The song that represents the END of the 90s

Windowlicker

the 90s never ended

great thread concept

stones at altamont

'1999'

assassination of john lennon

Wilson Phillips - "Hold On"

http://musicflame.net/images/cliff-richard-the-millennium-prayer-single.jpg

At the time I plumped for 'The Sunshine Underground' as far-too-obvious soundtrack to all the millennial bluster but 'Windowlicker' is probably a better choice in terms of it's range of ideas, influences and effects (both senses). I'm sure the ENTIRE WORLD and all cultures therein would agree.

I think this is a good thread idea, actually. That being said, I don't understand the Iris thing. But, that being said, in some weird ways, that big hit by Train in the early 2000's somehow qualifies for this category for me in some way. Like the last gasp of '90's alt-rock or something...

"Girl All The Bad Guys Want"

Len, "Steal My Sunshine"

big tunes from Dec '99 i remember thinking were good but seemed mostly inappropriate for release at that point: well, most of them of course but Q-Tip's 'Breathe And Stop' ("millennium on your mind are you running out of time hope you're skipping every line cos i'm gettin mine") stood out.

also funny to use Q-Tip as representing both start and end of the decade

As in the song that brought the sounds of the 90s to a dead-end, or the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" that set a new precident for this decade?

If the former:
http://www.mtv.com/shared/media/news/images/l/Limp_Bizkit/sq-limp-durst-rolling-smack-int.jpg
Rollin'

I was hoping more people would answer with bands that took the 90s alternative rock style but made music that was more of a morphing into the alt/rock style of today. Like when all the good "grungy" alternative rock acts started disappearing from the radio to a new sound that was half gritty and half new style.

The lyrics to iris "when everything is meant to be broken, I want you to know where I stand" has some of the cool 90s grit going on.

The Strokes - Last Night

^ single was in 2002 but the album released immediately post-9/11

Also Durst possib otm!

"Summer Girls" by the Lyte Funky Ones.

Real Talk.

Or Korn's "Got The Life"

pedantic xxxxpost

I think the actual lyrics are "I just want you to know who I am"

snare drums sounded horrible in the late 90s

J-Lo "Waiting for Tonight".

The video featured her going into the woods for a Y2K Rave.

At the time I plumped for 'The Sunshine Underground' as far-too-obvious soundtrack to all the millennial bluster

what?

omg AFRIKA SHOX ftw

Whatever song that represents the end of "the 90s sound" to you is fine. I wasn't looking for the last concert you went to.

THE YEAR 2000 IS ON THE WAY -- SOME SAY
THE YEAR 2000 -- IT'S BEEN HERE SINCE YESTERDAY

the end of the 90s was probably somewhere around 2004

Don't know for sure, but I'll wager it was produced by The Neptunes.

idioteque

U2 certainly made two records (Pop and All That You Can't Leave Behind) that were emblematic of the late 90s and early 00s.

indeed

Rollin' totally. I remember wandering around that godforsaken Leeds festival site in 2000, when lots of 90s rock royalty like Pulp and Primal Scream and Oasis and whoever were on the bill, alongside Slipknot and Limp Bizkit and Blink 182 and Alien Ant Farm and whoever, and thinking "I don't understand this music but the kids love it and they're getting massive crowds and blimey the 90s are actually over."

fortunately Idlewild were also on the bill to bind us all together

The one that went "CUT MY LIFE INTO PEE-SEZ".

GET UP COME ON GET DOWN WIV THA SICKNEZ

OOH AHH AHH AHH AHH

OK, "Rollin'" is the answer because the video has them playing atop the World Trade Center.

"all the small things" video

If we're gonna go with Limp Bizkit, why aren't we going with "Faith?"

"all the small things" video

-- J0rdan S., Monday, February 18, 2008 4:39 PM (44 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

Nails the stupid Napster-kid-rock AND teenpop in one TRL-sized morsel. This might be the winner

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good band good song nice to see the twin towers respect

If we're gonna go with Limp Bizkit, why aren't we going with "Faith?"

-- Whiney G. Weingarten, Monday, 18 February 2008 21:40

Think "huge-shorts" metal was still just considered a pretty minor fad at this point.

ya 'all the small things' is a definite contender, for some reason. "i have heard the future and it sounds like green day six years ago" kind of deal there.

OK, "Rollin'" is the answer because the video has them playing atop the World Trade Center.

Well, now it all makes sense to me.

Where's the valet? Hey, yo... Yo, red cap.

All right parnder, keep on rollin, baby, you know what time it is.

Also, Rollin was three albums deep for them. The 00s were already in full effect, guys with POD and Papa Roach and Korn and NSYNC and Blink 182 and everything

I stand by Summer Girls.

if we were gonna go w/ limp bizkit i'd personally choose "n 2 gether now"

durst pulls in method man to do a song and it actually spends a week atop modern rock chart

"Feeling Yourself Disintegrate" by the Flaming Lips

Prince - "1999"

ok, if we are being technical (but outside the spirit of this thread), someone should mention that phish song on the new years show where they do "power outage" lyrics or something like that... (I remember my friend hoping they would do that song and then him telling me that they did)

In stark contrast, I'd say the 00's have clamped down hard on the idea aimless of experimentation and replaced it with an emphasis on appropriating classic ideas from "timeless bands"....

I feel like the '00s are way more interesting sonically than the '90s, especially the past few years.

I think that comment was suggesting that the 90's had more experimentation within the mainstream. The 00's have lots of indie-rock experimentation, but there was no indie-rock explosion in the 90's, so back then it had to be done in a certain way so that it could be considered a profitable commodity or whatever.. So yeah, I agree with that comment, although I also agree that most of the experimentation was merely combining sub-genre X with rock elements so the singles could receive airplay on alt-rock stations (xpost)... And I usually like that concept, so I don't see how that's such a bad thing. I like modern indie experimentation as well, but I do miss the concept of brilliant straight up rock music, which is difficult to find with new bands these days.

Bittersweet Symphony sounds so much more epic than Closing Time..

spice girls- "wannabe"

I heard it and I said "this is the end"

then I got my gun

I know I said it months ago, but it's the song with Fred Durst performing on the roof of the World Trade Center.

what's that phish song called? (I tried looking up the setlist once, and the lyrics for the song at midnight, but I didn't think the song fit)

there was no indie-rock explosion in the 90's

Huh? I agree that there's something vibrant and exciting to 2000s indie - not that I'm listening to hardly any of it, mind, I feel a bit old and Dylan's-Mr.-Jones-like - but if you asked me what decade the indie rock explosion took place in, it would have to be the 90s, the decade of Matador, K, Kill Rock Stars, etc. Or are you just saying that the sonic diversity of that stuff was lower?

there was no indie-rock romance explosion in the 90's

stacy's mom

things that happened to indie rock in the 00's:

* a few more indie rockers realized it was ok to admit liking mainstream pop music and disco
* recording costs and ease of overdubs and correction tools became far far cheaper and prevalant thanks to digital recording technology

That's primarily it. The musical influences are pretty much the same as they ever were (except there are now more 90's indie rock influenced 00's indie rock.)

the decade of Matador, K, Kill Rock Stars, etc.

This is true, but in the 00's bands on independent labels actually charted... a rare occurrence in the 80's and 90's. R.E.M. and Nirvana helped to spread word of these "underground" bands long ago, but today technology makes it far easier to discover new music. Also today, there's far more music on indie-labels used to help sell products & in movies. I imagine that once upon a time it was difficult to find a Guided By Voices or Liz Phair CD at a store like Sam Goody. It feels several times more popular than it did 10-20 years ago.

the '90s didn't die properly until "hey ya."

This is true, but in the 00's bands on independent labels actually charted

They charted because more mainstream music followers stopped buying records before indie music followers stopped buying records.

I just wrote a short article arguing that Soulwax's ""Many Djs" mix was the album that kicked off and defined the noughties.

Wow, great thread!

2ManyDJs is a decent enough call for the start of the noughties (came out in 2001) - that's answering the wrong question though isn't it (and it's not a song)?

End of the '90s for me meant the Cornelius remix of Coldcut's 'Atomic Moog 2000', Aimee Mann's cover of Harry Nilsson's 'One', Lou Bega's 'Mambo No.5' and TLC's 'No Scrubs'.

Party round my house, back then!

Don't really like it, but J-Lo's "Waiting For Tonight"?

Somehow I see J-Lo's entire US pop career as part of the 'transitional period' - I mean the whole genre of "Female Singing Over Ja Rule's Growls" feels neither of the 90s nor of anything going on right now...to me anyway.

Hey, how about "Back That Ass Up"?

The end of the fucking 90s was whatever song Fred sang when surfing on that piece of plywood at Woodstock 99. End thread.

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Monday, February 18, 2008 5:11 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yellow by Coldplay. Seriously. Sadly.

For indie, this probably happened somewhere in between "A Spoonful Weighs a Ton," "Kill All Hippies" & probably The Strokes or something.

Yellow by Coldplay. Seriously. Sadly.

I suggested Travis for roughly the same reason. That style started with "The Man Who", not with Coldplay's debut.

And it was not sadly. :)

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oh great. sorry guys, not sure what happened there...

Here I was coming to say "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate" by the Flaming Lips...only to find I already posted it a year ago.

Not too long ago I read about what a game changer the Nick Drake VW Ad was for television advertising (the "Pink Moon" Drivers Wanted ad from 2000). They make a pretty compelling case that that ad, perhaps more than any radio hit I can think of from the era, represents the death of the 90s and the beginning of the 00s. Obviously the song isn't from either decade but the tone of the ad and the use and selection of the music prefigures a dozen trends from the 00s.

Kind of like how the '97 VW commercial with "Da Da Da I Don't Love You You Don't Love Me Aha Aha Aha" exemplified the 90s even though the song was from '82

It'll be interesting to see whether The Verve's comeback is big enough to cause a shift away from post-Strokes guitar sounds.

― Scik Mouthy, Monday, August 18, 2008 5:12 PM (1 year ago)

Laugh out loud.

I still stand by my OP Goo Goo Dolls - Iris (hard to explain why.. something about the feel of the song and the lyrics). Come 2000 the transition to 00's is complete with Coldplay's Yellow.

Both the 90's and 00's have a lot of melancholic stuff now that I think about it. 90's dudes are more like "yeah, I'm broken, I'm a wreck of a human being, buzz off or whatever".. 00's dudes are more like "I promise you I'll learn from my mistakes" (Coldplay - Fix You)

Coldplay's "Yellow" might as well be Travis' "Writing To Reach You", which was actually from 1999.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRCkAumK5b4

(OK, it's from 1996, but making dance melodical enough to appeal to people like me probably killed dance for the dance-diehards)

Coldplay's "Yellow" might as well be Travis' "Writing To Reach You", which was actually from 1999.
― Tied Up In Geir (Geir Hongro), Saturday, March 20, 2010 6:31 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark

heh, well according to me the 90's ended with Iris in mid '98 anyways :/
I'm not gonna strain my brain on this

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btw "Children" is part of the autogoon canon via

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UygocrMJAto

XD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF7UnkMhPwI

Once "Play" had saturated the ears of every radio listener, supermarket shopper, dinner party diner or anyone not hiding in a bunker in outer Azerbaijan, I don't think anyone wanted to hear stuff that sounded like that ever again. Enter electroclash.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGXYAJoDWCk

I agree with windowlicker. Not true for everyone but it was the first 'pop' song I heard with such an insane format. I was 13 or 12 at the time and I had a difficult time trying to understand what were those sounds supposed to mean but only at the surface, the song was catchy enough to hold attention even if I had no idea what I had just heard.

"Complicated" is actually a quite good call. Pink also had a similar hit with "Don't Let Me Get Me" around the same time, and that kind of manufactured "powerpop" sounded like nothing that had been on the hitlists in the 90s.

K, here's some singles from 1999 that kind of felt 'important' from my perspective that year:

Aphex Twin - Windowlicker
Bjork - All is Full of Love
Blondie - Maria
Blur - Coffee + TV
Chemical Brothers - Hey Boy Hey Girl
The Cardigans - Erase / Rewind
The Flaming Lips - Waitin' for a Superman
Goo Goo Dolls - Iris
Jamiroquai - Canned Heat
Len - Steal my Sunshine
Placebo - Every You Every Me
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Scar Tissue
Madonna - Beautiful Stranger
Moby - Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?
Moloko - Sing it Back
New Radicals - You Get What You Give
OutKast - Rosa Parks
Ricardo Villalobos - 808 the Bassqueen
System of a Down - Spiders

Oh forgot a few... it seems 1999 was a bigger year for me than what I remember... all of this bring memories of high school:

Backstreet Boys - I Want it That Way
Cher - Believe
Christina Aguilera - Genie in a Bottle
Eminem - My Name Is
Fatboy Slim - Praise You
Santana - Smooth
Smashmouth - All Star
Robbie Williams
Ricky Martin - Livin La Vida Loca
TLC - No Scrubs

Got Your Money?

Mogwai's "Come on die young" and/or GYBE "Slow riot for new zero kanada" for being post-rock's death rattle

The Bloodhound Gang - The Bad Touch
Since it was one of the first new songs I remember hearing that sounded more like it was out of the 80s.

Also, while not actually a song, I also tend to associate the end of the 90s with the closure of Grand Royal Records in late 2001.

That's probably the best answer so far.

Yeah, closing of Grand Royal definitely counts for something, symbolically.