1)Whitney Houston, “I Will Always Love You”
SONG: I think we can all agree that it takes significant singing ability to sing that chorus. It sure does. But not only is the musical backing such a bare-bones assembly-line piece of adult contemporary balladry (the only strength of which is that it means it hasn’t dated horribly) that it seems hilarious to think that millions of dollars probably went into “crafting” it, but get this: she only sings that fucking chorus twice in the entire 4:33 (hah!!!) of the song. And just so you all know, I’m not a Whitney Houston basher–I LOVE her “black Cyndi Lauper” songs like “How Will I Know” and “I Just Wanna Dance With Somebody,” and that’s recently.
VIDEO: Basic footage of Whitney sitting in an auditorium interspersed with clips from The Bodygard, a 90s hit film, which, like Pretty Woman, I don’t think I’m ever actually going to see. On the basis of the clips shown in the video, it’s about Kevin Costner committing suicide by jumping off a bridge into a lake because Whitney Houston pointed a sword at him.

2)Tag Team - “Whoomp! (There It Is)”
SONG: I wonder how many people have forgotten the name of the group that made this, just like many people have probably forgotten the name of the guys who did the Macarena. I’m not a rap music aficionado but even I can tell that the rapping in the song’s verses is pretty weak stuff, barely a rung up the ladder from Kriss Kross (hell, maybe lower than that.)
VIDEO: Footage of people at a street basketball game in the early 90s, replete with everyone wearing T-shirts that update the sloganeering look of the T-shirts in the “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” video. Cuts between that and footage of models in bikinis, or girls having their skirts blown up a la Marilyn Monroe. Basic kid stuff

3)UB40 - “(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You”
SONG: Guy with weird froggy-throaty British-reggae voice butchers an Elvis song. I remembered the chorus to this, but not the verses. The musical backing is some nice horns over rather badly dated squishy synths and frippity drum machines. I guess the chorus is at least passably catchy, though.
VIDEO: Footage of the band in black and white incongruously meshed with clips from that Sharon Stone movie Sliver that was controversial for about five minutes in a year that had a lot of controversial stuff that has lasted a lot longer than that Sharon Stone movie Sliver (DOOM, Mortal Kombat, Beavis & Butthead, Snoop Dogg). What did this movie have to do with an upbeat British reggae Elvis cover? What were people ON back then!??

4)Janet Jackson - “That’s The Way Love Goes”
SONG: Harmless early 90s R&B with icy synth backing and that generic 90s beat. I’ve heard better but also worse.
VIDEO: Hey, Jennifer Lopez is in this! Before everyone got sick of her! The video takes damn near two minutes of its five minute running time before the song actually gets started. Funny bit at the end where Janet yells “Tish don’t look at the camera!” at someone.

5)Silk - “Freak Me”
SONG: Basic 90s R&B with cheap plasticky synth backing set on “Modern EGP.” Oh Modern EGP, how I never tire of you. Still, though, we’re in the 90s now for sure, meaning you can hear R&B/soul/adult contemporary groups scratching away at modernity, trying to find new sounds to differ them from Timmy T three years ago. I mean, I could tell this song was from 1993 and not 1990…right?
VIDEO: The guy who sings the high part looks Daniel Kaluuya. They all wear stripey clothing that I guess could have aged worse.

6)SWV - “Weak”
SONG: “This was the song girls would sing in high school when they had to prove they could sing,” say the viewer comments. I don’t remember the song, which is just more early 90s R&B with the keyboard set on “Modern EGP,” but I can’t quite peg it as “kid stuff.” It’s aged a bit more poorly than the two previous songs.
VIDEO: Boxing themes. Not much to say. It’s a bit obvious that they aren’t really hitting each other. One of the girls is wearing military fatigues for…some…reason.

7)Shai - “If I Ever Fall In Love”
SONG: You know, the more I hear of this early 90s R&B genre, the more I have to conclude that it’s not much for me! Very generic slop without much of a hook. How’d this get into the top 10? AI writes songs like this nowadays, right?
VIDEO: They’re in a dankly lit locker room with some images being projected onto a screen nearby. Then they’re on the beach. A generic video to go with a generic song.

8)Mariah Carey - “Dreamlover”
SONG: Unlike Whitney Houston, I can’t think of any songs by Mariah Carey that I like. If that Wilson Philips song from 1989 didn’t exist, I might stand a chance of passably enjoying this, but she shamelessly rips off the chorus hook from that song. It has a whistly pipe organ in it, which is sort of nice I guess.
VIDEO: She’s out in a field somewhere and wearing country-girl clothes while a bunch of shirtless dancers try to avoid doing the “running in place” dance moves from three years ago.

9)Wreckx-N-Effect - “Rump Shaker”
SONG: Oh, so this is where that “zoom zoom zoom and a boom boom” line comes from. Now I know. That part is sort of catchy. The rest, psssht. Their name has aged poorly, too.
VIDEO: Banned from MTV for women in bikinis. We’ll need a mop to wipe up all that edge.

10)Snow - “Informer”
SONG: White Canadian rapper!!!! I faintly remember him, and this, but didn’t know he was Canadian. I sort of like those horn samples and that the song is major key. Viewer comment: “His singing sounds like a doctor’s handwriting.” I had a mild liking for this song, but only mild. If I had to pick a song from this top 10 to relisten to I’d pick this one.
VIDEO: Well, to be sure, if I didn’t know what the guy looked like, I wouldn’t be able to match his square jaw and glasses to that voice. The fashions could have dated worse, I s’pose.

NOT IN THE TOP 10, AND THANK GOD:

Meat Loaf - “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)”
4 Non Blondes - “What’s Up” (I really, REALLY wish this piece of shit would go away…its staying power has been pretty remarkable, but it’s a dumb squawk-fuck of a song)
An adult contemporary version of that “A Whole New World” song from Aladdin, sung by goofily-named Peabo Bryson
Soul Asylum - “Runaway Train”
The Proclaimers - “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)”
Snap! - “Rhythm Is A Dancer” (were these guys named after the Jam compilation album?)
Spin Doctors - “Two Princes”