Post by a Nick O! on Feb 8, 2009 14:51:58 GMT -4
I began my personal chart back in 1992. Technically it was made monthly, except that I kept jumping the gun and making them often enough that it eventually became a weekly chart sometime in 1993. (I showed surprisingly admirable restraint, figuring I'd never be able to maintain a weekly chart. Look at me now.) It did not accurately portray my favorite songs very well at all and, while I'm sure at the time it made some kind of sense to me, the charts appear largely arbitrary. It seems I'd often just compensate for a forgotten song later by throwing it on and charting it whenever I remembered it. Pretty much for 1992 and 1993, I might as well have not made any personal charts at all, they're that bad. The kinks were getting worked out by 1994 and '95, yet even still, I was catching up with alternative rock by then, so there are lots of seemingly random songs that may or may not have belonged, chronologically speaking.
Anyway, my year-end charts were pretty poor for years, as I a) refused to chart a song for more than the year it first appeared until I came to my senses at the end of the decade, and b) didn't take the song's actual stats from the year into consideration, largely basing their placement on how I felt that week at the end of the year.
So since I recently brought back my old Top 40 notebooks from the first decade when I was still handwriting each one, I decided I'd try to remake my year-end charts from every year that isn't accurate, which will probably be 1992-1997. I went ahead and started with 1992 and I must say I absolutely love how it turned out. And by no means is this how I'd rank the songs now. I tried my absolute best to rank them based on how I honestly felt about them back in 1992. I am so pleased with myself for doing this. This new chart now very accurately represents where my 11 year-old tastes were the year I started passionately paying attention to pop music. I can't overstate enough how happy I am now to have this brand new chart of my favorite songs from 1992.
Oh, and one more thing. Please note:
1. I didn't start listening to the radio until April
2. There were a lot of recurrent songs on my Pop station that year that I didn't previously know, obviously.
3. My family didn't have cable, but we did have The Box, which was a somewhat fuzzy Channel 58. Not necessarily reflected here, but this introduced me to lots of hardcore rap (gangsta and otherwise) that I never would've seen on MTV, plus racy stuff like Carmen Electra's music videos.
(That's why she has a soft spot in my heart far more than most other dubiously talented hot female celebrities: because of her 1992 album as a Prince protege.)
Without further ado...
NICK’S TOP 200 SONGS OF 1992
(Extended and Remastered)
February 7, 2009
01. Bobby Brown “Humpin’ Around”
(Far and away my favorite song of the year, though I couldn't let myself fully enjoy it because I didn't want my parents to know about its dirty title.)
02. Boyz II Men “End of the Road”
(For the first half of the decade, these guys were untouchable. The day this debuted on The Box, it was practically the only video anybody ordered.)
03. Red Hot Chili Peppers “Under the Bridge”
04. Bryan Adams “Thought I’d Died and Gone to Heaven”
05. Mr. Big “To Be with You”
06. Paula Abdul “Will You Marry Me?”
07. Vanessa Williams “Save the Best for Last”
08. Def Leppard “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad”
09. Queen “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Before this song (and Wayne's World), I had no idea who Queen were or that their singer had died from AIDS merely one year before. When "We Are the Champions" was re-released as a follow-up single, I had no idea it was over a decade old, already.)
10. Mariah Carey “Make It Happen”
11. Madonna “This Used to Be My Playground”
(It looks like the full seven-minute version during A League of Their Own's end credits is only available there. Which wouldn't be so annoying to retrieve, but it has the reunion game over it, with all the dialogue and sounds.
)
12. Michael Jackson “Remember the Time”
13. U2 “One”
14. Bryan Adams “Do I Have to Say the Words?”
15. Bryan Adams “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You”
16. George Michael “Too Funky”
(Who knew he was talking about a dude the whole time? Though had I been older, the whole runway fashion show music video should've tipped me off.)
17. Michael Jackson “In the Closet”
18. Firehouse “When I Look Into Your Eyes”
19. En Vogue “Free Your Mind”
20. Sir Mix-A-Lot “Baby Got Back”
(Apparently, MTV ended up restricting its airplay to after 10 PM. On The Box, it was shown round the clock. Hooray for marketshare too low to bother adhering to moral codes!
Hooray for keeping my parents in the dark.)
21. Celine Dion “If You Asked Me To”
22. En Vogue “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)”
23. Michael Bolton “Steel Bars”
24. Joe Public “Live and Learn”
25. Amy Grant “Good for Me”
26. The Cover Girls “Wishing on a Star”
(Hot Rose Royce remake! It didn't strike me until I was making this chart, but it's ironic that "Wishing on a Star" (the primary version I've always known) is being done by a group called the Cover Girls.)
27. Mr. Big “Just Take My Heart”
28. Color Me Badd “All 4 Love (Single Version)”
(I guess you have to be a radio DJ in order to have the slight (but vastly superior) remix heard on the radio.
)
29. Tom Cochrane “Life Is a Highway”
(It kinda bugs me that the original will now forever be overshadowed by the Rascal Flatts cover from Cars.)
30. Mariah Carey introducing Trey Lorenz “I’ll Be There”
(Hot Jackson Five remake!)
31. Kris Kross “Jump”
32. En Vogue “Giving Him Something He Can Feel”
(Hot Aretha Franklin remake! The video for this was very sexy, but was completely sophisticated and classy. All the businessmen in the audience being driven wild (one even taking off his wedding ring) was a riot. 
33. Hi-Five “She’s Playing Hard to Get”
34. Richard Marx “Hazard”
35. Michael Jackson “Black or White”
(Unlike MTV, The Box always showed Michael's videos (and all videos, for that matter) in their uncut entirety, introductory plots and all. That was wonderful and something I took for granted.)
36. Michael Jackson (featuring Heavy D) “Jam”
(Kris Kross were so hot by this point that Michael gave them a cameo in this video. Oh yeah, and Michael Jordan teaches Michael how to dunk (w/ special effects) and in return, he tries to teach Jordan to Moonwalk.)
37. Color Me Badd “Forever Love”
(Beautiful ballad from the Mo' Money soundtrack.)
38. Boyz II Men “Motownphilly”
39. Kathy Troccoli “Everything Changes”
(Though her name looks like broccoli, it's pronounced "tra-COLE-e.")
40. Toad the Wet Sprocket “All I Want”
41. U2 “Even Better Than the Real Thing”
42. TLC “What About Your Friends”
43. Salt-N-Pepa “Let’s Talk About Sex (Single Version)”
(The album version is teh inferior.)
44. Vanessa Williams “Just for Tonight”
45. Jon Secada “Do You Believe in Us”
46. Madonna “Erotica”
(The Box played this video with no problem. Even at 11 years old I was mature enough to watch this. In hindsight, if I'd actually had MTV at the time (who only played it after 10pm), I would've been pretty pissed off. MTV...such sweet kids.)
47. The Cure “High”
48. The Cure “Friday I’m in Love”
49. M.C. Brains “Oochie Coochie”
(Surprised this only peaked at #72
(and in January!), as this was a pop radio and Box staple that spring.)
50. Arrested Development “Tennessee”
51. Def Leppard “Stand Up (Kick Love Into Motion)”
(Hard to know exactly where to cut off my enthusiasm for this song, as it was split between '92 & '93.)
52. Amy Grant “I Will Remember You”
53. Boyz II Men “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday”
(Hot G.C. Cameron remake!)
54. Madonna “Deeper and Deeper”
(See #51.)
55. Sophie B. Hawkins “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover”
56. Mitch Malloy “Nobody Wins in This War”
57. Go West “Faithful”
58. Atlantic Starr “Masterpiece”
59. Ugly Kid Joe “Everything About You”
60. TLC “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg”
61. Snap! “Rhythm Is a Dancer”
62. Red Hot Chili Peppers “Give It Away”
(For probably 5 or 6 years I had no idea this was the first single from Blood Sugar Sex Magik. I just assumed its re-release was the first time around.)
63. Jon Secada “Just Another Day”
64. Howard Jones “Lift Me Up”
65. Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch “Good Vibrations”
66. Wreckx-N-Effect “Rump Shaker”
67. Ce Ce Peniston “Keep on Walkin’”
68. M.C. Luscious “Boom! I Got Your Boyfriend”
(Shocked that this never even hit the Top 100 on Pop (unless it was her only hit and was gone by December '91, as this was also a pop radio and Box staple that spring.)
69. Trey Lorenz “Someone to Hold”
70. Toad the Wet Sprocket “Walk on the Ocean (Extended Version)”
(I can't stand the fact that Toad didn't even bother putting the extended radio version on their greatest hits album. Gee guys, I would've snatched up the CD single in 1992/3 if I had known it would be the only place the radio version would ever be made commercially available. There's not a version of this song on iTunes that's longer than 3 minutes is there? It's not available by itself thru Amazon.)
71. Nirvana “Come as You Are”
72. P.M. Dawn “I’d Die Without You”
73. Saigon Kick “Love Is on the Way”
74. Salt-N-Pepa “You Showed Me (The Born Again Mix)”
(I still haven't been able to track down the single version of this song I knew and loved (After a bunch of research just now, it looks like it's the "Born Again Mix.") I also can't believe this topped out at #58 (and in January), as this was a pop radio staple that spring. It was a few years before I realized it was interpolating a classic oldie by the Turtles. I actually had to look up the original on Wikipedia just now to find out who performed it.)
75. Naughty by Nature “O.P.P.”
(For as regularly as I heard it on the radio and saw the video, I never would've guessed it came out all the way back in the previous September.)
76. Eric Clapton “Tears in Heaven”
77. TLC “Baby-Baby-Baby”
78. Bobby Brown “Good Enough”
(I knew I didn't like this as much as "Humpin' Around" and resented that it damn near overshadowed the former's success. And while I never charted it, that doesn't mean nearly as much as seeing the writing on the wall: this being all the way down at #78. Lyrically, it was far dirtier than "Humpin' Around"'s title, so I still couldn't fully appreciate it for fear of my parents hearing it, and curiously, The Box never had it. I think I only saw its video once on MTV in full and clips from it on small TVs on the set of Lip Service, whenever a group performed to it. Still, I was a little surprised, but finally feel justified, seeing myself rank this so low.)
79. Color Me Badd “Slow Motion (Single Version)”
80. Luther Vandross & Janet Jackson featuring Bell Biv Devoe & Ralph Tresvant “The Best Things in Life Are Free”
81. Lionel Richie “Do It to Me”
82. Genesis “Hold on My Heart”
83. Shanice “Saving Forever for You”
84. Chris Walker “Take Time”
85. Jody Watley “I’m the One You Need”
86. U2 “Mysterious Ways”
87. Ce Ce Peniston “Finally”
88. Elton John “The One”
89. Prince & the New Power Generation “Money Don’t Matter 2Night”
90. Linear “TLC”
(I'm not sure I ever saw the video (maybe just once), but tracking it down again last year, it's alarmingly dated and cheesy, and despite all the bikini-clad beach babes the three guys are ogling, it's unnervingly not a little homoerotic.)
91. Mariah Carey “Can’t Let Go”
(Would've been higher had this gotten anywhere near the recurrent play of "Emotions" or even "Someday.")
92. The B-52’s “Good Stuff”
(This song and album were almost instantly forgotten as soon as this hit the Pop Top 10.)
93. The Soup Dragons “Divine Thing”
94. Bonnie Raitt “Not the Only One”
95. Goddess “Sexual”
(Along with Carmen Electra's album, I finally tracked this highly obscure song/album down late in '07 on the same blog. And among the historic couples the dude rattles off in the second verse, I was put off by him saying "Tarzan and Robin Hood," since that doesn't make any sense and it's two dudes. I thought it might've been a glitch, which frustrated me to no end, because it was hard enough just tracking her music down on the internet, but then somehow this version was screwed up. Then the other day, the remix (also included on the album) came up on my WMP and I was able to figure out what happened. In the remix (which is more than twice as long), the dude returns toward the end, listing off the historic couples he mentioned in the two verses, only the couples are all scrambled, so the names are all mixed up with each other. One of them is "Tarzan and Robin Hood." In the second verse of the remix, instead of "Tarzan and Robin Hood," the dude says "Michael Jackson and Bubbles," which I now clearly remember from Casey's Top 40 and the few times it was played on The Box. I guess somehow, Michael Jackson's camp got word of this and so on the album version it was replaced with a random scrambled couple from the remix. Finding the original version now will most definitely be impossible.
)
96. Clarence Carter “Strokin’”
(Apparently this was from 1986, but it was regularly ordered on The Box in 1992.)
97. Tevin Campbell “Strawberry Letter 23”
(Hot Shuggie Otis, as made popular by The Brothers Johnson remake!)
98. Cause & Effect “You Think You Know Her”
99. Celine Dion & Peabo Bryson “Beauty and the Beast”
100. Def Leppard “Let’s Get Rocked”
101. Damn Yankees “Where You Goin’ Now”
102. Billy Ray Cyrus “Achy Breaky Heart”
(Yeah, it's on here. Yeah, it almost made my Top 100. So what?)
103. Bon Jovi “Keep the Faith”
104. Arrested Development “People Everyday”
105. Prince & the New Power Generation “Diamonds and Pearls”
106. Hammer “2 Legit 2 Quit”
(For the longest time, I didn't realize that this was nowhere near as huge as "U Can't Touch This" and that the album was pretty much a "sophomore" slump.)
107. Roxette “How Do You Do!”
108. Richard Marx “Take This Heart”
(The video was weird, with Richard in a Cubs uniform batting (with his long straight hair flowing out from underneath the helmet, something you'd never see in those days) against the one and only Dennis Eckersley.)
109. Guns N’ Roses “November Rain”
(Love this song way more now.)
110. Boyz II Men “Uhh Ahh”
111. U2 “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses”
112. Nirvana “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
113. Boyz II Men “In the Still of the Nite”
(Hot Five Satins remake! Never really did get into this one much.)
114. Charles & Eddie “Would I Lie to You”
(Fun fact: the title of this interracial duo's 1995 (bomb) album was Chocolate Milk.)
115. Mary J. Blige “Real Love”
116. Color Me Badd “I Wanna Sex You Up”
(I'd probably loathe this song if I was as old then as I am now.)
117. Celine Dion “Nothing Broken But My Heart”
118. Celine Dion “Love Can Move Mountains”
119. Jodeci “Come and Talk to Me”
120. Cathy Dennis “You Lied to Me”
("Touch Me (All Night Long)" was a recurrent at the time, but I always preferred this song.)
121. Wilson Phillips “You Won’t See Me Cry”
122. The Soup Dragons “Pleasure”
123. Shai “If I Ever Fall in Love”
124. Prince & the New Power Generation “Gett Off”
(Based solely on The Box. I had no idea for years that this was actually the first single from Diamonds & Pearls. The Box didn't even have "Cream," the second single, anymore. The title track was gone too, and I only saw "Money Don't Matter 2Night" once. This was easily the D&P video I saw the most.)
125. Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch “You Gotta Believe”
126. Ephraim Lewis “Drowning in Your Eyes”
(So sad this guy died 2 years later and tragically, the way he did. (It's way too long to read, so just skim it.)
127. Kris Kross “I Missed the Bus”
(Somehow I knew every word to the second verse of this song.)
128. Carmen Electra “Go Go Dancer”
(Explained earlier, but I actually heard it once on the radio that fall, on my secondary Pop station, too. I actually tracked down the video again last night (finally), and it's not as sexy and drool-worthy as I remember (though that could be due to the grainy VCR-quality), but it's still pretty hot. And certainly would've been at 11 years old. In ranking this song, it was definitely a struggle trying to separate the video from the actual song and how little I actually heard it relative to most of the stuff on here.)
129. Shakespear’s Sister “Stay”
(Another song I like way more now than I did at the time.)
130. Shakespear’s Sister “I Don’t Care”
131. Red Hot Chili Peppers “Breaking the Girl”
(Would've been much higher if I'd heard it on the radio and seen its video more than a few times in 1992.)
132. Mitch Malloy “Anything at All”
133. Shanice “I Love Your Smile”
(Like this considerably more now.)
134. Genesis “Jesus He Knows Me”
135. Def Leppard “Make Love Like a Man”
136. Michael Bolton “To Love Somebody”
(Hot Bee Gees remake!)
137. En Vogue “Give It Up, Turn It Loose”
(Split between '92 & '93.)
138. Michael Bolton featuring Kenny G “Missing You Now”
139. Babyface introducing Toni Braxton “Give U My Heart”
140. Eric Clapton “Layla”
141. Kris Kross “Warm It Up”
142. Mariah Carey “Emotions”
(Never did get too excited over this one.)
143. R.E.M. “Drive”
(Split between '92 & '93 and wasn't nearly as good as "Losing My Religion.")
144. INXS “Not Enough Time”
145. K.W.S. “Please Don’t Go”
(Hot KC and the Sunshine Band remake!)
146. Technotronic featuring Ya Kid K “Move This”
147. Michael W. Smith “I Will Be Here for You”
148. Sir Mix-A-Lot “Swap Meet Louie”
(I didn't realize it until finally hearing it again almost 15 years later, but the "Louie" refers to Louis Vuitton.)
149. Bruce Springsteen “Human Touch”
150. Annie Lennox “Why”
151. Colorhaus “Innocent Child”
152. Sofia Shinas “The Message”
(If not for Daniel Shywaoub's 2002 compendium, I never would've known she ended up as Shelly in The Crow. This was obscure to track down, but I got it from the same blog that I found Carmen Electra and Goddess on.)
153. Shanice (featuring Johnny Gill) “Silent Prayer”
(Daniel also writes that this was an uncredited duet with Johnny Gill, but it's been so long since I heard the song that I don't even remember it being a duet.)
154. Ozzy Osbourne “Mama, I’m Coming Home”
(Clearly would be much higher now.)
155. The Outfield “Closer to Me”
156. Whitney Houston “I Will Always Love You”
(Hot Dolly Parton remake! Hard to know how to rank this due to it's '92/'93 split.)
157. Ice Cube “Wicked”
(Had seen his two Death Certificate videos on The Box, but sat up and took notice when this lead Predator single dropped, as it had Anthony and Flea from the Chili Peppers as a couple of destructive rioters throughout the clip, no doubt due to a bond formed touring together on Lollapalooza that summer.)
158. Prince & the New Power Generation “My Name Is Prince”
159. Prince & the New Power Generation “Sexy M.F.”
(Hard to know where to rank these two lead singles from his "Love Symbol" album. I thought they might as well have been simultaneous, but Wikipedia says they were roughly three months apart. Both of them bombed (the latter for obvious reasons), but both received significant airplay on The Box. The "My Name Is Prince" video was memorable because it was performed in a street and/or alley and Prince had a hat on with these gold ropes completely obscuring his face. "Sexy M.F.": Yet another song/video totally "inappropriate" for an ordinary 11 year-old.)
160. The Rembrandts “Johnny, Have You Seen Her”
(Yes, the band that went on to write the inescapable smash hit theme song from Friends.)
161. Eddie Money “Fall in Love Again”
162. Jesus Jones “Right Here, Right Now”
163. Bell Biv Devoe “Gangsta”
(A thugged-up single about their girlfriend that soon went forgotten and never turned up on Hootie Mack the following year. (It is on their greatest hits, though, so let me go download that in the meantime...))
164. Genesis “Never a Time”
165. Exposé “I Wish the Phone Would Ring”
166. Good 2 Go “Never Satisfied”
167. Queen “We Are the Champions”
(See "Bohemian Rhapsody")
168. Richard Marx “Chains Around My Heart”
169. Right Said Fred “I’m Too Sexy”
170. Das EFX “They Want EFX”
171. Londonbeat “I’ve Been Thinking About You”
172. Corina “Temptation”
173. Tara Kemp “Hold You Tight”
(Above three were recurrents and I didn't know the artists and/or titles for at least several years.)
174. Color Me Badd “Thinkin’ Back”
175. P.M. Dawn “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss”
176. Dan Baird “I Love You Period”
177. Bad Company “How About That”
(Apparently Paul Rodgers (now singing for Queen) was not BC's singer at this time.)
178. Jade “I Wanna Love You”
179. 10,000 Maniacs “These Are Days”
(Somewhat low due to the '92/'93 split.)
180. Karyn White “The Way I Feel About You”
181. Rod Stewart “Your Song”
(Hot Elton John remake! Apparently this was on some now-obscure Elton John/Bernie Taupin tribute compilation.)
182. Patty Smyth with Don Henley “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough”
183. Restless Heart “When She Cries”
184. Natural Selection featuring Niki Harris “Do Anything”
(Another recurrent I didn't know the artist/title of for years.)
185. k.d. lang “Constant Craving”
186. Peter Cetera “Restless Heart”
187. House of Pain “Jump Around”
188. The Heights “How Do You Talk to an Angel”
189. Peter Gabriel “Digging in the Dirt”
190. Stacy Earl “Slowly”
191. Classic Example “It’s Alright”
192. Karyn White “Romantic”
193. Shabba Ranks “Mr. Loverman”
(Based entirely on The Box.)
194. Tom Cochrane “Washed Away”
195. The Shamen “Move Any Mountain”
(Another recurrent I didn't know the artist/title of for years. Had no idea for awhile that it was the same group who did "Ebenezer Goode," a memorable clip in the BBC Top 5 for weeks, as heard on Joel Denver's Future Hits, and whose video Beavis and Butt-head watched. I love both of these songs.)
196. Van Halen “Right Now”
(It was huge on MTV that year (my grandparents had cable), but I didn't realize it had already been a minor hit on Casey's Top 40 earlier that year. I just assumed it was a rock song that never crossed over.)
197. Spin Doctors “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong”
198. Beastie Boys “So What’cha Want”
199. N2Deep “Back to the Hotel”
200. DJ Quik “Jus Lyke Compton”
(Above three due entirely to The Box. It's weird because I never heard "Back to the Hotel" on the radio (maybe I did hear it once or twice on my secondary Pop station back then), but it was a significantly popular gold song on my mid-Missouri Rhythmic station 3-4 years ago. Oh yeah, it came out maybe 6 months before "Rump Shaker," but "Back to the Hotel" is a song that (like Jay-Z's "Show Me What You Got") samples that saxophone loop (which I finally looked up this morning) from the Lafayette Afro Rock Band's "Darkest Light.")
Anyway, my year-end charts were pretty poor for years, as I a) refused to chart a song for more than the year it first appeared until I came to my senses at the end of the decade, and b) didn't take the song's actual stats from the year into consideration, largely basing their placement on how I felt that week at the end of the year.
So since I recently brought back my old Top 40 notebooks from the first decade when I was still handwriting each one, I decided I'd try to remake my year-end charts from every year that isn't accurate, which will probably be 1992-1997. I went ahead and started with 1992 and I must say I absolutely love how it turned out. And by no means is this how I'd rank the songs now. I tried my absolute best to rank them based on how I honestly felt about them back in 1992. I am so pleased with myself for doing this. This new chart now very accurately represents where my 11 year-old tastes were the year I started passionately paying attention to pop music. I can't overstate enough how happy I am now to have this brand new chart of my favorite songs from 1992.
Oh, and one more thing. Please note:
1. I didn't start listening to the radio until April
2. There were a lot of recurrent songs on my Pop station that year that I didn't previously know, obviously.
3. My family didn't have cable, but we did have The Box, which was a somewhat fuzzy Channel 58. Not necessarily reflected here, but this introduced me to lots of hardcore rap (gangsta and otherwise) that I never would've seen on MTV, plus racy stuff like Carmen Electra's music videos.
(That's why she has a soft spot in my heart far more than most other dubiously talented hot female celebrities: because of her 1992 album as a Prince protege.)Without further ado...
NICK’S TOP 200 SONGS OF 1992
(Extended and Remastered)
February 7, 2009
01. Bobby Brown “Humpin’ Around”
(Far and away my favorite song of the year, though I couldn't let myself fully enjoy it because I didn't want my parents to know about its dirty title.)
02. Boyz II Men “End of the Road”
(For the first half of the decade, these guys were untouchable. The day this debuted on The Box, it was practically the only video anybody ordered.)
03. Red Hot Chili Peppers “Under the Bridge”
04. Bryan Adams “Thought I’d Died and Gone to Heaven”
05. Mr. Big “To Be with You”
06. Paula Abdul “Will You Marry Me?”
07. Vanessa Williams “Save the Best for Last”
08. Def Leppard “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad”
09. Queen “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Before this song (and Wayne's World), I had no idea who Queen were or that their singer had died from AIDS merely one year before. When "We Are the Champions" was re-released as a follow-up single, I had no idea it was over a decade old, already.)
10. Mariah Carey “Make It Happen”
11. Madonna “This Used to Be My Playground”
(It looks like the full seven-minute version during A League of Their Own's end credits is only available there. Which wouldn't be so annoying to retrieve, but it has the reunion game over it, with all the dialogue and sounds.
)12. Michael Jackson “Remember the Time”
13. U2 “One”
14. Bryan Adams “Do I Have to Say the Words?”
15. Bryan Adams “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You”
16. George Michael “Too Funky”
(Who knew he was talking about a dude the whole time? Though had I been older, the whole runway fashion show music video should've tipped me off.)
17. Michael Jackson “In the Closet”
18. Firehouse “When I Look Into Your Eyes”
19. En Vogue “Free Your Mind”
20. Sir Mix-A-Lot “Baby Got Back”
(Apparently, MTV ended up restricting its airplay to after 10 PM. On The Box, it was shown round the clock. Hooray for marketshare too low to bother adhering to moral codes!
Hooray for keeping my parents in the dark.)21. Celine Dion “If You Asked Me To”
22. En Vogue “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)”
23. Michael Bolton “Steel Bars”
24. Joe Public “Live and Learn”
25. Amy Grant “Good for Me”
26. The Cover Girls “Wishing on a Star”
(Hot Rose Royce remake!
It didn't strike me until I was making this chart, but it's ironic that "Wishing on a Star" (the primary version I've always known) is being done by a group called the Cover Girls.)27. Mr. Big “Just Take My Heart”
28. Color Me Badd “All 4 Love (Single Version)”
(I guess you have to be a radio DJ in order to have the slight (but vastly superior) remix heard on the radio.
)29. Tom Cochrane “Life Is a Highway”
(It kinda bugs me that the original will now forever be overshadowed by the Rascal Flatts cover from Cars.)
30. Mariah Carey introducing Trey Lorenz “I’ll Be There”
(Hot Jackson Five remake!
)31. Kris Kross “Jump”
32. En Vogue “Giving Him Something He Can Feel”
(Hot Aretha Franklin remake!
The video for this was very sexy, but was completely sophisticated and classy. All the businessmen in the audience being driven wild (one even taking off his wedding ring) was a riot. 
33. Hi-Five “She’s Playing Hard to Get”
34. Richard Marx “Hazard”
35. Michael Jackson “Black or White”
(Unlike MTV, The Box always showed Michael's videos (and all videos, for that matter) in their uncut entirety, introductory plots and all. That was wonderful and something I took for granted.)
36. Michael Jackson (featuring Heavy D) “Jam”
(Kris Kross were so hot by this point that Michael gave them a cameo in this video. Oh yeah, and Michael Jordan teaches Michael how to dunk (w/ special effects) and in return, he tries to teach Jordan to Moonwalk.)
37. Color Me Badd “Forever Love”
(Beautiful ballad from the Mo' Money soundtrack.)
38. Boyz II Men “Motownphilly”
39. Kathy Troccoli “Everything Changes”
(Though her name looks like broccoli, it's pronounced "tra-COLE-e.")
40. Toad the Wet Sprocket “All I Want”
41. U2 “Even Better Than the Real Thing”
42. TLC “What About Your Friends”
43. Salt-N-Pepa “Let’s Talk About Sex (Single Version)”
(The album version is teh inferior.
)44. Vanessa Williams “Just for Tonight”
45. Jon Secada “Do You Believe in Us”
46. Madonna “Erotica”
(The Box played this video with no problem. Even at 11 years old I was mature enough to watch this. In hindsight, if I'd actually had MTV at the time (who only played it after 10pm), I would've been pretty pissed off. MTV...such sweet kids.
)47. The Cure “High”
48. The Cure “Friday I’m in Love”
49. M.C. Brains “Oochie Coochie”
(Surprised this only peaked at #72
(and in January!), as this was a pop radio and Box staple that spring.)50. Arrested Development “Tennessee”
51. Def Leppard “Stand Up (Kick Love Into Motion)”
(Hard to know exactly where to cut off my enthusiasm for this song, as it was split between '92 & '93.)
52. Amy Grant “I Will Remember You”
53. Boyz II Men “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday”
(Hot G.C. Cameron remake!
)54. Madonna “Deeper and Deeper”
(See #51.)
55. Sophie B. Hawkins “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover”
56. Mitch Malloy “Nobody Wins in This War”
57. Go West “Faithful”
58. Atlantic Starr “Masterpiece”
59. Ugly Kid Joe “Everything About You”
60. TLC “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg”
61. Snap! “Rhythm Is a Dancer”
62. Red Hot Chili Peppers “Give It Away”
(For probably 5 or 6 years I had no idea this was the first single from Blood Sugar Sex Magik. I just assumed its re-release was the first time around.)
63. Jon Secada “Just Another Day”
64. Howard Jones “Lift Me Up”
65. Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch “Good Vibrations”
66. Wreckx-N-Effect “Rump Shaker”
67. Ce Ce Peniston “Keep on Walkin’”
68. M.C. Luscious “Boom! I Got Your Boyfriend”
(Shocked that this never even hit the Top 100 on Pop (unless it was her only hit and was gone by December '91, as this was also a pop radio and Box staple that spring.)
69. Trey Lorenz “Someone to Hold”
70. Toad the Wet Sprocket “Walk on the Ocean (Extended Version)”
(I can't stand the fact that Toad didn't even bother putting the extended radio version on their greatest hits album. Gee guys, I would've snatched up the CD single in 1992/3 if I had known it would be the only place the radio version would ever be made commercially available. There's not a version of this song on iTunes that's longer than 3 minutes is there? It's not available by itself thru Amazon.)
71. Nirvana “Come as You Are”
72. P.M. Dawn “I’d Die Without You”
73. Saigon Kick “Love Is on the Way”
74. Salt-N-Pepa “You Showed Me (The Born Again Mix)”
(I still haven't been able to track down the single version of this song I knew and loved (After a bunch of research just now, it looks like it's the "Born Again Mix.") I also can't believe this topped out at #58 (and in January), as this was a pop radio staple that spring. It was a few years before I realized it was interpolating a classic oldie by the Turtles. I actually had to look up the original on Wikipedia just now to find out who performed it.)
75. Naughty by Nature “O.P.P.”
(For as regularly as I heard it on the radio and saw the video, I never would've guessed it came out all the way back in the previous September.)
76. Eric Clapton “Tears in Heaven”
77. TLC “Baby-Baby-Baby”
78. Bobby Brown “Good Enough”
(I knew I didn't like this as much as "Humpin' Around" and resented that it damn near overshadowed the former's success. And while I never charted it, that doesn't mean nearly as much as seeing the writing on the wall: this being all the way down at #78. Lyrically, it was far dirtier than "Humpin' Around"'s title, so I still couldn't fully appreciate it for fear of my parents hearing it, and curiously, The Box never had it. I think I only saw its video once on MTV in full and clips from it on small TVs on the set of Lip Service, whenever a group performed to it. Still, I was a little surprised, but finally feel justified, seeing myself rank this so low.)
79. Color Me Badd “Slow Motion (Single Version)”
80. Luther Vandross & Janet Jackson featuring Bell Biv Devoe & Ralph Tresvant “The Best Things in Life Are Free”
81. Lionel Richie “Do It to Me”
82. Genesis “Hold on My Heart”
83. Shanice “Saving Forever for You”
84. Chris Walker “Take Time”
85. Jody Watley “I’m the One You Need”
86. U2 “Mysterious Ways”
87. Ce Ce Peniston “Finally”
88. Elton John “The One”
89. Prince & the New Power Generation “Money Don’t Matter 2Night”
90. Linear “TLC”
(I'm not sure I ever saw the video (maybe just once), but tracking it down again last year, it's alarmingly dated and cheesy, and despite all the bikini-clad beach babes the three guys are ogling, it's unnervingly not a little homoerotic.
)91. Mariah Carey “Can’t Let Go”
(Would've been higher had this gotten anywhere near the recurrent play of "Emotions" or even "Someday.")
92. The B-52’s “Good Stuff”
(This song and album were almost instantly forgotten as soon as this hit the Pop Top 10.)
93. The Soup Dragons “Divine Thing”
94. Bonnie Raitt “Not the Only One”
95. Goddess “Sexual”
(Along with Carmen Electra's album, I finally tracked this highly obscure song/album down late in '07 on the same blog. And among the historic couples the dude rattles off in the second verse, I was put off by him saying "Tarzan and Robin Hood," since that doesn't make any sense and it's two dudes. I thought it might've been a glitch, which frustrated me to no end, because it was hard enough just tracking her music down on the internet, but then somehow this version was screwed up. Then the other day, the remix (also included on the album) came up on my WMP and I was able to figure out what happened. In the remix (which is more than twice as long), the dude returns toward the end, listing off the historic couples he mentioned in the two verses, only the couples are all scrambled, so the names are all mixed up with each other. One of them is "Tarzan and Robin Hood." In the second verse of the remix, instead of "Tarzan and Robin Hood," the dude says "Michael Jackson and Bubbles," which I now clearly remember from Casey's Top 40 and the few times it was played on The Box. I guess somehow, Michael Jackson's camp got word of this and so on the album version it was replaced with a random scrambled couple from the remix. Finding the original version now will most definitely be impossible.
)96. Clarence Carter “Strokin’”
(Apparently this was from 1986, but it was regularly ordered on The Box in 1992.)
97. Tevin Campbell “Strawberry Letter 23”
(Hot Shuggie Otis, as made popular by The Brothers Johnson remake!
)98. Cause & Effect “You Think You Know Her”
99. Celine Dion & Peabo Bryson “Beauty and the Beast”
100. Def Leppard “Let’s Get Rocked”
101. Damn Yankees “Where You Goin’ Now”
102. Billy Ray Cyrus “Achy Breaky Heart”
(Yeah, it's on here. Yeah, it almost made my Top 100. So what?)
103. Bon Jovi “Keep the Faith”
104. Arrested Development “People Everyday”
105. Prince & the New Power Generation “Diamonds and Pearls”
106. Hammer “2 Legit 2 Quit”
(For the longest time, I didn't realize that this was nowhere near as huge as "U Can't Touch This" and that the album was pretty much a "sophomore" slump.)
107. Roxette “How Do You Do!”
108. Richard Marx “Take This Heart”
(The video was weird, with Richard in a Cubs uniform batting (with his long straight hair flowing out from underneath the helmet, something you'd never see in those days) against the one and only Dennis Eckersley.)
109. Guns N’ Roses “November Rain”
(Love this song way more now.)
110. Boyz II Men “Uhh Ahh”
111. U2 “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses”
112. Nirvana “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
113. Boyz II Men “In the Still of the Nite”
(Hot Five Satins remake!
Never really did get into this one much.)114. Charles & Eddie “Would I Lie to You”
(Fun fact: the title of this interracial duo's 1995 (bomb) album was Chocolate Milk.)
115. Mary J. Blige “Real Love”
116. Color Me Badd “I Wanna Sex You Up”
(I'd probably loathe this song if I was as old then as I am now.)
117. Celine Dion “Nothing Broken But My Heart”
118. Celine Dion “Love Can Move Mountains”
119. Jodeci “Come and Talk to Me”
120. Cathy Dennis “You Lied to Me”
("Touch Me (All Night Long)" was a recurrent at the time, but I always preferred this song.)
121. Wilson Phillips “You Won’t See Me Cry”
122. The Soup Dragons “Pleasure”
123. Shai “If I Ever Fall in Love”
124. Prince & the New Power Generation “Gett Off”
(Based solely on The Box. I had no idea for years that this was actually the first single from Diamonds & Pearls. The Box didn't even have "Cream," the second single, anymore. The title track was gone too, and I only saw "Money Don't Matter 2Night" once. This was easily the D&P video I saw the most.)
125. Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch “You Gotta Believe”
126. Ephraim Lewis “Drowning in Your Eyes”
(So sad this guy died 2 years later and tragically, the way he did. (It's way too long to read, so just skim it.)
127. Kris Kross “I Missed the Bus”
(Somehow I knew every word to the second verse of this song.)
128. Carmen Electra “Go Go Dancer”
(Explained earlier, but I actually heard it once on the radio that fall, on my secondary Pop station, too. I actually tracked down the video again last night (finally), and it's not as sexy and drool-worthy as I remember (though that could be due to the grainy VCR-quality), but it's still pretty hot. And certainly would've been at 11 years old.
In ranking this song, it was definitely a struggle trying to separate the video from the actual song and how little I actually heard it relative to most of the stuff on here.)129. Shakespear’s Sister “Stay”
(Another song I like way more now than I did at the time.)
130. Shakespear’s Sister “I Don’t Care”
131. Red Hot Chili Peppers “Breaking the Girl”
(Would've been much higher if I'd heard it on the radio and seen its video more than a few times in 1992.)
132. Mitch Malloy “Anything at All”
133. Shanice “I Love Your Smile”
(Like this considerably more now.)
134. Genesis “Jesus He Knows Me”
135. Def Leppard “Make Love Like a Man”
136. Michael Bolton “To Love Somebody”
(Hot Bee Gees remake!
)137. En Vogue “Give It Up, Turn It Loose”
(Split between '92 & '93.)
138. Michael Bolton featuring Kenny G “Missing You Now”
139. Babyface introducing Toni Braxton “Give U My Heart”
140. Eric Clapton “Layla”
141. Kris Kross “Warm It Up”
142. Mariah Carey “Emotions”
(Never did get too excited over this one.)
143. R.E.M. “Drive”
(Split between '92 & '93 and wasn't nearly as good as "Losing My Religion.")
144. INXS “Not Enough Time”
145. K.W.S. “Please Don’t Go”
(Hot KC and the Sunshine Band remake!
)146. Technotronic featuring Ya Kid K “Move This”
147. Michael W. Smith “I Will Be Here for You”
148. Sir Mix-A-Lot “Swap Meet Louie”
(I didn't realize it until finally hearing it again almost 15 years later, but the "Louie" refers to Louis Vuitton.)
149. Bruce Springsteen “Human Touch”
150. Annie Lennox “Why”
151. Colorhaus “Innocent Child”
152. Sofia Shinas “The Message”
(If not for Daniel Shywaoub's 2002 compendium, I never would've known she ended up as Shelly in The Crow. This was obscure to track down, but I got it from the same blog that I found Carmen Electra and Goddess on.)
153. Shanice (featuring Johnny Gill) “Silent Prayer”
(Daniel also writes that this was an uncredited duet with Johnny Gill, but it's been so long since I heard the song that I don't even remember it being a duet.
)154. Ozzy Osbourne “Mama, I’m Coming Home”
(Clearly would be much higher now.)
155. The Outfield “Closer to Me”
156. Whitney Houston “I Will Always Love You”
(Hot Dolly Parton remake!
Hard to know how to rank this due to it's '92/'93 split.)157. Ice Cube “Wicked”
(Had seen his two Death Certificate videos on The Box, but sat up and took notice when this lead Predator single dropped, as it had Anthony and Flea from the Chili Peppers as a couple of destructive rioters throughout the clip, no doubt due to a bond formed touring together on Lollapalooza that summer.)
158. Prince & the New Power Generation “My Name Is Prince”
159. Prince & the New Power Generation “Sexy M.F.”
(Hard to know where to rank these two lead singles from his "Love Symbol" album. I thought they might as well have been simultaneous, but Wikipedia says they were roughly three months apart. Both of them bombed (the latter for obvious reasons), but both received significant airplay on The Box. The "My Name Is Prince" video was memorable because it was performed in a street and/or alley and Prince had a hat on with these gold ropes completely obscuring his face. "Sexy M.F.": Yet another song/video totally "inappropriate" for an ordinary 11 year-old.
)160. The Rembrandts “Johnny, Have You Seen Her”
(Yes, the band that went on to write the inescapable smash hit theme song from Friends.)
161. Eddie Money “Fall in Love Again”
162. Jesus Jones “Right Here, Right Now”
163. Bell Biv Devoe “Gangsta”
(A thugged-up single about their girlfriend that soon went forgotten and never turned up on Hootie Mack the following year. (It is on their greatest hits, though, so let me go download that in the meantime...))
164. Genesis “Never a Time”
165. Exposé “I Wish the Phone Would Ring”
166. Good 2 Go “Never Satisfied”
167. Queen “We Are the Champions”
(See "Bohemian Rhapsody")
168. Richard Marx “Chains Around My Heart”
169. Right Said Fred “I’m Too Sexy”
170. Das EFX “They Want EFX”
171. Londonbeat “I’ve Been Thinking About You”
172. Corina “Temptation”
173. Tara Kemp “Hold You Tight”
(Above three were recurrents and I didn't know the artists and/or titles for at least several years.)
174. Color Me Badd “Thinkin’ Back”
175. P.M. Dawn “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss”
176. Dan Baird “I Love You Period”
177. Bad Company “How About That”
(Apparently Paul Rodgers (now singing for Queen) was not BC's singer at this time.)
178. Jade “I Wanna Love You”
179. 10,000 Maniacs “These Are Days”
(Somewhat low due to the '92/'93 split.)
180. Karyn White “The Way I Feel About You”
181. Rod Stewart “Your Song”
(Hot Elton John remake!
Apparently this was on some now-obscure Elton John/Bernie Taupin tribute compilation.)182. Patty Smyth with Don Henley “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough”
183. Restless Heart “When She Cries”
184. Natural Selection featuring Niki Harris “Do Anything”
(Another recurrent I didn't know the artist/title of for years.)
185. k.d. lang “Constant Craving”
186. Peter Cetera “Restless Heart”
187. House of Pain “Jump Around”
188. The Heights “How Do You Talk to an Angel”
189. Peter Gabriel “Digging in the Dirt”
190. Stacy Earl “Slowly”
191. Classic Example “It’s Alright”
192. Karyn White “Romantic”
193. Shabba Ranks “Mr. Loverman”
(Based entirely on The Box.)
194. Tom Cochrane “Washed Away”
195. The Shamen “Move Any Mountain”
(Another recurrent I didn't know the artist/title of for years. Had no idea for awhile that it was the same group who did "Ebenezer Goode," a memorable clip in the BBC Top 5 for weeks, as heard on Joel Denver's Future Hits, and whose video Beavis and Butt-head watched. I love both of these songs.)
196. Van Halen “Right Now”
(It was huge on MTV that year (my grandparents had cable), but I didn't realize it had already been a minor hit on Casey's Top 40 earlier that year. I just assumed it was a rock song that never crossed over.)
197. Spin Doctors “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong”
198. Beastie Boys “So What’cha Want”
199. N2Deep “Back to the Hotel”
200. DJ Quik “Jus Lyke Compton”
(Above three due entirely to The Box. It's weird because I never heard "Back to the Hotel" on the radio (maybe I did hear it once or twice on my secondary Pop station back then), but it was a significantly popular gold song on my mid-Missouri Rhythmic station 3-4 years ago.
Oh yeah, it came out maybe 6 months before "Rump Shaker," but "Back to the Hotel" is a song that (like Jay-Z's "Show Me What You Got") samples that saxophone loop (which I finally looked up this morning) from the Lafayette Afro Rock Band's "Darkest Light.")
No way! What's the tracklisting?
