20) Song: I Believe
Artist: Blessid Union Of Souls
Year-End Position: 27
Alright, I'll admit, the reason this song is so low is because the lyrics are pretty sappy and how nasal and pretty whiny Eliot Sloan's vocals can be. That said, the sentiment is executed quite nicely revealing that we as humans have a duty to see each other as such, and that no matter what, we must love one another regardless of skin color, ethnicity, religious background, etc. Not to mention that the music is amazing with sweeping strings, a melodic piano line, and just overall sounding very beautiful. I'll take it.
19) Song: Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
Artist: U2
Year-End Position: 81
This song is just pure power from start to finish. I understand that Batman Forever may not have been a good movie, but there are at least two positive things that came out of it: this song and another one that we'll get to later on in the list. Anyway, Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me. If there is one thing that you'd need to get right if you were making a Batman themed song, you'd have to make it sound epic and big, and boy does this song deliver with its powerful synths and guitar work, strong percussion, and overall feeling like Batman & The Joker are just at each other's throats at that very moment. I do wish that Bono's vocals weren't buried so far down in the mix and I do acknowledge that the lyrics.....well, they aren't very good, but I'm definitely one of the people that, in most cases, is willing to excuse bad lyrics if the music is good enough, so yeah, I like this.
18) Song: Let Her Cry
Artist: Hootie & The Blowfish
Year-End Position: 26
I'm well aware how shat on Adult Contemporary rock music is, and I sometimes take part in it, but if I'm being honest, I have a little bit of a soft spot for Hootie & The Blowfish, and this song is no exception. The incredibly moving instrumentation, Darius Rucker's amazing vocals, the lyrics of advising one to let their partner have some time to emotionally sort things out for themselves when necessary, it's impossible for me to hate this song. That said, we still have 17 other pieces of awesomeness to get to, so let's move along.
17) Song: I Can Love You Like That
Artist: All-4-One
Year-End Position: 15
If there is one group that I wish had a lot more modern day success than they did, it would be these guys because man, do they know how to harmonize. This is just one smooth as hell R&B track. The production has a lot of texture and smoothness to it, and the soulful vocals match it perfectly, and the lyrics of a man proving his love to a woman and willing to do anything for her that she can is nothing short of just sweet. I even like it more than the John Michael Montgomery original. It's that good.
16) Song: I Got 5 On It
Artist: Luniz
Year-End Position: 36
Ah, songs about smoking weed. How you almost never fail to amaze me. So yeah, in this case we have I Got 5 On It, a song from Oakland rap group Luniz, and unsurprisingly, it's amazing. The hazy beat that has a lot of texture and melody to it, each rapper involved really knowing how to spit, basic pot smoking lyrics executed surprisingly well, it all comes together really well for me. So what's keeping it so low?
"I take sacks to the face whenever I can"
Yeah, no, there's no way anyone thought that line was good.
15) Song: Run Away
Artist: Real McCoy
Year-End Position: 38
And we might as well throw #14 in the mix as well.
14) Song: Another Night
Artist: Real McCoy
Year-End Position: 6
Apart from a watered down, completely gutless cover of RedBone's Come & Get Your Love, I'd argue that the German house music duo, Real McCoy, is a pretty sweet dance music group, and these two songs prove it to the max. They both have production that has a lot of texture and swell with killer synthlines that are bouncy as fuck, Karin Kasar has an amazing voice, and hell, even Olaf Jeglitza's dark style of rapping manages to fit in surprisingly well somehow. These are just incredibly fun dance songs. What more do I need to say about them?
13) Song: Back For Good
Artist: Take That
Year-End Position: 62
Honestly, this song is pretty cheesy and maybe even pretty generic, but I've always been of the mindset that generic doesn't equal bad by default. There have to be more factors to the song to make it bad than just being generic, and I'd even argue that some songs, like this one, can be good in spite of being generic. The production that has an acoustic guitar with a lot of texture and the strings that add a good deal of melodic swell to the song, each performer just throwing all of their emotion in to the song, heartfelt lyrics about a man willing to undue his wrongdoings so he can get back with a past lover (and he actually sounds *genuine* about it), screw it, this entry is my birthday present to myself. Happy birthday to me.
12) Song: Hold My Hand
Artist: Hootie & The Blowfish
Year-End Position: 22
Regarding lyrical content, Let Her Cry comes out superior, but this is still serviceable, if a bit cliched, describing a guy who's willing to love the woman in question no matter what, and with the vocal delivery more than makes it believable. Speaking of the vocals, in terms of that and the instrumentation, I think William S. Deaver put it best: "It has a soulful, almost bluesy quality that didn't really show up that much in their other work, and it does a great job of showing off Darius Rucker's marvelous voice, which was always the band's biggest asset."
(Highly recommend checking him out, btw.)
11) Song: Turn The Beat Around
Artist: Gloria Estefan
Year-End Position: 87
Turn The Beat around by Vicki Sue Robinson was and still is one of the most energetic, fun songs ever created. It just has this timeless flair of just pure positive vibes that few others can replicate. Of course, I can think of no better fit to emulate the sheer amount of enthusiasm that Robinson than Gloria Estefan given that she's put out other incredibly fun songs like Rhythm Is Gonna Get You and Conga. Does she deliver here? You bet your ass she does. She is just the perfect match for the sheer zest of Vicki, and she's pretty much her doppelganger in that regard. The only real difference between the two would be the synths in Estefan's version, and even they sound amazing. If we're looking for how to properly recreate a classic, then THIS is how it should be done.
10) Song: You Gotta Be
Artist: Des'ree
Year-End Position: 20
Man, talk about a song from the 90s that has aged incredibly well. This is the perfect combination of self-empowerment anthem with just really fucking good pop music. An incredibly smooth and melodic keyboard line, percussion that makes its presence known without being overbearing or weak as hell, sweeping strings, Des'ree's soulful and gorgeous vocals, lyrics about being strong and facing any challenge that life throws at you, combine all of that, and you've got an easy contender for this list.
9) Song: Colors Of The Wind
Artist: Vanessa Williams
Year-End Position: 31
A lot of people would look at songs like this, Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson's cover of Beauty & The Beast, and Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle's cover of A Whole New World and think "aw man, why did such Disney have to take such classic movie songs and make boring, shitty adult-contemporary versions of them?" I'm lookin' at you, B-Hop. (On a serious note, I highly recommend checking that guy out, too. He's amazing.) Honestly, though, while I do like the originals, I feel like they work way better in context of their respective movies, modernizing them the way they did actually worked a lot more than I thought it would, even to the point where I prefer them to the originals. Out of the three, the A Whole New World Cover would be my favorite, but this is definitely a close second. The instrumentation is amazing. It's beautiful, sweeping, and very natural, which is very fitting of the subject matter of loving the Earth and all of its beauty. Williams' vocals are amazing. They have just the right amount of gravitas and passion that's needed for a song like this. Overall, this is a beautiful Disney track that I will happily return to.
8) Song: Run-Around
Artist: Blues Travelers
Year-End Position: 14
If we're looking for the perfect way to do a bluesy type of rock and roll, then look no further than the Blues Travelers. It's fun, bouncy, sounds incredible with its acoustic driven energy, John Popper's amazing vocals and harmonica playing, and it even manages to juxtapose its relatable lyrics about a woman not treating him right and always screwing him over and actually not only make us feel sorry for the poor dude, but also dance to his predicament. It sounds weird, and yet it works like a motherfucker. Not really much to say here. I highly recommend checking it out if you haven't already.
7) Song: Gangsta's Paradise
Artist: Coolio ft. LV
Year-End Position: 1
Yep, the biggest selling hit of 1995 makes its way on to the list. Damn high, too, and really, it's not hard to see why at all. The hazy synths that provide a dark atmosphere while still maintaining an incredibly solid melody, Coolio's intense flow, the gritty chorus from LV, the lyrics that not only do they not glorify the stereotypical gangster lifestyle, but actually condemns it and asks for a way out, it all amalgamates to one incredible song. Then again, just about everybody knows that by now, so moving on.
6) Song: Cotton Eye Joe
Artist: Rednex
Year-End Position: 93
Yeah, that's right. This song is on my best list, and up this damn high. Eat it, B-Hop (loljk, we still cool, but seriously, way to mislead me, dude -_-).
I see no reason to hate this song. Like, at all. The beat is fun, rollicking, full of energy, fit absolutely perfectly with the banjos and great sounding fiddles, and the chanting in the background just gets me pumped (take notes, DJ Mustard, THAT'S how you do crowd chanting). On top of that, the interpolation of the old folk song fits pretty nicely, and while the gimmick of these guys playing up southern stereotypes might be pretty stupid, it's the type of stupid that's just so goofy and oddly enjoyable. Are the lyrics incredibly repetitive? Sure, but it's the type of repetitive I don't mind given how strong every other quality of the song is, much like Turn Down For What, Blue (Da Ba Dee), Gangnam Style, and Call Me Maybe. I just.....look, I just really like the song, alright? Geez.
5) Song: I'll Be There For You/You're All I Need To Get By
Artist: Method Man & Mary J. Blige
Year-End Position: 42
Okay, I know how reviled the "thugs need love, too" genre is, and quite frankly, a vast majority of them I also dislike. They play to the old cliche of "oh, we bad boyz doin' reel gangsta shit, but we gots owa souft spot, too." That having been said, had more songs sounded like this one, I probably wouldn't have minded it and possibly would've liked it because this is easily the best song from that genre. Why? Well, it's because none of the usual gangsta cliches are present here (in fact, I don't think *any* cliches are present here at all). The main problem with a lot of songs in this category are that they either focus a lot more on the gangsta parts than the love parts, or when they do, it comes off as if they don't even love or care about the woman they're in a relationship with. The complete opposite is done here, and it is just absolutely marvelous. Method Man and Mary J. have a lot of chemistry on this song, and the beat is excellent with its smooth bassline, perfect tempo, and amazing synthlines that match the tone of the song exquisitely. The big selling point for me, though, is the lyrics. It's a song about promoting monogamy that ultimately says that through all the trials and tribulations that they've gone through as a couple, they're still willing to remain with one another, and the detail provided just adds to how much I can really get behind. Quick tip for any hip hop artist looking to make a love song: more of this, less of Always On Time.
4) Song: Fantasy
Artist: Mariah Carey
Year-End Position: 7
Fun fact: when I looked up what song hit #1 on the week of my birth, guess which song came up? If you need some help, look at the cover art directly above. In all seriousness, yeah, Fantasy is amazing, and it shouldn't be that hard to see why. This is how you create a fun, energetic song with a lot blended together. The punchy percussion, Mariah Carey's soaring vocals hitting those higher than the heavens notes while still sounding amazing, the multiple synth loops that make the song very busy and energetic yet never once cluttered, and how well it all fits the subject matter of the bewilderment of being in a relationship where the love is so strong, you'd swear is was, well, a fantasy. Really fun track, happy to recommend it.
3) Song: No More "I Love You's"
Artist: Annie Lennox
Year-End Position: 78
Oh, Annie Lennox, you glorious and magnificent woman, you. Is there anything you've done that hasn't been amazing? (Seriously, I don't think she's done anything that wasn't good.)
Anyway, No More "I Love You's." What the song this specimen is. I actually listened to the original version by The Lover Speaks before I decided to give my opinion on Lennox's cover (which I actually heard first, and if you're wondering what I think of it, well, take a look at how high it is on this list), and wow, I can see why it didn't chart in the US and flopped hard in the UK because it suuuuucked. Not the writing, of course, that was excellent, but the clattering, dated percussion that was a slog to get through, and David Freeman's vocals are weak as fuck. Leave it to super-heroine Annie Lennox to not just make it tolerable, but make it an amazing song. There's just so much more atmosphere and emotional weight in Lennox's version, and her strong performance really lends the song a lot to work with. The feeling of any sort of spark being gone fits a lot better here than in the original. I recommend listening to the original, but only for contextual reasons, and believe me, you'll be blown away once you come back to Lennox's cover. On the plus side, at least this song won't be fucked up beyond belie-
SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2) Song(s): Creep/Red Light Special/Waterfalls
Artist: TLC
Year-End Position(s): 3/28/2
I'll just be straight up with you guys: TLC, in my opinion, is the greatest girl group of all time. I'm not kidding, there's not a single song of theirs that I think falls short of amazing. Diggin' On You, Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg, No Scrubs, What About Your Friends?, Unpretty, Baby Baby Baby, all simply amazing songs. I knew I had to pick at least one of the three songs they notched on the '95 year-end chart, but for the life of me, all of them were so amazing that I couldn't pick just one of them, so I said screw it and just went with all of them.
First up, we have Creep, and man, what a funky song this is. That repeating horn line works like it's nobody's business, and the tempo it's placed at is just flawless. The vocals here are just excellent. All three ladies really know how to harmonize, and it comes through on that incredibly melodic chorus. Not only that, but they sound amazing individually as proven by the verses. That brings us to lyrical content, and oh boy, have we got ourselves pure gold, here. Basically, the woman portrayed in the song still loves the man she's with with all her heart, but he's been cheating while ignoring her and telling her nothing but lies in the process, lately, and it's been getting old. This, in turn, has left her feeling extremely lonely and incredibly hurt. In response, she decides to cheat back while keeping it on the low low to fill the void her lover has left. Now, this isn't exactly the best message to be sending out, nor is it exactly the right thing the woman in question is doing. However, I'd say she's at least a little justified in doing so. She isn't doing so just to say fuck you to her SO, but to fill the void of the loneliness and hurt that he's left her with despite how faithful she was and still is to him, and even with that, she said she'll keep loving him until he totally pushes her away, which is at least reasonable enough, isn't it? I'd say it is.
Now we move on to Red Light Special, and man, what a sexy song this is. The beat is incredibly smooth with its soft keyboard line and synths and dusty percussion (hell, even that guitar line before the final chorus fits pretty well), and the vocals and lyrics are just incredibly seductive and alluring. Not really much to say here, it's just......hey, where did my clothes go?
Finally, we have Waterfalls, and I won't beat around the bush with you guys, this, without a shred of doubt in my mind, is easily my favorite song to hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, not just for 1995, but on the charts period. There is nothing, I repeat, nothing in this song that I am not absolutely in love with. T-Boz's rougher vocal delivery that fits the somber subject matter, the beat with its smooth bassline and guitar work and balanced, textured percussion, but what I love most of all is, of course, the lyrical content, from the first verse describing a mother concerned for her son given his dangerous involvement in gang activity which eventually leads to him getting shot to death, to the second verse about a man who has unprotected sex with a woman, thus causing him to contract HIV which he didn't know the woman had and soon dies of, to the chorus and Left Eye's inspirational verse essentially saying that while it is important to go for what one desires, there are limits to what one can do and to just make sure that the decision that a person makes is the right one for them, it all conglomerates into this masterpiece of music. Yet even with that, we've got one more song to go. What could be better than Waterfalls? We'll get to that, but first, here's a long, and I mean LOOOOOOOOOONG list of honorable mentions (believe me, this year was that freaking amazing):
- Del Amitri - "Roll To Me"
- Natalie Merchant - "Carnival"
- Dionne Farris - "I Know"
- Shaggy - "Bombastic"
- Soul For Real - "Every Little Thing I Do"
- Dr. Dre - "Keep Their Heads Ringin'"
- Hootie & The Blowfish - "Only Wanna Be With You"
- Collective Soul - "December"
- Michael Jackson & Janet Jackson - "Scream"/Michael Jackson - "You Are Not Alone"
- The Notorious B.I.G. - "Big Poppa"
- Skee-Lo - "I Wish"
- D'Angelo - "Brown Sugar"
- Janet Jackson - "Runaway"
- Montell Jordan - "This Is How We Do It"
- Boyz II Men - "On Bended Knee"
- Seal - "Kiss From A Rose"
- The Rembrandts - "I'll Be There For You"
- Ini Kamoze - "Here Comes The Hotstepper"
- Madonna - "Take A Bow"
1) Song: Dear Mama
Artist: 2Pac
Year-End Position: 51
Yeah, let's face it, you all saw this one coming.
If you meet anyone who says they don't like any hip hop or rap song at all, no, don't mangle their neck just yet, just show them this song, and I'm pretty sure it'll change their mind. If it doesn't for whatever reason, then you can mangle their neck. (Note: That was a joke. I do not endorse neck mangling nor will I be held responsible if any neck mangling occurs after reading this blog post.)
So yeah, Dear Mama. This is easily 2Pac's best single, and it shouldn't be hard to see why. That guitar line that blends astoundingly with the strings and the percussion, Pac's more downplayed flow, and like many other entries on this list, incredible lyrical content, more specifically, the best lyrical content of all the songs on this list. This is a song 2Pac addresses to his mother, and it's basically him saying that he could never repay her for all the love and care that she's given him throughout the years, and although they've had their arguments and times of darkness, they've come out alright in the end, and all the memories and precious moments they've created together are worth more than all the money in the world. Now come on, who doesn't appreciate that sentiment? And the detail, oh my God, the detail. Pac really wanted to make sure this song was as descriptive as it could possibly be, and might I just say, he made the right choice here. From the arguments to not feeling anything when his father died to using his new found wealth to provide for his mother in an attempt to make her feel special to her taking care of him when he was sick, guys, I can't fit all of this in one post. You really need to listen to the song to get all of what he's saying, it's that packed with lyrical genius.
Dear Mama by 2Pac. The best hit song of 1995. I hope you guys liked this. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go enjoy turning 20 years old, now.
