1)Elton John - “Candle In The Wind 1997”/”Something About The Way You Look Tonight”
SONG(S): “Candle In The Wind 1997” isn’t an improvement over the original, a song I didn’t actually appreciate until I bought Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, an album I like a lot now. Corny as it may sound, I like the overblown guitar sound and cheesy 1970s backing “ahhhhh” vocals in the 1973 original. Those aren’t here, replaced with Elton’s reasonably well-aged voice and a rather overblown set of lyrics about Princess Diana. It’s rather chintzy to me that this was the biggest song of 1997. “Something About The Way You Look Tonight” would be a middling track if it had been on one of his 1970s albums, but probably a huge highlight on whatever 90s album it appeared on. The big dramatic chorus gets a little old being repeated over and over like that before the song ends.
VIDEO(S): I guess there wasn’t one for CITW ‘97, the one for “Something About”…is just Elton and his bad bangs and his huge earring playing the biggest fucking piano on Earth while some emaciated supermodels go to a bar. I suppose there’s worse ways you could try to connect with the youth.

2)Jewel - “You Were Meant For Me”/”Foolish Games”
SONG(S): “You Were Meant For Me” - This maudlin little tune could’ve been worse, I suppose. The chorus is one of those watch-my-heart-leap-into-the-sky minor-key-to-major-key thingies that was common with female singer-songwriter/sensitive radio-artist types back then, but I’ve heard better examples of that. You don’t hear this tune much anymore, it seems? “Foolish Games” - Piano and strings, there’s no hook in this song whatsoever. Really didn’t like this one and don’t remember hearing it in 1997.
VIDEO(S): She wears a big blue diaphanous shirt and engages in sensitive stuff with some 90s guy in the first one and makes lots of sad yearning facial expressions at the camera, and does the same in the second one, but with some sort of quasi-see-through dress, a crown of leaves and a horse. I remember when it was a big deal for about five minutes that was going to act in the movie Ride With The Devil but I never saw that movie. Was she good?

3)Puff Daddy featuring Faith Evans & 112 - “I’ll Be Missing You”
SONG: The other mediocre rewrite of a classic to become a painfully huge hit in 1997, this is…well, this is the only time I’m going to go out of my way to hear it, though I guess it doesn’t really make me gag. Puffy’s, er, “flow” sounds like he’s in high school. 112 botch my favorite part of “Every Breath You Take,” the repetitive chanting towards the end of the song, which is too wispy here. Believe it or not, I partially like “Come With Me,” but that’s because of Jimmy Page.
VIDEO: Puffy wasn’t much of an actor. I remember him having some funny lines in Get Him To The Greek but here his goofy facial expressions and that dumb motorcycle crash at the beginning are both pretty laughable. Then there’s a bunch of hooded figures in white wandering around an empty cornfield somewhere.

4)Toni Braxton - “Un-Break My Heart”
SONG: Her voice is weirdly deep sounding and the chorus is a rather unexpected minor key shift. I guess that makes that more interesting than a lot of the bland 90s R&B balladry that I’ve encountered making these lists.
VIDEO: Softcore stuff, lots of shots of water droplets on people’s skin and the like. I guess she was pretty hot back then.

5)Puff Daddy featuring Mase - “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down”
SONG: I don’t know whose idea the silly 70s/80s synths were in this song. At least they catch on a little bit. Mase seems like one of the least talented rappers ever, not that I would know.
VIDEO: Melodramatic bullshit at first, with Puffy drowning, then waking up as Scarface, then driving around in the desert with Mase, then having a bunch of people feel his chest while he lamely quotes Grandmaster Flash. All the Youtube comments are about baby oil.

6)R. Kelly - “I Believe I Can Fly”
SONG: I didn’t know this was from Space Jam because I’ve only seen about 10-20 minutes of Space Jam. What that movie has to do with adult-contemporary pap–and this song is seriously more “adult contemporary pap” than the worst of Phil Collins–is beyond me.
VIDEO: Continuing the bizarre “cornfield” trend of pop videos in 1997. Take a drink every time everyone’s favorite pervert pop star stretches his arms out as if he could, indeed, fly. Conduct that orchestra, bruh.

7)En Vogue - “Don’t Let Go (Love)”
SONG: Should’ve done more with that piano chord sequence. Three chords that sound like they’re gonna be intimidating but then the song kicks in. It’s plain vanilla R&B. Very, very simple music, that couldn’t have taken very long for anyone to write. Not much of a hook. Not much to report.
VIDEO: The four of them looking stalwart in a high-rise hotel room at midnight. Clips from the movie Set It Off occasionally play. Not much to report.

8)Mark Morrison - “Return Of The Mack”
SONG: Inoffensive hip hop with vocals by a guy who seems to be singing with a clothespin on his nose for about half his lyrics. Not that it doesn’t work. The problem with this song is that it needs a third chord.
VIDEO: Nightlife. Not enough to make me stop thinking about the fact that the song literally only has two fucking chords. I don’t recall hearing this song much back in the day.

9)LeAnn Rimes - “How Do I Live”
SONG: I forgot about her. I thought she was a country artist–this is pure adult contemporary pop balladry. I agree she can sing but musically this could be the same thing as any of the other similar songs (regardless of skin color, musical background, age–she was only 14 when this was recorded, though she doesn’t look it) on the list for this year, or any of the other years I’ve covered. Was one person writing all the pop ballads back then?
VIDEO: LeAnn in the back of a car and LeAnn on a stage. ZZZZZ, just like the song.

10)Spice Girls - “Wannabe”
SONG: Confession time…I thought this was pretty catchy back in the day, and honestly, I still do, lame and annoying a pop culture phenomenon as the Spice Girls were (and surely they’ve got to be Exhibit A in the 90s self-awareness phenomenon where people loudly began predicting when a pop culture phenomenon would be over with, beaten possibly only by the Macarena).
VIDEO: I don’t remember which one of them is which, but the redheaded one (she was the one that left, right?) is still pretty cute, ridiculous clothes and all–why she’s dressed for the 80s when the rest of them are wearing 90s stuff is beyond me. Is that why she left?

Pretty grateful that the lists ends there, thus preventing me from having to hear “Bitch” or “MMMBop,” both of which are probably better remembered that a lot of the stuff in the top 10. Highest ranking “rock” song is Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life,” which has a guitar riff I like and vocals that I hate.