In my 80’s post, I made a lot of specific lists. I didn’t do a specific list post for the 90’s, so I will address some of those lists here. Among the 250 songs in this post, you will find songs that would fit the following lists, so there will at least be a #1 for all of these lists, just by going through this list: Best Song Written for a Film, Best One-Hit Wonder (using this list), Best Song by a One-Hit Wonder that Isn’t Their ‘Hit’ (I count seven and in four of those cases their ‘hit’ doesn’t make my list), Best B-Side, Best Cover (every decade from the 50’s through the 90’s has at least one and even the 30’s has one), Best Long Song, Funniest Song, Best Billboard #1 Single (because of changes to how music was sold and tracked, there were a lot fewer #1’s in the 90’s because they stayed on the list longer, but still, there are only 5 #1’s on the list, as opposed to 37 in the 80’s), Best British #1 That Didn’t Hit #1 in the US, Grammy Winner for Song of the Year. There is no list for Best Cover of a 90’s Song post 1999 because of the songs on the list, only two of them have covers I can honestly recommend and both of those covers were recorded in the 90’s. There is no Worst Billboard #1 Single because so many of them are so terrible, though the Brits sent “I Wanna Sex You Up”, my second least favorite song of the decade to #1 (thankfully, my least favorite song ever, “Wonderwall” stalled at #2 on the British charts).
Some other ones that aren’t addressed are Best Television Theme (Malcolm in the Middle), Best Song Written for a Stage Musical (“Sunset Boulevard” followed by “The Heat is on in Saigon”), Top Use of a Song in 90’s Movie, Top Video (“Losing My Religion” but other contenders would include “Black or White”, “Right Now”, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, “Tonight Tonight”), Best Recorded Live Performances (in theory, this automatically goes to “About a Girl” because it really technically belonged on the 80’s list but it’s the Unplugged version that I think is so far superior that it ended up on this list, but there are some other live versions on here that are covers and I do want to point out “Throwing It All Away” on The Way We Walk and “Pocahontas” on Unplugged – there are others that will be pointed out because those songs make the list in their original version), Best Christmas Song (“Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)” by Trans-Siberian Orchestra) and Grammy Winner for Record of the Year (“Tears in Heaven” – it was a terrible decade for this category). (more…)