1)Los Del Rio, “Macarena”
SONG: I think this song might as well be exhibit A in the case that late 90s electronica has aged as badly as 80s aerobicize-synth-pop. Has it? Well…the synth sounds you hear in the song sound like the presets on somebody’s $500 90s Wal-Mart keyboard (whatever that would have been), just like when Ken showed us that Youtube video detailing the 32 or so bright shiny presets on the Yahama DX7, and how he could easily name songs from the 80s that used any and all of them. I suppose it’s not entirely an uncatchy song, but I’m sure anyone who was alive in 1996 remembers how quickly everybody began clowning on it, probably just as fast, if not even faster, than they do with whatever the kids are listening to nowadays.
VIDEO: Ditto for the clothes everyone’s wearing in the video, edgy midriffs and hotpants and stupid wigs and lots of shiny stuff. Actually, the most badly dated things are all those spiky knots the girls have in their hair, any girls still doing that? Somebody go find out for me, I’ve been ill lately and don’t feel like leaving the house. Obviously the contrast between the 19 year old girls shaking their asses and the two very middle-aged Latin guys (whose names I couldn’t tell you at gunpoint, just like I’ve never actually known what the Spanish language chorus actually translates to) singing the chorus is pretty funny, like that time they tried to put Eduard Khil (“trolololo”) in a modern music video after he became famous. I can’t name the song, but they slapped a wig on him and it looked very bad.

2)Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men, “One Sweet Day”
SONG: I still can’t name a song by her that I like. Totally bland adult contemporary with a generic “we’re sending our love down the welllll!!” chorus.
VIDEO: People in the studio recording the song. ZZZZZZ. The kind of thing you turn into a video when you don’t have any real ideas.

3)Celine Dion, “Because You Loved Me”
SONG: Say what you will about Mariah but even she is better than this. The thoonking drum sound wafting through this song cracked me up. Somebody’s Casio keyboard set on “bongo.” Another shit adult contemporary ballad, although I suppose she mostly refrains from oversinging the fucking thing.
VIDEO: This was used in a 90s movie called Up Close And Personal. Most of the viewer comments are “RIP Robert Redford.”

4)The Tony Rich Project, “Nobody Knows”
SONG: A very limp R&B ballad–very VERY limp. A few twanging acoustic guitar notes and minimal percussion. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever even heard this one before.
VIDEO: Dude rides a bike around, hangs out in various dumpy alleys and bathrooms. Nothing much to report.

5)Mariah Carey, “Always Be My Baby”
SONG: Oh wait, THIS one. Yeah, this one I’ve heard beaten to death almost as much as the Christmas song over the years! Did she rip that little “dododo” hook off from Wilson Phillips, or is it such a typical hook that it doesn’t matter where she got it?
VIDEO: Mariah on a tire swing, wearing denim clothes. What was this shot in the Deep South or something? Don’t fall Mariah!!! Oh wait, there’s also something about a kid running away from home in there, but the kid just ends up on its own tire swing.

6)Tracy Chapman, “Give Me One Reason”
SONG: The first song on this list by someone who can actually play an instrument, bros!!! Too bad it’s just a simple 12 bar blues.
VIDEO: Just her performing live in a bar. Notable for how many people in her band have 90s ponytails to go with their “professional roots musician” look, which means lots of hats.

7)Bone-Thugs-N-Harmony, “Tha Crossroads”
SONG: After the choral opening, the vocal harmonies here start out seeming like they’re going to be really arty and interesting, with this light climbing chord sequence, but that fades away after less than 30 seconds. Dammit–they really had me there.
VIDEO: Funeral. Starts with a corny moment when a big dude with a hat and trenchcoat comes in and carries the ghost of the deceased out of a church. Continues through a bit where a dude’s face pushes through the side of a building in a really bad special effect. Then the guy with the trenchcoat walks up to an old guy sitting on a porch and “finger-guns” him through the head, KILLING HIM THE FUCK DEAD. Dafuq?!? Eazy E’s ghost appears in the sky at the end, or at least I think that’s who it is. Well at least one of these videos was interesting!

8)Donna Lewis, “I Love You Always Forever”
SONG: Adult contemporary scourge of grocery store playlists for all fuckin’ time, bros!!! At least I know what this song’s name is now, and who sings it. Not that I’ll be looking it up a second time. One of those songs you’ve heard ten trillion times without knowing who did it. A really lame synth-brass riff pops up towards the end of the song, weirdly out of place, like a sound from 1987 that suddenly found its way into 1996 for just a few seconds.
VIDEO: Generic blonde (she was Welsh, actually, not that you’d know without looking it up) with a generic name stands in a corner somewhere really tan-colored. Tan walls, tan floor, tan filter over the camera, tan. Dumb camera effects flip her upside down and sideways a lot, like a teenager just learned to work with chroma key.

9)Toni Braxton, “You’re Makin’ Me High”
SONG: Harmless but not very memorable R&B. Wikipedia lists TWO Toni Braxton songs in this slot, but I’m not going to bother listening to the other one.
VIDEO: Somebody really liked her face. Countless closeups of it. Reminded me of Joe talking about how stuff like Iron Man had loads of closeups because of the people who made it being raised on shitty pan n scan VHS tapes when they were kids.

10)Keith Sweat, “Twisted”
SONG: Harmless but not very memorable R&B. I’m really running out of shit to say about this kind of song, if indeed I even had anything to say about it before.
VIDEO: Jewel robbery in a fancy restaurant bathroom.

Highest ranking “rock” song on the list was “Ironic,” which I don’t much want to hear again. Alanis really torpedoed some good songs with that godawful fake Irish accent inflection thingy of hers didn’t she?