1)Coolio, “Gangsta’s Paradise”
SONG: This is going on the list of Songs That Are Now Totems–hit songs that I’ve heard so many times that I have no actual positive or negative reaction to hearing the music anymore, it’s just sort of there. Other examples of this would be “You Shook Me All Night Long,” or Bohemian Rhapsody” or U2’s “Beautiful Day” or “Sweet Home Alabama.” It doesn’t even make me nostalgic for 1995 anymore–I’d rather listen to the original Stevie Wonder song anyway. The lyrics contain the hilarious line “I’m 23 now but will I live to be 24?” when Coolio was actually 32.
VIDEO: 32 year old Coolio warily circles around Michelle Pfeiffer, sitting at a chair with perfect hair and makeup and trying to look tough and unintimidated and not convincing anyone to save her fucking life. The video was directed by Antoine Fuqua who did not direct the movie. I never saw Dangerous Minds when I was supposed to–was it a good movie? I plan on watching some other dated edgy movies from 1995 this year (Kids, Mallrats, Hackers) so maybe I’ll, uh, not throw that on the list.

2)TLC, “Waterfalls”
SONG: This isn’t really my kind of music obviously but I will say that at least the chorus was memorable and the sound of it isn’t too dated. I like it more than most of the R&B stuff I’ve been listening to in these posts. If you care. You don’t.
VIDEO: F. Gary Gray directed it, I didn’t know that. The girls stand in ankle deep water in the ocean before morphing into primitive-CGI silhouettes of themselves next to an actual waterfall, like a cross between The Abyss and The Lawnmower Man. Also some white couple having sex with the dude getting AIDS. Uhhhh.

3)TLC, “Creep”
SONG: I actually haven’t heard this in ages. The vocal harmonies are pleasant and the chorus is alright. Minor key, too, nice. Hey, I might listen to this one again!
VIDEO: Typical MTV dance lines. Pajamas with midriffs.

4)Seal, “Kiss From A Rose”
SONG: The chorus to this is alright. Pleasant string-based production. There’s a break in the song that I hadn’t remembered that is pretty good too. I mean, I’m not going to be relistening to it over and over but it didn’t hurt to hear it again one time.
VIDEO: Footage from Batman Forever, a film I probably wouldn’t be able to watch all the way through today (and it’s the only one of the original four Batman movies that I don’t basically consider a failure) the with shirtless Seal standing in what looks like the ruins of a set from the movie.

5)Boyz II Men, “On Bended Knee”
SONG: The beginning of this sounded like it was drawing cues from, of all things, “Another Day In Paradise.” This has aged better than a lot of the other R&B stuff I’ve heard, but not THAT much better. The dude at the end doing the falsetto goes so falsetto that the words he’s singing are unintelligible.
VIDEO: One of them draws a nice looking portrait of one of the actresses they were dating at the time. Breaks down in tears. Very sad.

6)Real McCoy, “Another Night”
SONG: Mid 90s techno-disco, the stuff that I think kids today mostly hear when they accidentally run into the Mortal Kombat movie theme. I wonder if this stuff sounds as dated today as 80s aerobics tapes did when I was a kid. The fake Electric Grand Piano sounds like shit and the drum rolls are recycled from “Vogue.” The part with the white guy with the gruff voice growling into the microphone is hilariously bad. “I TAWWK TAWWWK, I TAWK TO YOU, IN YOUR DREAM, OF LOVE SO TRUE.” Geezus, “Captain Jack” sounds current compared to this.
VIDEO: Black and white. Looks like guys messing with synthesizers in some sort of factory? Goofy.

7)Mariah Carey, “Fantasy”
SONG: If I like any of her songs this one probably comes the closest. I’d rather hear it than the fucking Christmas song at any rate. She used that same silly 90s Moog-synth psychedelic-hook thingy, the one you heard in “Gin & Juice,” but I sort of like that trope. Passable chorus. The song has only two fucking chords, so if you’ve heard one minute of it you’ve heard all four, thank God they’re good chords. Captures the mid-90s innocence that I’m typically looking for when I do these posts.
VIDEO: Her at a carnival, and on a rollercoaster. She sure was hot. I think this marks the point where bare midriffs, 11 years after Madonna, were so ubiquitous that they weren’t edgy anymore.

8)Madonna, “Take A Bow”
SONG: Utterly trite, jejune, banal, minimal, boring adult contemporary balladry, completely uninteresting from a songwriting OR production perspective. I don’t know that I like a single Madonna song past “Vogue.”
VIDEO: Her rolling around in lingerie, and a bullfighter. First shot of her in the video is her hilariously squishing her tits together in front of the camera. If that marks the end of Madonna trying to be edgy and sexy and is the beginning of that whole Evita time when she was trying to be adult and respectable (I wouldn’t really know), then she sure found a funny way to mark it. Later on in the video there’s a REALLY cringe inducing shot of her walking on broken glass. Or at least it’s supposed to be her. Bullfighter guy looks like he’s trying to be Pacino in Scarface.

9)Monica, “Don’t Take It Personal (Just One Of Dem Days)”
SONG: Two-chord R&B/hip-hop. Samples, vocals and beats are very by the book. Not much to report here.
VIDEO: Black and white stuff of little note. Skip. Pass. I can’t think of much to say about it.

10)Montell Jordan, “This Is How We Do It”
SONG: I liked Slick Rick and his eyepatch and weird accent better. Not that Mr. Jordan’s voice isn’t weird. Amusing to think of it as such a 90s song when the original song dates to 1988, but that’s pique, as Christgau said.
VIDEO: Have fun, kids.