Insanely Great 90s Songs You're Not Sick of: 1999

It’s obvious that grave mistakes had been made when devising our modern calendar, because 1999 was inarguably the first full year of the dreaded 21st century. Certainly music-wise. 

In gathering up tunes for this post I was struck by how slim the pickings were. As well as how packaged and produced to death everything was.  It kind of felt like 1999 took 1994's corpse, smoothed down all the rough edges, airbrushed it all with mood lighting and then encased it in acrylic. 

My leanings are admittedly more ‘mersh than a lot of you fine folks, seeing as how I grew up on classic Top 40 radio in a family filled with professional musicians (by which I mean I grew up surrounded by near total-dysfunction). But there’s ‘mersh and then there’s hermetically sealed. 

Still, there were some bitchin’ tunes to be cranked while motoring along the New Jersey highways and by-ways in my late, lamented Saturn SL2 (sob).

If you're wondering what a first-wave GenXer is doing obsessing on music mostly marketed to late Xers and early Millennials, the question is the answer. I grew up on Boomer-made music, and it wouldn't be until the 90s that my cohort made their mark. Their sensibilities were my sensibility, their tastes were often my taste, and as such we responded to the same triggers. 

As some OGSS readers know, I tend to favor the theory that generations go by decade and not some arbitrary marker invented by demographers. I refer to early 60s kids as "BoomX," since they were defined by much different conditions than their 50s-born brethren and sisteren. It would be this cohort that kicked off the hardcore, post-punk and indie movements that would come to define what is typically seen as GenX music. 

That being said, let's get on with it:

Live decided to remake “I Alone” in '99 and re-title it “Dolphin’s Cry.” But if something works you stick with it, right? With the benefit of hindsight I can’t help but be reminded of tableaus that would be seen on New York City streets a couple of years after this video was filmed.

Death in Vegas enlisted guest-stars like the Iggmeister for the all-killer (no pun inten…OK, pun intended) Contina Sessions. Haven’t listened to this one in a while. Might be time for another spin.

Limp Bizkit is normally a band I instinctively loathe on a number of different levels; musically, aesthetically, morally. But even I had to admit this was a very well-crafted hook-fest. Not enough to make one forget how much garbage was drawn into its wake, mind you. And we won’t even talk about Rapestock ’99.

Play was the album of 1999 in the circles I travelled. There are a lot of great songs on it, even if it’s overlong and bogged down with way too much filler. Also, Moby is one of those types whose singing would best be heard in the shower or a karaoke bar.

I’d kept Play at bay until five minutes to ten on the evening of February 13, 2000, when I was soul-shredded by this set piece. Even if the seventh season was somewhat lacking, I don't think anything I'd ever watched had kicked my ass as hard as the 'Sein Und Zeit'/ 'Closure' two-parter. I went online, found out what song it was, and then waited at the door for Scotty’s Records and Tapes in Morristown to open and gave them their first sale of the day.

The Ten Thirteen/alt.rock axis was still going strong in the double-nine’s, even if the moment for both was passing. Millennium had featured a lot of prime 90s rock in its three-year run, including this brilliant drop of “Trimm Trabb” for the teaser to “Darwin’s Eye,” an episode anyone reading this needs to watch.

Richard Patrick’s embedding into the 1013 orbit was both musical and fraternal. He’d also prove himself more musically versatile than his old boss with this great pop single, the anthem of former latchkey kids all across the GenX spectrum.

The DeLeo’s were chastened by 1997's Talk Show bellyflop and got Weiland back in for No. 4 in 1999, for which they were rewarded with great tunes and healthy sales. Richard Patrick would later be the next sacrificial lamb for the DeLeo brothers attempts at replacing the irreplaceable Scott Weiland. 

I’ve always found it funny how some alt.rock purists will, um, go to the mat defending Paul Westerberg’s flatulent Boomer-bait with late-period ‘Mats and thereafter, but shun the Goo’s agile Replacements replacements in great singles like “Slide.” I didn't buy Hootenanny and Let it Be because I wanted to hear warmed-over Big Star and Robbie Robertson music, but that's just me. That's just something that I enjoy.

Speaking of replacements, CCM cuddle-muffins Sixpence None the Richer offered to replace The Sundays with their insidiously catchy, “Kiss Me.” You know, there’s a very simple reason so many successful artists have come out of the churches since the earliest days of R'n'R and R&B, and that’s because they'd had a captive audience to perform for since they were wee wanes.

Finally, an older, mellower Joe Strummer emerged from retirement in the Twin-Niner with his Mescaleros, and toured playing an odd mix of old Clash chestnuts and Britpop-inflected world music. The album that resulted isn’t bad, it just leaves a lot to be desired. And the centerpiece of it, “Yalla Yalla,” was much stronger played live. I saw Joe's new act play their second US gig at Irving Plaza, the night before my 33rd birthday, alongside celebrity Clash fans like Matt Dillon, Jim Jarmusch, and the Beastie Boys. 

So this wraps our survey of smashes-you’re-not-sick-to-death-of from The Only Decade That Really Matters. Don’t forget to fill us all in on your own fave raves from ’99, or the Nineties on the whole. Just do us all a mitzvah and list your 90's selections year by year, if it’s not too much trouble.

The Secret Sun Institute of Advanced Synchromysticism is waiting for you to take the next step in your synchro-journey. Come level up.

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