Multitasking
Topic: Whatever
Procrastinating, engaging in self-indulgent silliness and inflicting my opinions on others. If only I could bring this sort of productivity to, you know, the stuff I ought to be doing.

Picked this meme up from Kate on Moment to Moment: You go here and enter the year you graduated from high school in the search box to find the top 100 hits of that year. Cut and paste the top ten (or the whole list, if you're feeling ambitious) and add commentary. Highlight songs you liked from the rest of the list.

And now, 1995:

1. Gangsta's Paradise, Coolio
   This song was *that* popular? Yeah, well, now that I think about it, Weird Al wouldn't have parodied it if wasn't. Overwrought, yet not totally insufferable. As I recall, even when it was most overplayed, I didn't hate it.
   
2. Waterfalls, TLC
   Meh.
   
3. Creep, TLC
   Double meh.
   
4. Kiss From A Rose, Seal
   Overwrought and insufferable.
   
5. On Bended Knee, Boyz II Men
   No recollect... oh, no, I do remember this one. Also overwrought. I seem to recall fairly mercilessly mocking someone who did like it.
   
6. Another Night, Real McCoy
   I wish I didn't remember this one. Insipid and obnoxious and prone to becoming a relentless earworm.
   
7. Fantasy, Mariah Carey
   Don't remember, wouldn't want to, dislike on principle.
   
8. Take A Bow, Madonna
   '95 appears to have been a banner year for overwrought pop songs. Bleh.
   
9. Don't Take It Personal (Just One Of Dem Days), Monica
   No memory of this one.
   
10. This Is How We Do It, Montell Jordan
    Sort of remember being vaguely annoyed by this song.

Well, it appears that the only good thing to be said for 1995's top ten is that at least there's no Celine Dion. Let's see how far down the list we have to go to find a song I can both recall, and recall liking.

Surprisingly enough, not far:

11. I Know, Dionne Farris, which I still rather like. I bought the album this song was on, and still listen to it every once in a while. There's something about her voice that I find really appealling.

13. Freak Like Me, Adina Howard, which I *ducks head, mumbles* also like the Sugababes' cover of.

*continues down the list* Ugh, '95 was not a good Top 40 year. Bryan Adams ballad, Bon Jovi ballad, two Hootie and the Blowfish ballads, and it was the year Sheryl Crow inflicted "Strong Enough" on the world. *gags*

39. As I Lay Me Down, Sophie B. Hawkins, I don't know why I liked this song. I remember thinking that the lyrics were pretty pedestrian, which usually puts me off, but not in this case. Maybe it just stood out because all the other popular music was such utter crap.

55. Roll To Me, Del Amitri, so relentlessly likeable that I should've hated it, but didn't, and don't. I'm a sucker for boys with guitars singing in harmony. Possibly because of the insidious influence of my parents' love of Simon and Garfunkel.

Aaaaaaand that's all folks. Wow. I really was expecting that there would be a few more songs I liked - it's not like my taste in music is way out of the mainstream - but the bottom half of the list is a wasteland, with occasional appearances by artists that I usually like singing songs that I don't. I'm trying to remember what I was listening to in 1995. I think I had just discovered Tori Amos. I know I was still into Pearl Jam. I think I might've been in a fairly serious Chris Isaak phase at that point, as well. And if the radio was on, it was only on the late lamented WDRE. Wasn't I such a stellar little nonconformist, with my penchant for "modern rock"?

Who's next: I want to see what Dave, DamselFish, and agnoiologist think of their high school top 100 list. Oops: Didn't mean to overlook blancheflor. Sorry!