And Now It's Been 10 Years

Today's video has "Embedding Disabled" so here is the link to Underground by Ben Folds Fine. What a great song and my how young Mr. Folds looks!

One of my favorite blogs is DeadOn. It's a group effort over there and they've got a nice collection of folks who are purveyors of all things relating to Pop Culture. I really enjoy it. Mr. Yostal has a weekly column, Tied to the 90s where he discusses music-related happenings of the underrated decade of the 1990s. This decade holds a special place in my heart as I spent all of high school and half of college in this decade.

This week's column is on songs for those planning/attending a 10-year reunion this summer. As I graduated in '97 and my 10-year reunion is this summer, I take special interest in this column. Going over his list, it struck me that calendar years are not synchrynous with school years. Yeah I know, this isn't a big relevation but when you graduate high school and songs are either associate with HS or associated with college, it becomes significant. After looking over his list and comparing it to what I remember from 10-years ago, I've decided to come up with my own list of songs from 1997 that I fondly recall. In no particular order...

I'll Be Missing You -- Puff Daddy & The Family
I remember driving around with my boys on some spring evening in '97. We heard this song and it caused us mental anguish. This was one of the first big songs to use samples. It doesn't sound like a big deal now because EVERY popular Rap/R&B song uses sampling. But back then we hear this and think "oh we know this song...but wait we don't! Who is that singing? What's going on? What did they do with The Police." This song was everywhere that spring. It also ties into college as me and one of my roommates (and best buddies from college) use to sing it.

No Diggity -- Blackstreet
I still love this song 10 years later. Teddy Riley's backing track is what holds this song together. I'm also partial to the "mmm mmmm" that falls on the 4-beat.

Return of the Mack -- Mark Morrison
I had no idea who Mark Morrison was, or why he was returning to being a Mack. I associate this song with the valedictorian from HS. I remember her really liking this song and singing along to it.

One Headlight -- The Wallflowers
This song was everywhere in spring of 1997. It is one of those songs that should have been hated due to it being completely over-played but for me I still dig it. It is included on this list due to the fact that I associate it with my recruiting trip to CWRU.

Secret Garden -- Bruce Springsteen
Only included here due to the cheesiness that is the Jerry Maguire remix. This song goes with Eric Clapton's "Change the World" as former rockers gone soft. You had me at hello. Indeed!

The Freshman -- The Verve Pipe
I always put this together with One Headlight for whatever reason. I had to write a paper for English class and remember hearing this song about five times as I typed out the paper.

Semi-Charmed Life -- Third Eye Blind
This song holds a special place in my heart. I had a 5K open swim in the summer of '97 and for the hour that I was in the water this is what I was singing. It helped as I ended up winning the thing (out of about 10 people). Also, what 18 year old doesn't like a song the mentions Crystal Meth and oral sex.

Push -- Matchbox Twenty
Remember when no one knew about these guys? It was just this song that people took offense to as it talked about pushing around your girlfriend. They got famous, Rob Thomas got fat, he lost that weight then became more famous with Santana. Things have worked out pretty well for him, eh? I'm not ashamed to say that this album still sounds good 10 years later.

Tubthumping -- Chumbawumba
As we move into the College portion of this list we arrive at the anarchists from the UK. Their anarchist messages meant nothing to me then (or now) but definitely a great song to sing along to at the top of your lungs, sober or not.

I'm starting to lose steam here and Lost is almost on, so I'll do a quick couple more.

I Will Buy You a New Life -- Everclear
Do you remember the world before MP3s? Well arriving onto a highly technological campus in the fall of '97 I quickly found out the joys of this new music format and network sharing. This is one of the first (of many) songs that I remember getting as an MP3 file. As a note, I still have my 1997 era desktop (200 MHz and 4 Gig hard drive!) in hops that I will one day recover the thousands of MP3 files I have on there.

Getting Jiggy With It -- Will Smith
My coach had this personality quirk where he would find a song and play it incessantly, somtimes on repeat (Shimmer anyone?). Well in the fall of '97 this was it. This song indoctrinated me into the world of college swimming which pretty much led me to where I am today.

So there you have it. My 13 songs from ten years ago that I associate with the end of high school and the start of college. I have to hand it to Yostal and his weekly posts. These take a lot of effort and just doing this one is enough.