I closed the lime-green binder. Outside, the world was gray and wet. But in my lap, the 1990s were still arguing, still dancing, still discovering that “What Is Love” was funny and “Torn” was heartbreaking and that a hundred songs could never hold a decade.
But they could try.
Rick snorted. “Craig’s pick. He said it would become a comedy staple. We told him he was an idiot. He was right.” top hundred songs of the 90s
– “The West Coast changed everything in three minutes and forty-seven seconds. Maya’s pick. She argued for two hours. Worth it.” I closed the lime-green binder
– “The song every outsider needed. Radiohead hated it. So did we, at first. Then we realized: that was the point.” But they could try
The binder was the color of a faded Jawbreaker sticker—electric lime green, now softened by twenty-five years of basement humidity and garage-sale purgatory. My uncle Rick slid it across his coffee table, the duct-taped spine groaning.
The binder contained The Ultimate Top Hundred Songs of the 1990s , as determined by him and his three best friends—Maya, Jerome, and “Crazy” Craig—during a marathon argument on New Year’s Eve 1999. They’d stayed up all night, fueled by Surge and cheap vodka, listening to a five-disc changer and yelling about whether “Smells Like Teen Spirit” deserved the top spot (yes) or if it was overexposed (Craig’s losing argument).