Memories of the Top Songs of the 1990s - Part 2

Here is Part 2 of 4 of my reminiscing about songs from the 90s:

26. Eminem “My Name Is” - "Wiki wiki Slim Shady!" Somewhat unsurprisingly, I heard this for the first time on WBER while driving down List Avenue in Irondequoit while on winter break from college. When I got back, only me and a DJ at WBNY named Cookie Puss knew what was going on when he threw out 'Hi! My name is.." and I answered "What? Who?"

27. Counting Crows “Mr. Jones” I really wanted to hate Counting Crows when this song came out. It was all over the radio and its video was on all the time. It took me a good year to decide that I did like this song, and that would be while I was riding in the backseat of my friend's car, balancing a tupperware bowl of macaroni salad for a kind of camping overnight in Dansville, NY.

28. Ricky Martin “Livin’ la Vida Loca”

29. Vanilla Ice “Ice Ice Baby” - Julie B. and I took it upon ourselves to memorize this single and would sing it on the bus all the way to Bristol Mountain for ski club. Earlier in the year, at the Homecoming Game, a group of students sitting near me changed the lyrics from "Ice, Ice, Baby too cold!" to "Ice, Ice Baby too cold! Ice, Ice Baby! The blue and gold!" in homage to our school's colors.

30. *NSYNC “Tearin’ Up My Heart”

31. Radiohead “Creep” - The summer I became an avid listener of WBER, this single came out. I would try to beat the heat by escaping to my room, laying on my bed, and letting this song wash over me.

32. BLACKstreet “No Diggity”

33. Spice Girls “Wannabe” - "(heels clacking through hallway) Ha, ha, ha! Yo! Tell you what I want, what I really really want!" I bought this CD for the first dance I ever DJ-ed at Baldwin-Wallace. Turns out, I'm not much of a dance DJ, but I felt into a guilty pleasure relationship with this song.

34. Third Eye Blind “Semi-Charmed Life” - Heather, the GM for WBWC, tried to get me to hang up posters for Third Eye Blind all over the Phys Ed Complex for a Midnight Madness event. I remember thinking, "Well, that song is good but will they have any other hits?"

35. Oasis “Wonderwall” - When I was particularly homesick my freshman year in college, I would angle the lights just right so my dorm room had a softness to it, put the coffee maker on to brew coffee from Java Joe's, and pop in my tape I made of music off WBER and listen to this song.

36. C+C Music Factory “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)”

37. Green Day “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” - I had gone to a reunion of a sort for a printing fraternity with a guy I was dating. On our way back to his place with some friends, this song came on. We had all been chattering away, but when the acoustic guitar chords started, it got quiet in the car as everyone listened and reminisced about the people they knew and had seen that night.

38. Christina Aguilera “Genie In A Bottle”
39. Goo Goo Dolls “Iris”

40. Color Me Badd “I Wanna Sex You Up” - My straight-laced friend, Eden, grew up in a household with even straighter-laced parents. She was pretty worried that her parents would find out she had bought this CD that had this not-so-straight-laced-song on it. I approved of this and told her just to not leave the CD around for them to see. A year later, or so, I saw Color Me Badd open for Paul Abdul at the Aud in Buffalo. It was my first concert of the arena variety.

41. Spin Doctors “Two Princes”

42. Collective Soul “Shine” - At the end of the school year, we always worked on cleaning up WIRQ since we weren't on the air. I put this disc on and listened to "Shine" a couple times in a row as I dusted shelves off, cleaned the sound board, and de-germed the phone.

43. En Vogue “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)”

44. The Fugees “Killing Me Softly With His Song” - Somehow this song made it onto WBWC during Fall Quarter 1996. The guys who co-hosted our morning show, "Morning Sickness," would play this every day. I would find myself wandering from class to class muttering "One time, one time..... two time, two time.."

45. Hootie & the Blowfish “Only Wanna Be With You” - Okay. I will admit it. I put Hootie & The Blowfish into rotation on WIRQ in November 1994. It wasn't this song, but does it really matter? I recognized a hit and went with it. I pulled it as soon as the commercial stations went ape-shit for these guys.

46. Shania Twain “You’re Still the One”

47. Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch “Good Vibrations” - On a trip to New Hampshire in 1992, we stayed a the summer "cottage" of a sister of our friends. I say "cottage" loosely because it had cathedral ceilings, at least 4 bedrooms, a jacuzzi tub in the bathroom, the kind of kitchen HGTV tells homeowners to install if they want to sell their house, and loads of other space. Before one of the many excursions our families took together, I would hang out and watch TV with the kids of the other family. When "Good Vibrations" came on, Donna laughed during the "Can you feel it Baby? I can too!" part of the song and said, "Nah... he's really saying 'Can you smell it baby? I can too!' Look at all that sweat!"

48. Matchbox Twenty “3 AM”

49. Jewel “Who Will Save Your Soul” - This was one of the last singles I put into rotation at WIRQ in May/June 1995. I had no idea how big Jewel would be. This is one of the few songs I still like by her.

50. Alice in Chains “Man in the Box”