worst of these late '90s/early '00s graduation songs

at least Green Day's is embittered.

never heard of Here's to the Night

My town was so slow, we just got to the Womack in '01. "Here's To The Night" felt more like a prom song tho.

will vote for "Good Riddance" as worst anything

"I Will Remember You" is from 1995 I think? Were there no good contemporaneous graduation-appropriate songs in 1999.

Actually given the above list I don't know that my last sentence needs the qualifier "good".

nobody knew "I Will Remember You" until 1999 when a live version was released as a single and became a big hit

Ah, that explains it. Wasn't a hit over here I don't think. Not sure what the 1999 song was in Australia, "Good Riddance" definitely was it in 1998.

Actually maybe it was local hit "Weir" by Killing Heidi, though that's not included on this (admittedly unreliable) compilation of Australian 'Schoolies Anthems':

http://itunes.apple.com/au/playlist/schoolies-anthems/id267997809

Good Riddance and I Hope You Dance, though mega mega overplayed, are still legit good songs. the rest can die.

I wanted to say Good Riddance was 99 because I was class o 98 and didnt remember it any of my school shit. our song was "My Heart Will Go On"

I voted for "It's All About the Benjamins" :(

Also poll is missing class of 99 anthem "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)"

maybe it got left off because it would walk this poll in a heartbeat if included

(i'd like to think)

ugh man i heard "Everybody's Free" again recently. jesus christ.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQlJ3vOp6nI

fuck xpost

Hate hate hate that Green Day song.

Actually like Here's To The Night.

Oh and guess what song was played at my grad.

nobody knew "I Will Remember You" until 1999 when a live version was released as a single and became a big hit

Well, some of us knew the studio version as the b-side to "Building A Mystery", and an even smaller # can recall it from the soundtrack to The Brothers McMullen, where it saw first release (looking at wiki now, and it actually was her highest-charting Hot 100 entry to that point, peaking @ 65).

What really needs to be said is that part of what made the live version the hit it became was radio stations seizing upon it as a post-Columbine anthem (the same thing happened to the Pearl Jam version of "Last Kiss"). And of course its been a go-to for every national tragedy since then too.

Before I opened the thread, I figured these would all be among the nominees:

Green Day - "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)"
Baz Luhrmann - "(Everybody's Free To) Wear Sunscreen"
Vitamin C - "Graduation (Friends Forever)"

Graduations are full of parenthetical thoughts.

i like graduation by vitamin c but this poll is for worse so idk

I always laugh when "Sunscreen" gets to "DANCE!"

Sarah M ugh

How many parents cried to these songs?

Vitamin C is OK with me because she did this and it's awesome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nisfwFEM8I

Speaking of crying parents, we missed this one for Classes of '97-8:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FyjKQvWKw8

That song is so creepy.

will vote for "Good Riddance" as worst anything

― some dude, Tuesday, June 26, 2012 7:32 PM (1 hour ago)

that Green Day song is one of the worst, most cynical things I've ever heard and I get legitimately depressed just thinking about it

I had to hear so many dudes in hs sitting, playing it on the guitar, singing it in the hall at lunch, it's such bullshit

Literally everything that ended had to be punctuated with "there's something unpredicatble/fluhminanaraflibe/I hobeyu had the time of ur life"

fluhminanaraflibe

<3

McLachlan is a nice song
the other three I have never heard, and my graduating year was 2001
when I marched a lady was playing "Dreams to Dream" from Fievel Goes West

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0yCv_VOFEI

people should have to graduate to sappy themes from Don Bluth movies

eg Dreams to Dream or this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf3QRdYmlSs

I Will Remember You kind of has the same vibe

always thought this sounded like a graduation ceremony jam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WJPp5qpbe0

esp starting at 0:56

always though that Green Day song was a bitter one about a break-up. I remember my friend's senior class having to choose between it and "Someday We'll Know" as their prom theme song, but I can't remember which was chosen.

Either way no Sunscreen, no Credibility.

Voting Third Eye Blind's "Graduate" to keep with the ILX trend

that Vitamin C cover of "Last Night" is so very Saint Etienne.

I've always been cheesed that "I will remember you" followed previous and superior single "I will not forget you"

the Green Day song is the least terrible but I still associate it with ads for late 90s Must See TV comedies having season and series finales (which I guess are a sort of graduation too)

come on guys that green day song is the worst

I've always been cheesed that "I will remember you" followed previous and superior single "I will not forget you"

― Call me Ishmael (Ówen P.), Wednesday, 27 June 2012 6:42 AM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sarah McLachlan's career 1993 - 1999 was like air being let out of a balloon.

Last great thing was "Full of Grace" and even then I mostly like it only because of the Buffy episode it appeared in. My BF has always repped for "Angel" but whatever frankly.

i appreciate the cheesiness of "here's to the night" and "friends forever"

voting green day, can't even listen to that as a joke anymore

that Lee Ann Womack song is insufferable imo

Also poll is missing class of 99 anthem "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)"

― some dude nights (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, June 26, 2012 10:57 PM (Yesterday)

yeah, I didn't hear this shit at the time and can't imagine it being played at an actual graduation ceremony.

the only omission I regret is John Mayer's "I want to run through the halls of my high school" song. he panders so hard, it's almost beautiful.

voted Green Day, dunno if it's the worst song on here, but it's kind of like when a mosquito lands on your arm, you just smack it without thinking about it

did anyone else have to endure stupid PowerPoint presentations put together by high school faculty or yearbook committees? all the slides would be nostalgic photos of the ≈20 most popular kids in school, and some of these songs would serve as the soundtrack. they'd play this shit at yearbook signings or award ceremonies or whatever.

this is a decent example (and it even has that awful Five for Fighting song):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai249fxBsqI

yeah every year they'd play a student-made video on the closed-circuit TV; I think ours featured Garth Brooks "The Dance" lol. a song that was nearly as old as the graduating class.

I was that guy who tried to get into as many yearbook photos as possible so I thought that slideshow was pretty funny, I was in like 60% of the pictures

so that guy was you, huh?

...asshole. YOU try explaining to your parents why most of the photos in your yearbook are extreme closeups of warts and gills and cloacae.

Last great thing was "Full of Grace" and even then I mostly like it only because of the Buffy episode it appeared in. My BF has always repped for "Angel" but whatever frankly.

love this song so so much but i voted for i will remember you.

don't mind the green day or eve6. womack is whatever, didn't think of it as a graduation song even though three girls sang it at our middle school graduation (ughughugh). graduation (friends forever) is amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCaJjQbrTrs srsly

yt desc: "a sad song."

Class of '99 here. And I don't remember that we even had an official song.

...asshole. YOU try explaining to your parents why most of the photos in your yearbook are extreme closeups of warts and gills and cloacae.

i dont' get it, man

things that frogs have

"a clue" not in the list obv

i pretty much stayed in the background in those photos

wish "bittersweet symphony" qualified

also frogs don't have gills. maybe when we're young but by high school they're pretty much kaputt

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.