Reflections on the Billboard Hot 100, 1993-1998 (Part 1 of 4)
On the morning of Wednesday, April 22, I woke up with the song “Shoop” by Salt-N-Pepa in my head for no apparent reason. I was happy about it, though, so I posted it without comment on Facebook. The response to my post suggested that my whimsical awakening actually resonated with several others in my Early Millennial cohort. I was pleased but not entirely surprised; one of the things I noticed specifically about the springtime lockdown period was the apparently increased seductiveness of nostalgia. And why not? In the midst of a present wholly arrested and in the absence of any discernible future, what other direction is there to look in besides backwards?
And in retrospect, for many of us, to what better era shall we harken than the 90s of our youth? In our case, these 90s carry not merely the usual irrational attachments one holds to the days of one’s childhood, but an intrinsically innocent and optimistic character in contrast to what we know as reality today.
Screw it, I figured. Let’s embrace this.
“Shoop” is from 1994, number 29 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the year. The next day, I posted “This is How We Do It”, number ten on the Billboard Hot 100 for the following year, 1995. I kept going. 1996, 1997, 1998. When it came time for my sixth daily song post, however, I couldn’t bring myself to go beyond 1998. This would be overstepping the bounds of the innocent mid-90s, a move from songs remembered from elementary school and early adolescence to the more charged and loaded material from our coming-of-age-time. We weren’t ready for that kind of time travel yet back in April - or at least I wasn’t - and I’m not quite sure we are quite ready now. Instead, I dropped back down to 1993.
Thus began a cycle of 41 song posts, rotating sequentially between 1993 and 1998 and then starting over again. For the first month, including weekends, I only missed two days. After that, my reliability declined, but I continued sporadically until my most recent post on June 22, two months to the day after I started. While I began posting the songs with minimal statements typically limited to announcing the day of the week and the chart position and year of the song, after eleven days, I began adding more colorful and fun commentary.
With the exception of only one or two, all songs featured appeared somewhere on the Billboard Top 100 list for their respective year. Because this was so much fun, I’ve decided to collect these posts into a four-part musical nostalgia series. This is the first in that series.
- April 22 - “Shoop” by Salt-N-Pepa, #29 from 1994
“Kids on the playground in 1994,” I added in the comments section, “were like ‘psssst, do you know what “shoop” means?’”
“They so were,” replied Allie, who was actually there with me on the same playground at the time. It made me feel warm to have my story get backed up.
“Not at my school,” Kellie replied. She went to Waldorf school, where children didn’t know about such things.
At this point, Nancy, my son’s kindergarten teacher at the very same Waldorf school chimed in about how the song brought her back. And then Vanessa, someone else I actually knew in 1994, shared that her children knew the song better than she even did. Everyone remarked on the good parenting.
- April 23 - “This is How We Do It” by Montel Jordan, #10 from 1995
- April 24 - “You’ll Always Be My Baby” by Mariah Carey, #5 from 1996
I didn’t include much commentary with this (because I wasn’t doing that yet), but I should add that the fact that I used this as my third song indicates I was really leaning into it already. I was having fun with this. This is a song I wouldn’t be caught dead posting on my wall in other years, in normal circumstances. Now I was half-acknowledging in that is-he-or-isn’t-he maybe-ironic way that I kind of have mixed feelings about this song, that part of me sees some merit to it.
And why not? When the song came out, we were too young to have experienced the phenomenon of having that extra-special youthful romance with someone and knowing that even though it’s “over” they’ll always be your baby - but we could understand it. We knew it lay just ahead.
I should also note that the response here was great, with mostly expressions of love, a few predictable expressions of disgust, and my good childhood friend and longtime music critic T-Fo chiming in with his top 5 Mariah songs (this one being at the top of the list).
- April 25 - “How Do I Live?” by LeAnn Rimes, #9 from 1998
I made a historical error in my post here, saying:
"Today is now Saturday. I bring you the #9 song of 1997!
And I’ll tell you how I live without you: BY STAYING HOME!!!"
The joke was good and effective, but I’d gotten my facts wrong, since the song actually belongs to 1998. In any case, this was another song that had been very familiar at middle school dances; though the subject had been danced around previously, this post marked the first overt mention of the Hawthorne Brook Middle School Cafeteria.
Someone chimed in to say that for her and her first serious boyfriend, this had been their song. (Presumably, they eventually found out the answer one way or another.)
One or two people returned from the previous day to express their disgust a second time, Kellie informed us that she can sing this song in karaoke (which I still have yet to hear), and Nancy remembered this from her days working at Whole Foods in Sacramento (though she notes that her real nostalgia song from that era is “Semi-Charmed Life.”)
- April 26 - “Mo Money Mo Problems” by Notorious B.I.G., #20 from 1997
By going back to 1997, I corrected my mistake. This is a very non-controversial song. Gats in holsters, girls on shoulders.
- April 27 - “A Whole New World” by Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle, #18 from 1993
Don’t you dare close your eyes.
- April 28 - “The Sign” by Ace of Base, #1 from 1994
"Today is Tuesday, a big day.
This was 1994, a very big year. I bring you the #1 song from that epic time."
Naturally, the first comment referenced the apparent alleged Naziism of the most popular band of 1994, but the number of positive comments that follow suggest just how much we are all willing to overlook in the face of a pop beat that you just can’t say no to.
- April 29 - “Waterfalls” by T.L.C., #2 from 1995
"This is Wednesday already.
Here is the #2 song from 1995. I assume there is some sort of life lesson in this song but after 25 years I still don’t know what it is."
Someone chimed in to suggest the song is anti-hydropower, while someone else retconned it as a COVID metaphor (“waterfalls = outside, lakes and rivers = your house”), then I was told somberly that the message is about AIDS, which I was not expecting (but which is apparently true). After 25 years, mystery solved, I guess.
T-Fo brings Michael Keaton’s Batman into the conversation.
Someone else thanked me for consistently including the day of the week in these posts, since such things are hard to keep track of during a lockdown.
- April 30 - “It’s Gonna be Me” by N*Sync, #27 from 2000
"Ok I have to deviate from my 1993-1998 explorations just for today, and jump to the year 2000, because, you know, tomorrow....
(This is #27 and boy you should really look at this list of songs. Things took a turn real quick.)"
I can’t lie, I have a real soft spot for the annual “It’s gonna be May” memes with Justin Timberlake. I don’t know why. I still think it’s funny, every time. Even now.
T-Fo, who truly understands this nostalgia game, commented about how in the year 2000, he wrote a CD review for a Nelly album. I remember because I was there and spot checked it for him.
- May 1 - “Tha Crossroads” by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, #7 from 1996
“Back to the regular schedule: today, which is blissfully Friday, we would like to delve into #7 from 1996. So you won’t be lonely.”
In the comments, I of course included the Sesame Street video, as I do below.
- May 2 - “The Freshman” by The Verve Pipe, #21 from 1997
“Somehow it’s Saturday! Today, we go back to the epically full year of 1997. At #21, this is a song that reminds me a lot of that year, but perhaps even more of 2002-2003.
I won’t be held responsible.”
I really do love and feel quite connected to this song, and I really do have some very strong memories of it from both 1997 and 02-03 when, as you might guess, I was (again) a freshman. I don’t fully understand the story in the song, but I do believe it’s accurate.
Naturally, many of the commenters pointed out the COVID connection, one stating that it sounds like someone at a trial defending themselves against spreading COVID. “I won’t be held responsible, Your Honor. She was touching her face.”
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Stay tuned for next week, when we pick up right where we left off, with the emotionally charged #10 song from 1998. Let the indulgent, defense-mechanism nostalgia continue eternal!