Post by a Nick O! on Feb 22, 2009 18:23:18 GMT -4
NICK’S TOP 200 SONGS OF 1993
(Extended and Remastered)
February 10, 2009
01. Janet Jackson “If”
(This song and video were the beginning of my very big crush on Janet that lasted for several years, taking the first blow with her unsexy appearance in her "Runaway" video two years later (chain from nose ring to earring
, hair up in a bun), and dwindling to insignificance with the lack of quality singles or videos from her Velvet Rope album. 
)
02. Snow “Informer”
(Once The Box started showing the version with the words scrolling across the bottom, I taped it and memorized them, later being convinced by fellow 5th Grade friends to perform this at the school's "Air-Band" show. (Students would lip-synch their favorite songs. A friend even lip-synched MC Shan's rap for me.) Everyone, including teachers, seemed pretty amazed that I knew the words to this. Plus my participation took the school's music teacher by surprise, since I had had minimal interest in participating during her classtime the past 3 years.) Oh yeah, though songs were pre-screened during rehearsals, one notorious hellraising kid in the grade below me somehow got away with lip synching a clean, yet still violent, version of "East Bay Gangster" by Spice 1. Maybe they were so encouraged by his participation in a school event that they were willing to look the other way when the more violent lyrics popped up.)
03. Bobby Brown “Humpin’ Around” (1992: #1)
(Still enthusiastic enough about this song in my first full year of listening to pop music that, although it clearly died off the previous fall, its impression on me lingered so much into '93, that it was still my third favorite song of the next year.)
04. Bobby Brown “Get Away”
(Finally, a Bobby Brown single I didn't have to hide listening to.)
05. Bobby Brown “That’s the Way Love Is”
06. Wreckx-N-Effect “Rump Shaker” (1992: #66)
07. Red Hot Chili Peppers “Soul to Squeeze”
08. Michael Jackson “Give in to Me”
(Wasn't even a U.S. single, but The Box showed its concert footage video early in the year between "Heal the World" and "Who Is It.")
09. Inner Circle “Bad Boys”
10. Spin Doctors “Two Princes”
(Not impressed much by "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong," I loved this.)
11. Snow “Lady with the Red Dress”
(My first crack in the dam of charting album cuts. This song was so good.)
12. Snow “Girl, I’ve Been Hurt”
13. Tevin Campbell “Can We Talk”
(Was blown away by how good this was.)
14. Dr. Dre featuring Snoop Doggy Dogg “Dre Day”
(Had no idea at the time that MTV censored Dre's videos more than The Box did. This song was so good that, for years, I never bothered to notice that it doesn't have a chorus.
)
15. Toni Braxton “Another Sad Love Song”
16. Dr. Dre featuring Snoop Doggy Dogg “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang”
17. Stereo MC’s “Connected”
18. Madonna “Deeper and Deeper” (1992: #54)
(Songs that appeared on both charts from here on down got severely screwed by the split year.)
19. Madonna “Bad Girl”
(Much better of a song than people gave it credit. I was so used to Madonna's songs flying into the Top 5 that I was shocked when this stalled at #18 and quickly vanished.)
20. Pearl Jam “Black”
(The first Pearl Jam single I was aware of when it was released. Even my Pop station played this, though Daniel Shywaoub's book shows it didn't even chart below the Top 40. Ironically, it was their first single for the rest of their career (save '98's "Do the Evolution" and '06's "Life Wasted") to not have a music video.)
21. P.M. Dawn “The Ways of the Wind”
(This Top 20 hit is probably my favorite single from them. Surprised when it fell way short of the Top 10.)
22. Michael Jackson “Who Is It”
(Wasn't clear at the time that "Give in to Me" wasn't a U.S. single, so I was disappointed when this came out damn near simultaneously and took the Pop chart by storm, no fault of the song's.)
23. Janet Jackson “That’s the Way Love Goes”
(Though this was a fine song, I didn't understand the 6-week #1 fuss. In hindsight, it was Janet following up Rhythm Nation. Only an incompetent boob and record label could botch the first single bad enough for it to not blow up like this. Since it debuted the same week as Bobby Brown's "That's the Way Love Is," I always resented that the former kicked its ass so badly.)
24. Def Leppard “Stand Up (Kick Love Into Motion)” (1992: #51)
25. Def Leppard “Tonight”
(Yeah, it was the 5th single, but I was shocked when a song this good stalled at #23.)
26. Snoop Doggy Dogg “Who Am I (What’s My Name)?”
27. Salt-N-Pepa “Shoop”
(This video began my crush on Salt that lasted for a couple years. She never looked hotter than this video, though.)
28. Naughty by Nature “Hip Hop Hooray”
(Yeah, the song was real good, but I'm surprised still that I wound up owning the CD single for this.)
29. Duran Duran “Ordinary World”
(Not being old enough to appreciate (or even have much awareness of) their '80's heyday, their catalog will never surpass the two lead singles from their self-titled "wedding" album.)
30. Mariah Carey “Hero”
(This classy video began my full-blown Mariah crush, which lasted until she divorced Tommy Mottola (good for her) and started making crappy, hip hop-driven (mutually exclusive) R&B. (Boooo.) She never looked more beautiful than in the performance videos for this and "Without You" the following year.)
31. P.M. Dawn “Looking Through Patient Eyes”
(Didn't think this was good enough to be #1, but I didn't complain.)
32. Lenny Kravitz “Believe”
(The music to this song had such a compelling mysteriousness to it. And the long guitar solo outro (doubled with string accompaniment) was glorious.)
33. Duran Duran “Come Undone”
34. Exposé “I’ll Never Get Over You (Getting Over Me)”
35. Def Leppard “Two Steps Behind”
36. Bobby Brown & Whitney Houston “Something in Common (Remix)”
37. Joey Lawrence “Nothin’ My Love Can’t Fix”
(Yes, the Blossom co-star with the "Whoa" catchphrase, who was later championed by Disney. Yes, #37. No, I don't feel guilty about it.)
38. Aerosmith “Cryin’”
(Not initially big on "Livin' on the Edge," and it took several listens for me to warm up to this, but this was part of my gateway into hard rock. (I can trace my love for, say, Bleeding Through, back to this song, believe it or not, and more importantly my brother's copy of Nirvana's In Utero album, whose dissonance I was more open-minded to immediately upon Kurt Cobain's death the next year.) Obviously, "Cryin'"'s video being the first installment of the Alicia Silverstone trifecta didn't hurt, either.
)
39. Janet Jackson “Again”
(Pissed that "Dreamlover" kept "If" from reaching #1 for six agonizing weeks (the longest running #2 I'd witnessed thus far), I was even more chagrined when this took Janet right back to #1 again. No pun intended. Ha!
)
40. Bon Jovi “In These Arms”
41. Stone Temple Pilots “Plush”
(Weiland's dyed-red hair had a subliminal influence on me, in hindsight. Of course, if it wasn't him, it would've been somebody else anyway...)
42. Soul Asylum “Runaway Train”
(The video was really powerful, but pretty sad, especially with all those missing children photos interspersed, the saddest being the boy who'd been missing for 7 years by that point.
)
43. En Vogue featuring FMob “Runaway Love”
(A very cool and underrated hit of theirs, due to the fact that it only appeared on an EP. One of probably a dozen on this chart I bought the cassette single for that year. I'm not gonna lie: it was pretty hot that they were all standing topless next to each other at the end of the video, even if all their backs were toward the camera.)
44. Tony! Toni! Toné! “Anniversary”
45. Blind Melon “No Rain”
46. Ace of Base “All That She Wants”
47. Ugly Kid Joe “Cats in the Cradle”
(Hot Harry Chapin remake!)
48. Tony! Toni! Toné! “If I Had No Loot”
49. Mariah Carey “Dreamlover”
50. Michael Jackson “Will You Be There”
51. Haddaway “What Is Love” (Sure those Roxbury Guys skits were funny on Saturday Night Live, but then they had to go and stretch the goddamned things into a full-length feature movie, forever ruining this song's image. Poor Haddaway. I still love you. I knew what was up in 1993.)
52. Sade “No Ordinary Love”
53. Whitney Houston “I Have Nothing”
54. Madonna “Rain”
55. Snap! “Rhythm Is a Dancer” (1992: #61)
56. Pearl Jam “Jeremy”
57. Shai “Baby I’m Yours”
58. Jon Secada “Angel”
59. Toad the Wet Sprocket “Walk on the Ocean (Extended Version)” (1992: #70)
60. Peter Gabriel “Steam”
61. Arrested Development “Mr. Wendal”
62. Dr. Dre “Let Me Ride”
63. Whitney Houston “I Will Always Love You” (1992: #156)
(Hot Dolly Parton remake!)
64. Aerosmith “Amazing”
65. Bon Jovi “Bed of Roses”
66. Jodeci “Lately (Unplugged Version)”
(Hot Stevie Wonder remake!)
67. Duice “Dazzey Duks”
(pronounced "Daisy Dukes," as in an ode to the short shorts Daisy Duke wore on the Dukes of Hazzard. Fun fact: The second version of its music video starred none other than Married...With Children's David Faustino, i.e. Bud Bundy. As huge of a song as this was on The Box and later on my Pop station, I was surprised to know that it only topped out at #75 on R&R.)
68. Gin Blossoms “Found Out About You”
69. En Vogue “Love Don’t Love You”
70. Bryan Adams “Please Forgive Me”
71. 10,000 Maniacs “Because the Night”
(Hot Patti Smith remake!)
72. Jade “Don’t Walk Away”
73. U2 “Numb”
74. Michael Jackson “Heal the World”
75. Ice Cube “It Was a Good Day”
76. The Cranberries “Linger”
77. Nirvana “Heart-Shaped Box”
78. Ice Cube “Wicked” (1992: #157)
79. H-Town “Knockin’ Da Boots”
80. En Vogue “Give It Up, Turn It Loose” (1992: #137)
81. Peabo Bryson & Regina Belle “A Whole New World”
82. Aerosmith “Livin’ on the Edge”
83. Depeche Mode “I Feel You”
84. Inner Circle “Sweat (A La La La La Long)”
85. Lenny Kravitz “Are You Gonna Go My Way”
86. R.E.M. “Everybody Hurts”
(There was a traffic jam on an episode of Daria and Trent thinks to himself, "This is just like that R.E.M. video except you can't read people's minds.")
87. Pearl Jam “Daughter”
88. John Mellencamp “Human Wheels”
(I loved to air drum to this song with pencils, a year before I had a clue how big drumsticks actually were.)
89. Shai “If I Ever Fall in Love”
90. New Order “Regret”
91. Meat Loaf “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)”
92. Nirvana “In Bloom”
93. Captain Hollywood Project “More and More”
94. Billy Joel “All About Soul”
95. Tasmin Archer “Sleeping Satellite”
96. Taylor Dayne “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love”
(Hot Barry White remake!)
97. Sting “Fields of Gold”
98. Billy Joel “The River of Dreams”
99. Taylor Dayne “Send Me a Lover”
(Hot Celine Dion rema...er, kind of...(Taylor's version came out first.))
100. Def Leppard “Miss You in a Heartbeat”
101. Stone Temple Pilots “Creep”
102. 4 Non Blondes “What’s Up”
(Another song that took several listens to grow on me. Y'know, and not be absolutely obnoxious. But it's been so played out over the years that'll never be the same.)
103. Sting “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You”
104. Shai “Comforter”
105. Radiohead “Creep”
106. Saigon Kick “Love Is on the Way” (1992: #73)
107. Prince and the New Power Generation “7”
(The Box never got the video for this and I've never thought to look for it since.)
108. Jon Secada “I’m Free”
109. Prince and the New Power Generation “The Morning Papers”
110. Stone Temple Pilots “Wicked Garden”
111. Jon Secada “Do You Believe in Us” (1992: #45)
112. TLC “Hat 2 Da Back”
113. TLC “What About Your Friends” (1992: #42)
114. George Michael “Killer/Papa Was a Rolling Stone”
(Hot Seal/Temptations remake!)
115. Vanessa Williams & Brian McKnight “Love Is”
116. Brian McKnight “One Last Cry”
117. Whitney Houston “I’m Every Woman”
(Hot Chaka Khan remake!)
118. Def Leppard “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” (1992: #8)
119. Duran Duran “Too Much Information”
120. Positive K “I Got a Man”
121. Depeche Mode “Walking in My Shoes”
122. Celine Dion “The Power of Love”
(Hot Jennifer Rush (who?) remake! Had no idea at the time, had a hunch now, and never bothered to confirm this as a cover until now.)
123. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”
124. Tag Team “Whoomp! (There It Is)”
125. Silk “Freak Me”
(I loved it when this song was on Rick Dees' countdown and he'd toss it to a Clint Eastwood impersonator who, in the Dirty Harry role, would say, "Go ahead...freak me." What I wouldn't give to get my hands on that soundbyte today...)
126. Dada “Dizz Knee Land”
(Who could've had any idea that 8-16 years later, the line "I just flipped off President George" would be relevant all over again?)
127. Michael Bolton “Said I Loved You…But I Lied”
128. Damn Yankees “Silence Is Broken”
129. Madonna “Erotica” (1992: #46)
130. R.E.M. “Drive” (1992: #143)
131. Gin Blossoms “Hey Jealousy”
132. Whitney Houston “Run to You”
(Following 3 Bodyguard #1's, I was stunned when this peaked at #13.)
133. U2 “Lemon”
134. R.E.M. “Man on the Moon”
135. Cathy Dennis “Irresistible”
136. Boyz II Men “Please Don’t Go”
(Apparently this was peaking on the Pop chart at #67 around the time I got into pop music the year before, yet I only knew this as the excellent lead track on their Cooleyhighharmony album: the first CD I ever bought.)
137. Stereo MC’s “Step It Up”
138. Madonna “Fever”
(Hot Little Willie John, as made famous by Peggy Lee remake! Had no idea at the time, though. Shame this was not a U.S. single. The video was fantastic.)
139. INXS “Beautiful Girl”
140. Toni Braxton “Breathe Again”
(The thing about this song that was extremely hard to overlook was whenever she sang "about" or "without" in the verses, the way the "out" syllables of those words would trail off in this odd, dying croak. The beautifully shot black & white video was also unusual, looking back, because here's Toni running away from her lover in this garden maze in this beautiful, if bulky, white wedding dress. Then when she loses him, she decides to kneel down and pull down the top of her dress and sit there in a pile, topless, with her arms over her chest and singing over her shoulder toward the camera. Because she was topless, though, of course I never thought to question the point of any of this at the time.
)
141. Cher with Beavis and Butt-head “I Got You Babe”
(Hot, Sonny &, um, Cher remake!
Butt-head: We need a chick.
Beavis: Yeah, yeah. We need a chick who's cool.
Butt-head: A chick who doesn't suck. Uh, no, wait a minute. That's not what I meant. We need a chick who's got tattoos on her butt.
Beavis: Yeah, yeah. We need one of those chicks.
Etc....)
142. Mr. Big “Wild World”
(Hot Cat Stevens remake!)
143. P.M. Dawn “I’d Die Without You” (1992: #72)
144. Onyx “Slam”
(The MTV promo featuring Toby Huss's (look at the résumé on this guy! That's why he looked so familiar as The Wiz on that episode of Seinfeld!) "Ol' Two Eyes" rendition of this song was classic. Frustratingly, that's the one of the four he did that's not up for viewing on YouTube. ARGH! In the meantime, here's his take on "Dre Day", his take on "Insane in the Brain," and his two takes on "Jeremy." (2.) (The first "Jeremy" I'd never seen and I don't think it was ever shown on American MTV because it references Jeremy's gun a bunch.) Finally, here's his take on the nominees for Best Song at the 1994 MTV Movie Awards.)
145. Nirvana “Lithium”
146. Ice Cube featuring Das EFX “Check Yo’ Self (The Message Remix)”
147. Tears for Fears “Break It Down Again”
148. P.M. Dawn “Plastic”
149. Porno for Pyros “Pets”
150. U2 “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses” (1992: #111)
151. Portrait “Here We Go Again”
152. Prince “Pink Cashmere”
(His falsetto on this song is ridiculous.)
153. Goddess “Sexual” (1992: #95)
154. Pearl Jam “Alive”
155. Shanice “It’s for You”
156. Saigon Kick “All I Want”
157. Restless Heart featuring Warren Hill “Tell Me What You Dream”
158. Pearl Jam “Animal”
159. Pearl Jam “Even Flow”
160. R. Kelly & Public Announcement “Dedicated”
161. SWV “Right Here/Human Nature”
162. Boy George “The Crying Game”
163. Bon Jovi “Keep the Faith” (1992: #103)
164. George Michael with Queen “Somebody to Love”
(Hot, um, Queen remake!)
165. Toad the Wet Sprocket “I Will Not Take These Things for Granted”
166. SWV “I’m So Into You”
(There's a version of this song I heard on Casey's Top 40, if not Pop radio in general, that I haven't been able to track down, where there's a new lead line over top of the chorus, and the original chorus is relegated to the background, if I'm not mistaken. I believe too, that the original fades out, whereas the version I'm talking about had a cold ending after some a cappella chorus vocals outlast the music.)
167. SWV “Weak”
(The single version of this song also had a cold ending that I preferred.)
168. K7 “Come Baby Come”
169. D.R.S. “Gangsta Lean”
(This song was unintentionally amusing, because here you have an R&B quartet singing a mournful song about dead friends, but it's from the perspective of thugs, so it has all the gangsta slang in it. It's like four Nate Doggs.)
170. U2 “Zoo Station” (Hot album cut.)
171. UB40 “Can’t Help Falling in Love”
(Hot Elvis Presley remake!)
172. Boy Krazy “That’s What Love Can Do”
173. Wendy Moten “Come in Out of the Rain” (True story: I happened to meet her at the local Memphis version of the Grammys 10 years later.)
174. 10,000 Maniacs “These Are Days” (1992: #179)
175. Boy Krazy “Good Times with Bad Boys”
176. Carmen Electra “Everybody Get on Up”
(God, it's so awesome she was originally an aspiring recording artist, but even more so, that she was a protogé of Prince! And that I was hip to all of this thanks to The Box. Of course, there was an episode of Beavis and Butt-head where they watched this video, so I would've found out soon enough anyway. Quoth Butt-head: "I'm already up!" Ha!)
177. Sting “Epilogue (Nothing ’Bout Me)”
(Had no idea until 2007 that this was its listed title on the album.)
178. Elton John “Simple Life”
179. Intro “Come Inside”
180. Aaron Neville “Don’t Take Away My Heaven”
181. 10,000 Maniacs “Candy Everybody Wants”
182. Kenny G featuring Peabo Bryson “By the Time This Night Is Over”
183. Jade “One Woman”
184. Tina Turner “I Don’t Wanna Fight”
185. Snow “Runway”
(The failed single #3.)
186. Green Jellÿ “Three Little Pigs”
(You might know them better by their original, copyright-infringing name, Green Jellö. (And how was that such a buzzworthy, unusual color for Jell-O back then, anyway?) It's worth noting, in case there's anybody that didn't know, that the "Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin" line is sung by none other than Tool's Maynard James Keenan.)
187. Joshua Kadison “Jessie”
188. Lisa Keith “Better Than You”
189. Poison “Stand”
190. Johnny Gill “The Floor”
191. Gabrielle “Dreams”
192. Gloria Estefan “I See Your Smile”
193. Xscape “Just Kickin’ It”
(I always thought the male bridge of "This is for the...Strictly for the...This is for the...The real" never made much sense. Come to find out a year or two ago that the word "niggas" had been silenced in all 4 of those instances. I don't know what the point of all that is, but it makes more sense now. :
194. Hi-Five “Never Should’ve Let You Go”
195. Kris Kross “It’s a Shame”
(Apparently, by the time they shot the video for this 4th (5th, if you count their video for "The Way of the Rhyme," which The Box got instead of "Warm It Up" for some reason), their voices had deepened enough that they went ahead and recorded a new vocal track.)
196. Eazy-E “Only If U Want It”
(A Box classic from his 1992 stopgap EP.)
197. Poison Clan “Shake Whatcha Mama Gave Ya”
(From the same Miami booty, bass rap scene as 2 Live Crew and Luther Campbell's solo career, here was another Box classic. Apparently JT Money, of 1999's "Who Dat" fame, was a member of Poison Clan. The ending to the video was pretty funny. The club setting was all a dream and when, presumably, JT Money mumbles "Shake what'cha mama gave ya" in bed, his mom has walked in and smacks him awake, I think with her purse.)
198. Terence Trent D’Arby featuring Des’ree “Delicate”
(Who knew that the next year Des'ree would have one of 1994's hugest hits with "You Gotta Be.")
199. The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. “It’s Gonna Be a Lovely Day”
(Single from The Bodyguard soundtrack, apparently a one-off project from the two C's from C&C Music Factory, with lead vocals from one of the girls from Seduction, of "Two to Make It Right" fame, an awesome song I've yet to track down.)
200. Silk “Girl U for Me”
Top 10 Albums Heard in 1993:
01. Michael Jackson - Dangerous
02. Bobby Brown - Don't Be Cruel
03. En Vogue - Funky Divas
04. Snow - 12 Inches of Snow
05. U2 - Achtung Baby
06. Paula Abdul - Spellbound
07. P.M. Dawn - The Bliss Album...?
08. Lenny Kravitz - Are You Gonna Go My Way
09. Nirvana - Nevermind (my brother's cassette copy)
10. Jon Secada - s/t
(Extended and Remastered)
February 10, 2009
01. Janet Jackson “If”
(This song and video were the beginning of my very big crush on Janet that lasted for several years, taking the first blow with her unsexy appearance in her "Runaway" video two years later (chain from nose ring to earring
, hair up in a bun), and dwindling to insignificance with the lack of quality singles or videos from her Velvet Rope album. 
)02. Snow “Informer”
(Once The Box started showing the version with the words scrolling across the bottom, I taped it and memorized them, later being convinced by fellow 5th Grade friends to perform this at the school's "Air-Band" show. (Students would lip-synch their favorite songs. A friend even lip-synched MC Shan's rap for me.) Everyone, including teachers, seemed pretty amazed that I knew the words to this. Plus my participation took the school's music teacher by surprise, since I had had minimal interest in participating during her classtime the past 3 years.) Oh yeah, though songs were pre-screened during rehearsals, one notorious hellraising kid in the grade below me somehow got away with lip synching a clean, yet still violent, version of "East Bay Gangster" by Spice 1. Maybe they were so encouraged by his participation in a school event that they were willing to look the other way when the more violent lyrics popped up.)
03. Bobby Brown “Humpin’ Around” (1992: #1)
(Still enthusiastic enough about this song in my first full year of listening to pop music that, although it clearly died off the previous fall, its impression on me lingered so much into '93, that it was still my third favorite song of the next year.)
04. Bobby Brown “Get Away”
(Finally, a Bobby Brown single I didn't have to hide listening to.)
05. Bobby Brown “That’s the Way Love Is”
06. Wreckx-N-Effect “Rump Shaker” (1992: #66)
07. Red Hot Chili Peppers “Soul to Squeeze”
08. Michael Jackson “Give in to Me”
(Wasn't even a U.S. single, but The Box showed its concert footage video early in the year between "Heal the World" and "Who Is It.")
09. Inner Circle “Bad Boys”
10. Spin Doctors “Two Princes”
(Not impressed much by "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong," I loved this.)
11. Snow “Lady with the Red Dress”
(My first crack in the dam of charting album cuts. This song was so good.)
12. Snow “Girl, I’ve Been Hurt”
13. Tevin Campbell “Can We Talk”
(Was blown away by how good this was.)
14. Dr. Dre featuring Snoop Doggy Dogg “Dre Day”
(Had no idea at the time that MTV censored Dre's videos more than The Box did. This song was so good that, for years, I never bothered to notice that it doesn't have a chorus.
)15. Toni Braxton “Another Sad Love Song”
16. Dr. Dre featuring Snoop Doggy Dogg “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang”
17. Stereo MC’s “Connected”
18. Madonna “Deeper and Deeper” (1992: #54)
(Songs that appeared on both charts from here on down got severely screwed by the split year.)
19. Madonna “Bad Girl”
(Much better of a song than people gave it credit. I was so used to Madonna's songs flying into the Top 5 that I was shocked when this stalled at #18 and quickly vanished.)
20. Pearl Jam “Black”
(The first Pearl Jam single I was aware of when it was released. Even my Pop station played this, though Daniel Shywaoub's book shows it didn't even chart below the Top 40
. Ironically, it was their first single for the rest of their career (save '98's "Do the Evolution" and '06's "Life Wasted") to not have a music video.)21. P.M. Dawn “The Ways of the Wind”
(This Top 20 hit is probably my favorite single from them. Surprised when it fell way short of the Top 10.)
22. Michael Jackson “Who Is It”
(Wasn't clear at the time that "Give in to Me" wasn't a U.S. single, so I was disappointed when this came out damn near simultaneously and took the Pop chart by storm, no fault of the song's.)
23. Janet Jackson “That’s the Way Love Goes”
(Though this was a fine song, I didn't understand the 6-week #1 fuss. In hindsight, it was Janet following up Rhythm Nation. Only an incompetent boob and record label could botch the first single bad enough for it to not blow up like this. Since it debuted the same week as Bobby Brown's "That's the Way Love Is," I always resented that the former kicked its ass so badly.)
24. Def Leppard “Stand Up (Kick Love Into Motion)” (1992: #51)
25. Def Leppard “Tonight”
(Yeah, it was the 5th single, but I was shocked when a song this good stalled at #23.)
26. Snoop Doggy Dogg “Who Am I (What’s My Name)?”
27. Salt-N-Pepa “Shoop”
(This video began my crush on Salt that lasted for a couple years. She never looked hotter than this video, though.)
28. Naughty by Nature “Hip Hop Hooray”
(Yeah, the song was real good, but I'm surprised still that I wound up owning the CD single for this.)
29. Duran Duran “Ordinary World”
(Not being old enough to appreciate (or even have much awareness of) their '80's heyday, their catalog will never surpass the two lead singles from their self-titled "wedding" album.)
30. Mariah Carey “Hero”
(This classy video began my full-blown Mariah crush, which lasted until she divorced Tommy Mottola (good for her) and started making crappy, hip hop-driven (mutually exclusive) R&B. (Boooo.) She never looked more beautiful than in the performance videos for this and "Without You" the following year.)
31. P.M. Dawn “Looking Through Patient Eyes”
(Didn't think this was good enough to be #1, but I didn't complain.)
32. Lenny Kravitz “Believe”
(The music to this song had such a compelling mysteriousness to it. And the long guitar solo outro (doubled with string accompaniment) was glorious.)
33. Duran Duran “Come Undone”
34. Exposé “I’ll Never Get Over You (Getting Over Me)”
35. Def Leppard “Two Steps Behind”
36. Bobby Brown & Whitney Houston “Something in Common (Remix)”
37. Joey Lawrence “Nothin’ My Love Can’t Fix”
(Yes, the Blossom co-star with the "Whoa" catchphrase, who was later championed by Disney. Yes, #37. No, I don't feel guilty about it.)
38. Aerosmith “Cryin’”
(Not initially big on "Livin' on the Edge," and it took several listens for me to warm up to this, but this was part of my gateway into hard rock. (I can trace my love for, say, Bleeding Through, back to this song, believe it or not, and more importantly my brother's copy of Nirvana's In Utero album, whose dissonance I was more open-minded to immediately upon Kurt Cobain's death the next year.) Obviously, "Cryin'"'s video being the first installment of the Alicia Silverstone trifecta didn't hurt, either.
)39. Janet Jackson “Again”
(Pissed that "Dreamlover" kept "If" from reaching #1 for six agonizing weeks (the longest running #2 I'd witnessed thus far), I was even more chagrined when this took Janet right back to #1 again. No pun intended. Ha!
)40. Bon Jovi “In These Arms”
41. Stone Temple Pilots “Plush”
(Weiland's dyed-red hair had a subliminal influence on me, in hindsight. Of course, if it wasn't him, it would've been somebody else anyway...)
42. Soul Asylum “Runaway Train”
(The video was really powerful, but pretty sad, especially with all those missing children photos interspersed, the saddest being the boy who'd been missing for 7 years by that point.
)43. En Vogue featuring FMob “Runaway Love”
(A very cool and underrated hit of theirs, due to the fact that it only appeared on an EP. One of probably a dozen on this chart I bought the cassette single for that year. I'm not gonna lie: it was pretty hot that they were all standing topless next to each other at the end of the video, even if all their backs were toward the camera.)
44. Tony! Toni! Toné! “Anniversary”
45. Blind Melon “No Rain”
46. Ace of Base “All That She Wants”
47. Ugly Kid Joe “Cats in the Cradle”
(Hot Harry Chapin remake!
)48. Tony! Toni! Toné! “If I Had No Loot”
49. Mariah Carey “Dreamlover”
50. Michael Jackson “Will You Be There”
51. Haddaway “What Is Love” (Sure those Roxbury Guys skits were funny on Saturday Night Live, but then they had to go and stretch the goddamned things into a full-length feature movie, forever ruining this song's image. Poor Haddaway. I still love you. I knew what was up in 1993.)
52. Sade “No Ordinary Love”
53. Whitney Houston “I Have Nothing”
54. Madonna “Rain”
55. Snap! “Rhythm Is a Dancer” (1992: #61)
56. Pearl Jam “Jeremy”
57. Shai “Baby I’m Yours”
58. Jon Secada “Angel”
59. Toad the Wet Sprocket “Walk on the Ocean (Extended Version)” (1992: #70)
60. Peter Gabriel “Steam”
61. Arrested Development “Mr. Wendal”
62. Dr. Dre “Let Me Ride”
63. Whitney Houston “I Will Always Love You” (1992: #156)
(Hot Dolly Parton remake!
)64. Aerosmith “Amazing”
65. Bon Jovi “Bed of Roses”
66. Jodeci “Lately (Unplugged Version)”
(Hot Stevie Wonder remake!
)67. Duice “Dazzey Duks”
(pronounced "Daisy Dukes," as in an ode to the short shorts Daisy Duke wore on the Dukes of Hazzard. Fun fact: The second version of its music video starred none other than Married...With Children's David Faustino, i.e. Bud Bundy. As huge of a song as this was on The Box and later on my Pop station, I was surprised to know that it only topped out at #75 on R&R.
)68. Gin Blossoms “Found Out About You”
69. En Vogue “Love Don’t Love You”
70. Bryan Adams “Please Forgive Me”
71. 10,000 Maniacs “Because the Night”
(Hot Patti Smith remake!
)72. Jade “Don’t Walk Away”
73. U2 “Numb”
74. Michael Jackson “Heal the World”
75. Ice Cube “It Was a Good Day”
76. The Cranberries “Linger”
77. Nirvana “Heart-Shaped Box”
78. Ice Cube “Wicked” (1992: #157)
79. H-Town “Knockin’ Da Boots”
80. En Vogue “Give It Up, Turn It Loose” (1992: #137)
81. Peabo Bryson & Regina Belle “A Whole New World”
82. Aerosmith “Livin’ on the Edge”
83. Depeche Mode “I Feel You”
84. Inner Circle “Sweat (A La La La La Long)”
85. Lenny Kravitz “Are You Gonna Go My Way”
86. R.E.M. “Everybody Hurts”
(There was a traffic jam on an episode of Daria and Trent thinks to himself, "This is just like that R.E.M. video except you can't read people's minds."
)87. Pearl Jam “Daughter”
88. John Mellencamp “Human Wheels”
(I loved to air drum to this song with pencils, a year before I had a clue how big drumsticks actually were.)
89. Shai “If I Ever Fall in Love”
90. New Order “Regret”
91. Meat Loaf “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)”
92. Nirvana “In Bloom”
93. Captain Hollywood Project “More and More”
94. Billy Joel “All About Soul”
95. Tasmin Archer “Sleeping Satellite”
96. Taylor Dayne “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love”
(Hot Barry White remake!
)97. Sting “Fields of Gold”
98. Billy Joel “The River of Dreams”
99. Taylor Dayne “Send Me a Lover”
(Hot Celine Dion rema...er, kind of...(Taylor's version came out first.))
100. Def Leppard “Miss You in a Heartbeat”
101. Stone Temple Pilots “Creep”
102. 4 Non Blondes “What’s Up”
(Another song that took several listens to grow on me. Y'know, and not be absolutely obnoxious. But it's been so played out over the years that'll never be the same.)
103. Sting “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You”
104. Shai “Comforter”
105. Radiohead “Creep”
106. Saigon Kick “Love Is on the Way” (1992: #73)
107. Prince and the New Power Generation “7”
(The Box never got the video for this and I've never thought to look for it since.)
108. Jon Secada “I’m Free”
109. Prince and the New Power Generation “The Morning Papers”
110. Stone Temple Pilots “Wicked Garden”
111. Jon Secada “Do You Believe in Us” (1992: #45)
112. TLC “Hat 2 Da Back”
113. TLC “What About Your Friends” (1992: #42)
114. George Michael “Killer/Papa Was a Rolling Stone”
(Hot Seal/Temptations remake!
)115. Vanessa Williams & Brian McKnight “Love Is”
116. Brian McKnight “One Last Cry”
117. Whitney Houston “I’m Every Woman”
(Hot Chaka Khan remake!
)118. Def Leppard “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” (1992: #8)
119. Duran Duran “Too Much Information”
120. Positive K “I Got a Man”
121. Depeche Mode “Walking in My Shoes”
122. Celine Dion “The Power of Love”
(Hot Jennifer Rush (who?) remake!
Had no idea at the time, had a hunch now, and never bothered to confirm this as a cover until now.)123. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”
124. Tag Team “Whoomp! (There It Is)”
125. Silk “Freak Me”
(I loved it when this song was on Rick Dees' countdown and he'd toss it to a Clint Eastwood impersonator who, in the Dirty Harry role, would say, "Go ahead...freak me."
What I wouldn't give to get my hands on that soundbyte today...)126. Dada “Dizz Knee Land”
(Who could've had any idea that 8-16 years later, the line "I just flipped off President George" would be relevant all over again?
)127. Michael Bolton “Said I Loved You…But I Lied”
128. Damn Yankees “Silence Is Broken”
129. Madonna “Erotica” (1992: #46)
130. R.E.M. “Drive” (1992: #143)
131. Gin Blossoms “Hey Jealousy”
132. Whitney Houston “Run to You”
(Following 3 Bodyguard #1's, I was stunned when this peaked at #13.)
133. U2 “Lemon”
134. R.E.M. “Man on the Moon”
135. Cathy Dennis “Irresistible”
136. Boyz II Men “Please Don’t Go”
(Apparently this was peaking on the Pop chart at #67 around the time I got into pop music the year before, yet I only knew this as the excellent lead track on their Cooleyhighharmony album: the first CD I ever bought.)
137. Stereo MC’s “Step It Up”
138. Madonna “Fever”
(Hot Little Willie John, as made famous by Peggy Lee remake!
Had no idea at the time, though. Shame this was not a U.S. single. The video was fantastic.)139. INXS “Beautiful Girl”
140. Toni Braxton “Breathe Again”
(The thing about this song that was extremely hard to overlook was whenever she sang "about" or "without" in the verses, the way the "out" syllables of those words would trail off in this odd, dying croak. The beautifully shot black & white video was also unusual, looking back, because here's Toni running away from her lover in this garden maze in this beautiful, if bulky, white wedding dress. Then when she loses him, she decides to kneel down and pull down the top of her dress and sit there in a pile, topless, with her arms over her chest and singing over her shoulder toward the camera. Because she was topless, though, of course I never thought to question the point of any of this at the time.
)141. Cher with Beavis and Butt-head “I Got You Babe”
(Hot, Sonny &, um, Cher remake!
Butt-head: We need a chick.
Beavis: Yeah, yeah. We need a chick who's cool.
Butt-head: A chick who doesn't suck. Uh, no, wait a minute. That's not what I meant. We need a chick who's got tattoos on her butt.
Beavis: Yeah, yeah. We need one of those chicks.
Etc....)
142. Mr. Big “Wild World”
(Hot Cat Stevens remake!)
143. P.M. Dawn “I’d Die Without You” (1992: #72)
144. Onyx “Slam”
(The MTV promo featuring Toby Huss's (look at the résumé on this guy!
That's why he looked so familiar as The Wiz on that episode of Seinfeld!) "Ol' Two Eyes" rendition of this song was classic. Frustratingly, that's the one of the four he did that's not up for viewing on YouTube. ARGH! In the meantime, here's his take on "Dre Day", his take on "Insane in the Brain," and his two takes on "Jeremy." (2.) (The first "Jeremy" I'd never seen and I don't think it was ever shown on American MTV because it references Jeremy's gun a bunch.) Finally, here's his take on the nominees for Best Song at the 1994 MTV Movie Awards.)145. Nirvana “Lithium”
146. Ice Cube featuring Das EFX “Check Yo’ Self (The Message Remix)”
147. Tears for Fears “Break It Down Again”
148. P.M. Dawn “Plastic”
149. Porno for Pyros “Pets”
150. U2 “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses” (1992: #111)
151. Portrait “Here We Go Again”
152. Prince “Pink Cashmere”
(His falsetto on this song is ridiculous.)
153. Goddess “Sexual” (1992: #95)
154. Pearl Jam “Alive”
155. Shanice “It’s for You”
156. Saigon Kick “All I Want”
157. Restless Heart featuring Warren Hill “Tell Me What You Dream”
158. Pearl Jam “Animal”
159. Pearl Jam “Even Flow”
160. R. Kelly & Public Announcement “Dedicated”
161. SWV “Right Here/Human Nature”
162. Boy George “The Crying Game”
163. Bon Jovi “Keep the Faith” (1992: #103)
164. George Michael with Queen “Somebody to Love”
(Hot, um, Queen remake!
)165. Toad the Wet Sprocket “I Will Not Take These Things for Granted”
166. SWV “I’m So Into You”
(There's a version of this song I heard on Casey's Top 40, if not Pop radio in general, that I haven't been able to track down, where there's a new lead line over top of the chorus, and the original chorus is relegated to the background, if I'm not mistaken. I believe too, that the original fades out, whereas the version I'm talking about had a cold ending after some a cappella chorus vocals outlast the music.)
167. SWV “Weak”
(The single version of this song also had a cold ending that I preferred.
)168. K7 “Come Baby Come”
169. D.R.S. “Gangsta Lean”
(This song was unintentionally amusing, because here you have an R&B quartet singing a mournful song about dead friends, but it's from the perspective of thugs, so it has all the gangsta slang in it. It's like four Nate Doggs.)
170. U2 “Zoo Station” (Hot album cut.)
171. UB40 “Can’t Help Falling in Love”
(Hot Elvis Presley remake!
)172. Boy Krazy “That’s What Love Can Do”
173. Wendy Moten “Come in Out of the Rain” (True story: I happened to meet her at the local Memphis version of the Grammys 10 years later.)
174. 10,000 Maniacs “These Are Days” (1992: #179)
175. Boy Krazy “Good Times with Bad Boys”
176. Carmen Electra “Everybody Get on Up”
(God, it's so awesome she was originally an aspiring recording artist, but even more so, that she was a protogé of Prince! And that I was hip to all of this thanks to The Box. Of course, there was an episode of Beavis and Butt-head where they watched this video, so I would've found out soon enough anyway. Quoth Butt-head: "I'm already up!"
Ha!)177. Sting “Epilogue (Nothing ’Bout Me)”
(Had no idea until 2007 that this was its listed title on the album.)
178. Elton John “Simple Life”
179. Intro “Come Inside”
180. Aaron Neville “Don’t Take Away My Heaven”
181. 10,000 Maniacs “Candy Everybody Wants”
182. Kenny G featuring Peabo Bryson “By the Time This Night Is Over”
183. Jade “One Woman”
184. Tina Turner “I Don’t Wanna Fight”
185. Snow “Runway”
(The failed single #3.
)186. Green Jellÿ “Three Little Pigs”
(You might know them better by their original, copyright-infringing name, Green Jellö. (And how was that such a buzzworthy, unusual color for Jell-O back then, anyway?) It's worth noting, in case there's anybody that didn't know, that the "Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin" line is sung by none other than Tool's Maynard James Keenan.)
187. Joshua Kadison “Jessie”
188. Lisa Keith “Better Than You”
189. Poison “Stand”
190. Johnny Gill “The Floor”
191. Gabrielle “Dreams”
192. Gloria Estefan “I See Your Smile”
193. Xscape “Just Kickin’ It”
(I always thought the male bridge of "This is for the...Strictly for the...This is for the...The real" never made much sense. Come to find out a year or two ago that the word "niggas" had been silenced in all 4 of those instances. I don't know what the point of all that is, but it makes more sense now. :
194. Hi-Five “Never Should’ve Let You Go”
195. Kris Kross “It’s a Shame”
(Apparently, by the time they shot the video for this 4th (5th, if you count their video for "The Way of the Rhyme," which The Box got instead of "Warm It Up" for some reason), their voices had deepened enough that they went ahead and recorded a new vocal track.)
196. Eazy-E “Only If U Want It”
(A Box classic from his 1992 stopgap EP.)
197. Poison Clan “Shake Whatcha Mama Gave Ya”
(From the same Miami booty, bass rap scene as 2 Live Crew and Luther Campbell's solo career, here was another Box classic. Apparently JT Money, of 1999's "Who Dat" fame, was a member of Poison Clan. The ending to the video was pretty funny. The club setting was all a dream and when, presumably, JT Money mumbles "Shake what'cha mama gave ya" in bed, his mom has walked in and smacks him awake, I think with her purse.)
198. Terence Trent D’Arby featuring Des’ree “Delicate”
(Who knew that the next year Des'ree would have one of 1994's hugest hits with "You Gotta Be.")
199. The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. “It’s Gonna Be a Lovely Day”
(Single from The Bodyguard soundtrack, apparently a one-off project from the two C's from C&C Music Factory, with lead vocals from one of the girls from Seduction, of "Two to Make It Right" fame, an awesome song I've yet to track down.)
200. Silk “Girl U for Me”
Top 10 Albums Heard in 1993:
01. Michael Jackson - Dangerous
02. Bobby Brown - Don't Be Cruel
03. En Vogue - Funky Divas
04. Snow - 12 Inches of Snow
05. U2 - Achtung Baby
06. Paula Abdul - Spellbound
07. P.M. Dawn - The Bliss Album...?
08. Lenny Kravitz - Are You Gonna Go My Way
09. Nirvana - Nevermind (my brother's cassette copy)
10. Jon Secada - s/t