer Isolée hit on a particularly impressive fusion of these sounds with a track that became a touchstone for both deep house and minimal. "Beau Mot Plage" mixed eerie synth bubbles, dubbed-out snatches of high-life guitar, and snapping house percussion that eventually collapses headfirst into the deepest pit of dub bass and echo. Even with so much going on, "Beau Mot Plage" still retained the softest of touches, Isolée recognizing that the lasting memory of this tune's seduction resides in its unbearable lightness. --Tim Finney
See also: Basic Channel, "Phylyps Trak II"; Burger/Ink, "Twelve Miles High"
185. Herbert and Dani Siciliano
"So Now..."
[Phonography; 1997]
Matthew Herbert has a knack for making machines wiggle and sigh in an instantly identifiable way. When he put out "So Now...", the English polymath was busy introducing the notion of domesticated dance music via his album Around the House, an album constructed from samples of domestic items. That album hummed along with the kind of sumptuous yet richly minimal grooves that would give rise to the term "microhouse," and all the pieces of the puzzle are there on "So Now": a bulbous bass-line reduced to a suggestive murmur, tap-happy rhythm lines threaded into a stringy beat, breathy wisps of singing by Dani Siciliano. --Andy Battaglia
See also: Black Dog Productions, "Object Orient"; Mouse on Mars, "Frosch"
184. The Cure
"A Letter to Elise"
[Polydor/Elektra; 1992]
In 1992, the Cure found themselves under perhaps more pressure than they'd ever been in their career to date: It had been three years since the release of Disintegration, their most critically and commercially successful album yet, and with alt-rock mania at a fever pitch, expectations were running extraordinarily high. The resulting album, Wish, would find them exploring themes of elation and unbridled joy, in stark contrast to the brooding bleakness of their previous masterpiece. But among giddy, love-struck hits like "High" and "Friday I'm in Love" sat one of the more devastating breakup songs in their catalog, "A Letter to Elise".
The song's upbeat tempo and glistening major chords bely its subject matter, which finds Robert Smith, for once, doing the breaking off himself, distraught over his inability to love the girl the way he knows that she loves him. It would provide the group with one of their last genuinely moving songs, as Smith mournfully relays the moment he knew it was over: "Yesterday I stood and stared wide-eyed in front of you/ And the face I saw looked back the way I wanted to." --Ryan Schreiber
See also: U2, "Until the End of the World"; Peter Murphy, "Cuts You Up"
183. Mercury Rev
"Holes"
[V2; 1998]
Deserter's Songs marked the point when producer Dave Fridmann perfected the cosmic-orchestral sound he developed working on the Flaming Lips' Zaireeka in 1997. His production on Mercury Rev's fourth album counterbalanced the explosive noise of the band's earlier work with a toned-down moodiness. It all starts here with the opening track, which employs loud-soft dynamics and a kitchen-sink psychedelic palette to convey a sense of longing and wonder. The closing lines suggest that Mercury Rev knew they were hitting a peak here: "Bands," Mercury Rev frontman (and former Lips guitarist) Jonathan Donahue sang, are "those funny little plans/ That never work quite right." --Tyler Grisham
See also: The Delgados, "Everything Goes Around the Water"; Mercury Rev, "Car Wash Hair"
182. Opus III
"It's a Fine Day (Club Remix)"
[PWL International; 1992]
Rave was the perfect chance to make the everyday transcendent; when the weak became heroes, simple pleasures transformed into world-changing universalism. The original version of this Edward Barton song was a simple a cappella sung by his girlfriend Jane Lancaster, and it gained exposure thanks to tastemaking BBC radio DJ John Peel. Within a decade, it had become the inspiration for Opus III's cover, and a UK top 10 hit. The thunderous production of "It's a Fine Day", a tumultuous swirl of high-flying, kaleidoscopic adrenaline, gave an unrestrained, careless edge to the lyrics' comforting optimism, and turned it into a masterpiece of understatement. --David Drake
See also: SL2, "On a Ragga Tip"; The Prodigy, "Charly"
181. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
"Red Right Hand"
[Mute; 1994]
It's the perfect horror movie theme: Those inching organ jabs, the ominous tiptoeing of wire-brush strokes, the church bell gongs. It didn't take much for the most decade-defining spook-mongers to take notice, with "Red Right Hand" serving as both the key inspiration for the "X-Files" album and the Scream trilogy's sonic lynchpin. Part of it will be forever linked with images of the deserted streets of Woodsboro in Scream 3, which is kind of a shame considering it's a perfect little monster movie of its own, with Nick Cave starring as the American gothic granddaddy of the creep-out. --Zach Kelly
See also: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "The Ship Song"; Barry Adamson [ft. Jarvis Cocker], "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Pelvis"
180. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
"Bellbottoms"
[Matador; 1994]
There's nothing subtle about a band that yells its name at you in almost every song. So "Bellbottoms", the most gaudy and excessive expansion of the Blues Explosion playbook is also their defining moment. As if to send up the ubiquitous, point-missing charges of blackface that JSBX are somehow still accused of, "Bellbottoms" summons a thunderstorm of swooping Blaxploitation strings around the band's signature blues-punk sneer. The rest unfolds like a sampler platter of Spencer's favorite tricks-- JB's call and response, a chicken-wire breakdown-- making the track both guidebook and overture to JSBX's career. --Rob Mitchum
See also: The Make-Up, "Here Comes the Judge"; Royal Trux, "Back to School"
179. Field Mice
"Missing the Moon"
[Sarah; 1991]
Putting down Audrey Hepburn, British actress Emma Thompson recently defined "twee" as "mimsy-mumsy sweetness without any kind of bite." Zing? When it comes to twee pop, all the bile just proves this stuff can offend, after all. And no twee poppers deserve a warning label more than Field Mice, whose delicate suburban jangle epitomized UK indie Sarah Records. Sure, by this swan song-- with future Saint Etienne-r Ian Catt producing-- they were finding their edge someplace, well, edgier: the rippling synths and epic sweep of New Order. But instead of tearing the long-distance narrators apart, love is all that holds them close. Let's kiss and make up. --Marc Hogan
See also: Field Mice, "If You Need Someone"; Blueboy, "Clearer"
178. Broadcast
"Echo's Answer"
[Warp; 1999]
There's a certain kind of cool that nobody does quite like Broadcast. It always comes out in tracks like this one-- these minimalist songs where they sculpt a few sounds together until you feel like you can reach out and touch each one. You could point at all the places they might have learned this (library music, musique concrète, an old psych track called "Love Song for the Dead Che"), but in the end it hangs on Trish Keenan's voice, which is poised, precise, and sort of deadly. It's strange: this band was drawing a lot from the 60s, and yet this 11-year-old single still sounds like some kind of future. --Nitsuh Abebe
See also: Flowchart, "Flutter By Butterfly"; Cornelius, "Star Fruits Surf Rider"
177. Boredoms
"Super Are"
[Birdman Records; 1998]
One way to frame the Boredoms' mid-career transmogrification is that they went from minimizing the ubiquity of rock'n'roll to elevating the living shit out of it. By Super æ, and late in their ongoing Super Roots EP series, the Boredoms had gone from taking the piss out of rawk riffage (sloppily mocking it on Chocolate Synthesizer and Pop Tatari) to isolating and thematically framing it. "Super Are" shows how quickly they mastered the shift in tone. It first plays psychedelia off a primal chant, and then guitars swoop in with a Sabbath-like crunch, heralding a rock'n'roll freakout reminiscent of drugged-out krautrock pioneers. --Mike Orme
See also: Boredoms, "7"; PainKiller "Scud Attack"
176. Orbital
"Chime"
[FFRR; 1990]
Simon Reynolds called this early rave anthem "The British 'Strings of Life'," and the grounds for comparison between Orbital's buoyant first single and the Derrick May Detroit techno classic extend beyond the keyboard riff and pulsing beats. "Chime" shares the low-tech, handmade feel of "Strings", and its origins are equally humble. Rushing to finish a track before hitting up the pubs in Sevenoaks, England, in summer 1989, Orbital's Paul Hartnoll sorted through his dad's easy-listening records, nicked a few samples he still hasn't cleared, and cobbled together a track-- on his parents' cassette player, no less. Released at the dawn of the 90s, it went top 20 in the UK and established Orbital as a dance music force. They still perform the track for raving throngs today, heads and headlights bobbing. --Patrick Sisson
See also: Orbital, "The Box"; T99, "Anasthasia"
175. Stone Temple Pilots
"Interstate Love Song"
[Atlantic; 1994]
Sometimes one little visual changes everything. Like, say, Scott Weiland in a cowboy hat. In the years since its release, STP has seen its share of defenders crawl out of the shadows, banging on about Tiny Music's glam influences or No. 4's churn and burn. But Weiland in that cowboy hat, in the video for their grunge-country tune, leaning back all melancholy and wailing about leaving on Southern trains, said enough. Here was a dude, a little dyslexic, a little too pained, a little too obsessed with his own heroin addiction, but enormously melodic. Weiland, and the DeLeo Brothers were so good at what now seems MOR-- acoustic intros, power chords, high-tailing choruses-- that "Interstate Love Song" dominated rock radio at a time when that actually meant something, and forced those who dismissed their chunky, ill-fitting Core to reconsider, begrudgingly. --Sean Fennessey
See also: Soundgarden, "Outshined"; Garbage, "Only Happy When It Rains"
174. The Boo Radleys
"Lazarus"
[Creation; 1992]
The psychedelic dub intro never prepares you for the sudden avalanche of horns, but that's how the Boo Radleys' records went in the mid-90s: Martin Carr's songs were prone to the sharp left turn, and their fragmented logic makes the Giant Steps-Wake Up Boo!-C'mon Kids triptych of albums rewarding to revisit. The Lazarus of the title seems to refer to the way Sice Rowbottom's vocal keeps emerging shyly from the towering horns and guitar noise. It's the song that most clearly crystallizes the ambition of Giant Steps, an inverted anthem for shut-ins yearning to breathe free. --Joe Tangari
See also: Lush, "For Love"; Swervedriver, "Last Train to Satansville"
173. Shudder to Think__
"X-French Tee Shirt"
__[Sub Pop; 1994]
Pony Express Record was the most intensely and stealthily fucked-up album of the No Really Guys Alternative Rock moment-- a record that glistens like case-hardened, muscular, arena-ready grunge (by Dischord veterans!) and turns out to be filled with squirming alien pop. "X-French Tee Shirt" is its twisted, aphasic centerpiece. Its lyrics are utterly opaque, and Craig Wedren sings them like he can't decide whether to bellow you out of the room or kiss you on the forehead; the band hammers like a blacksmith; the entire final two-thirds of the song is a one-chord chorus; somebody paid way too much money for the video. --Douglas Wolk
See also: Sunny Day Real Estate, "Seven"; Girls Against Boys, "Super-Fire"
172. Gang Starr
"Mass Appeal"
[Chrysalis; 1994]
Though the Gang Starr project was already four albums deep by 1994, the partnership of Guru and DJ Premier still epitomized the 1990s New York hip-hop underground. In a time when the commercial prospects of the genre were expanding exponentially, "Mass Appeal" was Gang Starr's mission statement. In Guru's world, crass cash-ins were aesthetic betrayals. And his typically relaxed vocals work with distanced derision towards his targets, while Premier's production-- a simple six-note loop that clattered like urban train lines rattling beside chain link fences-- allied Guru's philosophy with its street-oriented found-sound counterpoint. --David Drake
See also: Jeru the Damaja, "Come Clean"; EPMD, "Crossover"
171. Black Box
"Everybody Everybody"
[RCA; 1990]
You know how it goes: Three Italian house fiends employ French supermodel girl (Katrin Quinol) as the lip-syncing face for their new band; said boys also recruit American plus-sized girl (disco diva Martha Wash) to record uncredited vocal tracks for said band under false pretenses; boys realize international pop-crossover success with tunes featuring those vocals; girl successfully sues boys and boys' record label for due recognition and compensation. And while Wash's contributions to "Everybody Everybody" are essential, it's the borrowed bit Black Box presumably didn't get sued for-- the sample of Cameo lead singer Larry Blackmon's unmistakable "owwww"-- that separates this track from the hundreds of pop-house bandwagoneers that followed. --David Raposa
See also: Robin S, "Show Me Love"; Culture Beat, "Mr. Vain"
170. Noreaga
"SuperThug____"
[Penalty; 1998]
Both before and after "SuperThug", Noreaga was a man without a country. Before its release he was creatively stranded when Capone, his partner in core-throttling New York rap, was sentenced to a prison term. After the release of the song-- which sported a startling militarized futurism and an indelible "What what what!" hook-- N.O.R.E. found himself in a genre wasteland, somewhere between Queens and Mars. Chalk it up to an emerging Virginia production team, the Neptunes, arriving at their signature sound. Noreaga, a lightning bolt of energy and absurdism, was the perfect foil, and he was never more at home than over their soon to be signature stop-start percussion and earworm Casio presets.
Ironically, despite its enduring legacy as the Neptunes' breakthrough, "SuperThug" wasn't Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo's first chart hit. That belonged to Ma$e, whose "Lookin' At Me" bore the Neptunes' imprimatur and reached no. 8 on Billboard's Hot 100. No one remembers "Lookin' at Me", but "SuperThug", released the same year, is unforgettable. --Sean Fennessey
See also: The LOX [ft. Lil' Kim & DMX]: "Money, Power & Respect"; Kool G Rap & DJ Polo: "On the Run (Dirty Untouchable Version)"
169. Suede
"We Are the Pigs"
[Nude; 1994]
Suede could have been just another UK music press hype, slapped on the cover of Melody Maker at the earliest possible time (in their case, before their first single) only to disappoint. Instead, they delivered on the hyperbole with a charged and confident debut that unwittingly became a key document in the birth of Britpop. By the time they made its follow-up Dog Man Star, they'd endured two dispiriting U.S. tours and guitarist Bernard Butler wasn't speaking to the other members. His roiling guitar on "We Are the Pigs" nonetheless converses perfectly with Brett Anderson's swaggering croon, and the song stormily encapsulates the band's rejection of the movement they helped to launch. --Joe Tangari
See also: Suede, "The Drowners"; Manic Street Preachers, "Motorcycle Emptiness"
168. Alice in Chains
"Would?"
[Columbia; 1992]
What caused the mass hallucination that made us all believe that grunge was anything other than straightforward hard rock sludge disguised in flannel shirts? Few songs from the genre can survive the harsh light of hindsight, but "Would?" holds up. It's a song very much of the Seattle scene but one that rises above its lumbering, melody-free brethren. Most of the credit is due to grunge's Simon & Garfunkel-- Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell-- whose harmonies over the nearly subsonic bass rumble grant the verses an exotic spookiness. The harmonies push Staley's caterwauling on the standard arena-rock choruses (and a killer bridge) to true catharsis. --Rob Mitchum
See also: Helmet, "Unsung"; Faith No More, "Epic"
167. Apollo Two
"Atlantis (I Need You) (LTJ Bukem Remix)"
[Good Looking; 1993]
When he wasn't assembling various artists comps under his Good Looking and Looking Good imprints, producer LTJ Bukem spent most of the 90s tempering the skull-shattering rhythms of 'ardcore and drum'n'bass with lush, expansive soundscapes. His 1993 track as Apollo Two, "Atlantis (I Need You)", stands as a perfect example of that deft structural synthesis. The superior remix on the B-side takes cybernetic glitches from the flip and adds a piston-firing sample of the "Amen" break to amp up the energy. But it's the congo-layered, warm-toned midsection that evokes the underwater kingdom of the title and expands the emotional range of d'n'b with every passing bar. --Larry Fitzmaurice
See also: A Guy Called Gerald: "Nazinji-Zaka"; Goldie, "Inner City Life"
166. En Vogue__
"My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)"____
__[EastWest; 1992]
Five top 10 singles (six if you count brassy Salt'n'Pepa collaboration "Whatta Man", which you should). Three platinum albums. En Vogue take a lot of knocks for their manufactured origins, but plenty of us are glad they passed the audition. With simmering (not shimmering) James Brown guitars, fidgety new-jack beats, and tightly harmonized "ooh BOP"s, funky divas Cindy Herron, Maxine Jones, Terry Ellis, and Dawn Robinson gave the Sister Act era its "Respect". When the radio announcer says, "Now it's time for a breakdown," man, do they break it down. What's to get? --Marc Hogan
See also: En Vogue: "Hold On"; Salt'n'Pepa [ft. En Vogue], "Whatta Man"
165. Helium
"Pat's Trick"
[Matador; 1994]
Helium existed at the nexus of riot grrrl sexual politics and meat-and-potatoes indie rock, yet never really caught on with either crowd. The pinnacle of their fame probably came when Beavis and Butt-Head called frontwoman/guitar heroine Mary Timony a ho while watching the "Pat's Trick" video. (She's driving a bulldozer while wearing a mini skirt.) Which is a shame, because legions of surly young women lost out on a potential goddess in Timony, whose complex fretwork was as stunning as her combative, feminist lyrics, often issued in a husky monotone. Even when she declares, "You are the most beautiful thing," in "Pat's Trick", it sounds like a dangerous threat. --Amy Phillips
See also: Velocity Girl, "Sorry Again"; Rocketship, "Hey, Hey, Girl"
164. The Auteurs
"Unsolved Child Murder"
[Hut Recordings; 1995]
Like a lot of Britpop contenders, the Auteurs never really achieved liftoff, even though they deserved to. Led by Luke Haines, one of the more complicated British songwriters of the last 15 years, the quartet churned out four full-lengths of artful and caustic indie rock. They were possibly never better than on "Unsolved Child Murder", a woodsy and sweet-sounding acoustic ballad whose lyrics conveyed the vivid brutality and provincial banality around a small town abduction with a disarming mix of bitter contempt and sympathy. The puzzling lyric that raises more questions than it answers, even 15 years later. --Mark Pytlik
See also: The Auteurs, "The Rubettes"; Denim, "Middle of the Road"
163. The Afghan Whigs
"Gentlemen"
[Blast First; 1993]
"I'm a gentleman! I'm a gentle man!" Greg Dulli practically screams on the title track to the Afghan Whigs' 1993 major-label debut. As alt-rock donned flannel and turned inward to the point of self-absorption, the Whigs sported tailored suits and an air of conflicted introspection, as if Dulli alone among his contemporaries was willing to go to the darker wings of the male psyche. Meanwhile, Dulli and Rick McCollum's guitars jitter and contort and ride drummer Steve Earle's thundering toms to form a tense, threatening groove. "Gentlemen" is one of the most harrowing, horrifying break-up songs of the decade, with music that matches the violence of the words. --Stephen M. Deusner
See also: The Afghan Whigs, "Debonair"; Urge Overkill, "Sister Havana"
162. Red House Painters
"Katy Song"
[4AD; 1993]
When it comes to detailing the unrequited and hopelessly lost love in "Katy Song", restraint is not an option. The imagery may be downright funereal, but the longing behind Mark Kozelek's words is the shirt-rending stuff of trashy romance paperbacks. What keeps this song from edging into mawkish self-absorption are those moments when there are no words. Some might point to the track's semi-ironic coda (with Kozelek offering some of the saddest ba-ba-bas ever put to tape). I'm partial to the sad dance that occurs with the bass and lead guitar between verses, both instruments moving solemnly in concert with each other like lovers clinging to the faded memories of what once was. --David Raposa
See also: Red House Painters, "New Jersey" (second version); American Music Club, "Sick of Food"
161. Kelis
"Caught Out There"
[Virgin; 1999]
"Caught Out There" is a song about being angry-- Kelis does after all shout "I hate you so much right now!" to her betraying lover-- but it's more complicated than that. The song's other emotions include loneliness ("When you don't come home to me/ Can't deal/ Can't bear"), pride ("Maybe you didn't break how you should've broke, yo/ But I break"), and disbelief ("Damn"). Soundtracking this post-breakup mania is a top-rate, ahead-of-its-time Neptunes production, with snapping keyboards accompanied by high-pitched tones that sound like dynamite exploding in space. In a word: Damn. --Larry Fitzmaurice
See also: Moby [ft. Kelis], "Honey (Remix Edit)"; Moloko, "Sing It Back"
160. Mogwai
"Mogwai Fear Satan"
[Chemikal Underground; 1997]
It's odd that Mogwai were post-rock poster boys from the start. "Fear Satan" does share some qualities with the drifting ambience initially associated with that term-- it's long, it's reflective, it doesn't have vocals. But this is an unashamed rock song. As opposed to the vein of "post-rock" exemplified by Stereolab, Laika, Disco Inferno, and others who abandoned traditional rock'n'roll building blocks, this doesn't turn its back on classic or hard at all-- at times it sounds like the second half of "Layla" conducted by Glenn Branca. As with Branca, what hits hardest is the repetition-- the way Mogwai remix themselves, playing one ascending figure over and over while piling up the bombast and cascading down into clouds of flute and echo. --Marc Masters
See also: Mogwai, "Burn Girl Prom Queen"; Flying Saucer Attack, "Soaring High"
159. The Roots
"The Next Movement"
[MCA; 1999]
Philadelphia hip-hop collective the Roots had long been making inroads with both leftfield icons (J Dilla, Common) and head-knock purists. But their fourth album, Things Fall Apart, elevated them from a regionally acclaimed hip-hop curiosity (they were an actual band that played live!) to something far more vital. The album's first single, "You Got Me", featured Erykah Badu and positioned the Roots as hired guns for the budding nu-soul movement they were closely linked to. But "The Next Movement"-- a storm-struck, darkly jazzy follow-up-- captured the essence the Roots' relationship with hip-hop. It starts with ?uestlove's kick drum and springy snare hit and is followed by an exuberant "Woooo!", but as playfully jammy as it sounds, the ominous unease lurking beneath the surface gives the song unexpected depth. Bringing together the best of what they'd accomplished to date, "The Next Movement" helped to push the Roots from underground favorites to hip-hop's first team. --Zach Kelly
See also: The Coup, "Me and Jesus the Pimp in a '79 Grenada Last Night"; Black Eyed Peas, "Joints & Jam"
158. White Town
"Your Woman"
[Chrysalis; 1997]
You wouldn't know it from the retro new-wave pop sound of this hit single, but India-born, UK-based Jyoti Mishra was a twee-pop veteran and ex-Marxist who'd grown up identifying with the anorak underground: Slumberland and Summershine were big labels in his world. When he began recording as White Town in 1990 for the Urbana, Illinois twee label Parasol Records, those recordings were a clear influence on his own brand of jangly indie pop.
Eventually feeling limited by guitars, Mishra turned to his computer for inspiration. The result was a CD single titled >Abort, Retry, Fail?_(Your Woman), which then-BBC Radio 1 DJ Marc Radcliffe discovered in the fall of 1996 and helped turn into a UK #1. The attention resulted in a short-lived U.S. record deal with Chrysalis, and "Your Woman" eventually found itself faring nicely in the U.S. charts. An authentic-sounding throwback to the early 80s synth-pop of UK acts like the Buggles and the Human League that was built on a loop from a 1932 jazz track by Lew Stone and the Monseigneur Band, the track was utterly out of step with seemingly every music trend at the time. Perhaps that's partly why it still sounds great today. --Ray Suzuki
See also: Land of the Loops, "Multi-Family Garage Sale"; Looper, "Impossible Things #2"
157. Juvenile
"Ha"
[Cash Money; 1998]
"Ha" was a multidimensional phenomenon that shook the rap world. Everything about the track, from the artful realism of its video to Cash Money house producer Mannie Fresh's cement-brick-bleak production was a step into new territory for hip-hop. But Juvenile himself made the most significant break, offering an impressionistic portrait of a Southern hustler archetype that redefined rap's rulebook. With novel style, Juvenile's conversational verses sketched a man dealing with the world he is given. Unresolved in its judgment of the character, "Ha" feels sympathetic one moment and accusatory the next, pushing rap's narrative boundaries while carving out a space for one of its foremost MCs. --David Drake
See also: B.G. [ft. Big Tymers, Hot Boys], "Bling Bling"; Lil Wayne [ft. Juvenile and B.G.], "Tha Block Is Hot"
156. Omni Trio
"Renegade Snares (Foul Play VIP Mix)"
[Moving Shadow; 1993]
From Timbaland to UK garage to microhouse, 21st century beats have been broken (and reassembled) in ways that would have seemed impossible in the early days of rave, when cheap samplers and off-brand home computers were the weapons of choice. Yet 17 years from its release, "Renegade Snares (Foul Play VIP Mix)" is still a thrilling example of how beat science can be experimental and ecstatically affecting all once. It also doesn't quite fit with any of the genres that had laid claim to it over the years. Those titular snares, chopped and chopped again into new riffs, felt pinpoint precise next to the raw loops of breakbeat-driven hardcore. Its sentimental piano melody looked away from the rap-meets-ragga menace of jungle. And while Omni Trio's craft helped give birth to drum'n'bass, "Renegade Snares" was a pop rush, rather than a brooding display of skill. --Jess Harvell
See also: Foul Play, "Open Your Mind (Foul Play Remix)"; Hyper-On Experience, "Lords of the Null-Lines"
155. Destiny's Child
"Bills, Bills, Bills"
[Columbia; 1999]
"Bills Bills Bills" wasn't the first great piece of jittery post-Timbaland R&B, but it was the first to offer a performance that mirrored the hyper-finesse of the style's insectile stop-start surfaces. Beyoncé (in lead) is as precise and syncopated as the beat as she vents ("don't know where none of these calls come from," she mimics, waving the phone bill in your face, "when your momma's number's here more than once!"). Behind her, Destiny's Child are inexhaustible in their contempt, while the creepy, stabbing harpsichord arrangement is unrelenting in its judgment. --Tim Finney
See also: SWV, "Right Here (Human Nature)"; Destiny's Child, "Bug A Boo"
154. Pharoahe Monch
"Simon Says"
[Rawkus; 1999]
Monch was renowned for his lyrical and technical pizzazz in Organized Konfusion, but these qualities were at a low premium in the getting jiggy with it era of late-90s hip-hop. He achieved his pop moment by breaking character. He illegally sampled the "Godzilla" theme, jacking the intro and speeding up a rising four-note brass blurt into battle rap legend. (If you can't wreck fools over "Simon Says", you just can't wreck fools.) He sidelined his wordplay and commanded that we get the fuck up in a telegraphic bark audible from the cheap seats. Many songs strongly suggest this. Few so tangibly exude bodily harm if we don't. --Brian Howe
See also: Dr. Octagon, "Blue Flowers"; Company Flow, "Vital Nerve"
153. The Clientele__
"We Could Walk Together"
__[Fierce Panda; 1997]
Sometimes you reach a point with music when comforting sounds are more appealing than fresh or radical ones. At times like this, you can count on the Clientele. The Londoners have always been retro-minded, drawing heavily on the 60s, and on "We Could Walk Together" they offer a rich take on pastoral pop of that era. It's one of their more textural tracks-- rattling drums and plucked guitars create a grainy feeling-- but ultimately it feels cozy and autumnal, like, well, a sweater. There's romance and yearning here, but singer Alaisdar MacLean doesn't force it-- this is music to soak in at your own leisure. --Joe Colly
See also: The Clientele: "An Hour Before the Light"; The Lucksmiths, "Guess How Much I Love You"
152. Jane's Addiction__
"Stop!"
__[Warner Bros.; 1990]
Ritual De Lo Habitual's "Stop!" is a druggy, ecstatic bit of alt-metal that got stuck playing little sister to the far-goofier "Been Caught Stealing." Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell-- androgynous, streaked with eyeliner, and in possession of an odd, little kid mew-- knew how to twist L.A. glam-metal into something considerably darker, and "Stop!", with its echoing incantations of rebellion ("The world is loaded, it's lit to pop and nobody is gonna stop!"), felt both new and, well, unstoppable. --Amanda Petrusich
See also: Jane's Addiction, "Been Caught Stealing"; Rage Against the Machine, "Bulls on Parade"
151. Green Day
"Longview"
[Reprise; 1994]
1994 was a confusing year for Green Day, as they found themselves riding a ridiculous groundswell of popular success to all sorts of strange places, like the center stage at Woodstock 94. It would be another 10 years before Billie Joe Armstrong would be comfortable enough with this spotlight to attempt something resembling a Big Statement. Back then it was all about "Longview", a song that succeeded so massively because it made wallowing in self-pity sound like a blast. The song's protagonist might be too depressed to even masturbate, but the cheerful singsong melody belies the sentiment entirely. Tre Cool's backbeat swings like the "George of the Jungle" theme song, and even Mike Dirnt's bass intro seems to be chuckling. "I'm so damn bored I'm going blind and I smell like shit" suddenly sounds the invitation to a can't-miss party. --Jayson Greene
See also: Green Day, "Basket Case"; Rancid, "Ruby Soho"
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