Today's Evil Beet Gossip

Rolling Stone Released the Top 10 Worst Songs of the Nineties and I Completely Disagree With Most of the Choices

photo of snooki on the cover of rolling stone pictures photos

I’m usually all about letting Rolling Stone dictate the choices of what’s in and what’s out in the music world, but lately I feel like they’re turning into the print version of MTV: shitty music, glamorized shitheads like Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, and articles about, well … What are supposed to be Important Musical Icons Like Rihanna and Katy Perry. Win, RS win.

This time around, they’ve gone and compiled a list of the worst songs of the nineties, and I have to say that a lot of the songs featured on the list were probably some of the better songs of the nineties, especially if you weren’t into Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, or the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The list, according to Rolling Stone:

#10 – 4 Non Blondes, What’s Up
Yep, I definitely love this song. It’s an epic karaoke song (like you don’t like karaoke) and it was a huge hit of the nineties. Everyone loved 4 Non Blondes, even if they didn’t want to admit it. Also, almost two decades later, it still kicks ass and gets people going. That’s got more staying power than some vapid Jersey Shore twat.

#9 – Right Said Fred, I’m Too Sexy
Please. Who doesn’t adore this song. Gay men, straight men, gay women, straight women … it’s all relative and the song fits really any occasion. I dare you to go into any club around the world (or at least in the States) and not see an overwhelming positive reaction when the first few bars of the song plays.

#8 – Baha Men, Who Let the Dogs Out
I agree with this – this song is positively horrible and should never have been let out. But also, this song came out in 2000, not in the nineties, so I’m calling null and void. Even though it was written in 1998, it wasn’t a single ’til the millennium. So there.

#7 – Celine Dion, My Heart Will Go On
Yeah, this is a pretty bad song, and I flip the knob on my car radio rather forcefully when it has the audacity to appear on my programmed favorites, but it was also the song for an epic film, Titanic, and if that doesn’t give you some good memories of being a pre-teen or a teenager, then your heart is a piece of cold, hard stone. Either that, or you never saw Titanic.

#6 – Hanson, MmmBop
I’m not going to lie – this song was one of those songs that you either loved or hated; there was no middle ground. I was a huge Hanson fan even now, when I hear this song play softly as grocery store muzak, tingles of joyful childhood teenage reminiscing run down my spine. It’s either that or after-effects of the epidural that I got during delivery of my daughter four years ago.

Jump in for the rest of the friggery:

#5 – Chumbawamba, Tubthumping
Again, the Stone‘s got this one wrong. Yeah, the song might have been cheesy when it came out, but it was in, like, every movie made during the late nineties and even now when I hear it, I’m fondly brought back to high school where everything was fun and simple and easy. Plus, it gave me an excuse to say “pissing” while in my mother’s presence without the fear of trouble. What’s not to appreciate about that?

#4 – Vanilla Ice, Ice Ice Baby
Really, Rolling Stone? Really? I know every single word to this song and I’m actually rather proud of that fact. Vanilla Ice was the shit in the nineties, and even though he’s kind of a joke today (not everyone can have that lasting white-rapper-like-Eminem type of staying power), Ice was an integral part of the nineties “rap” scene, and this song will well outlast ‘Cleaning Out My Closet.’

#3 – Billy Ray Cyrus, Achy Breaky Heart
I hated this song when it first came out, but here I am, almost twenty years later, appreciating the song for its quasi-countrified simplicity. Also, this song came out when I was nine years old. Of course I couldn’t stand it. I was too busy listening to Paula Abdul.

#2 – Los del Rio, Macarena
This is another song that I immediately change should I hear it, but even the coldest of cold, dead hearts can’t deny that the Macarena dance was fun at the time.

#1 – Aqua, Barbie Girl
This one I completely and wholly agree with, but there’s a Catch-22: not only is it the worst song of the nineties, it’s probably the WORST SONG EVER WRITTEN. Even Rolling Stone kind of had a free pass on this one.

You know, it used to be that achieving Rolling Stone status meant that you were somebody to remember for decades and decades to come, and that your music was epic enough to be featured on one of the biggest and best musical publications around the world. Today? They hand out the privilege to just anyone, and that’s a shame.

13 CommentsLeave a comment

  • On YouTube??? Awesome, I may be dating myself but Killer Pussy was a fun band. For all the chilluns in the audience, Killer Pussy was a punk band from the early 80’s. Thanks Sarah, off to YouTube!

    • Rolling Stone is going the same way that MTV is tbh. The list is like the same as every bad 90’s song list with a couple of tweaks so it can seem like it’s still relevant.

  • I divide the whole world into two groups of people, those who hear the opening bars to Ice Ice Baby and think of Vanilla Ice and those whose thought turn immediately to David Bowie and Under Pressure. I am very much on the side of team Bowie.

  • Most of you won’t be able to remember (or were even born yet) when the inspiration for this Snooki cover was thought up. I could be off-base, but the Pretty Things had album cover art of a girl all dressed in cutesy navy garb, sitting of a torpedo heading right at an aircraft carrier. That really good vinyl album was called “Silk Torpedo”. Look it up and see what you think.

    • Dude, this pose has been used way before that album. This was a classic pin-up pose painted on many bombers during WWII

  • Your comments are pretty much dead on.

    ‘I’m Too Sexy’ and ‘Tubthumping’ are the awesome kinda cheesy, that everyone can enjoy; like What Is Love?

    And ‘Ice, Ice Baby’ might just be one of the best songs of the 90s; who didn’t love it at some point? Who doesn’t know the first verse? It has the most iconic opening lines of most any song, ever and there couldn’t possibly be a better hip hop karaoke song.

  • hey as long as theres no eminem im cool but the vanilla ice thing is true he sucks! all it says is ice ice baby XD lolz the only reasin i even know that song is cuz of ice age