THE 90s! Tamagotchi, Nickelodeon, Power Rangers, Palm Pilots, FRIENDS, and lots of novelty songs that stayed stuck in your head for the rest of your life. Still, to this day I can't count to 5 without it turning into the opening lines of "Mambo No. 5". As iconic and memorable as a lot of the music of the 90s was, there are plenty of songs I only remember for being terrible and trying to erase them from my memory all these years. Actually, it was harder than I thought to find songs that I truly hated from the 90s as I looked back through all the playlists and hits. Lots of songs I thought I would hate I actually ended up being a lot kinder to now. I'll probably name some of those songs that get a lot of hate, but I still like. As for the worst songs, I'll put songs that are recognizable or by famous artists so that it's not just a bunch of indie stuff no one's actually listened to. But first... here are the songs that I actually ended up liking despite how much hate they seem to get from a lot of other people.
Snow - "Informer"
I'll admit I can't understand most of what he's saying in his fake accent, but I don't care it's too catchy to hate. Also... A licky boom boom down? Does anyone know what that's about?
Right Said Fred - "I'm Too Sexy"
I remember this song being a huge joke back in the day. Everyone just naming random objects that they were too sexy for was pretty fun I guess? A song so iconic that Drake and Taylor Swift used the melody in their own songs to terrible results. Still, this one is fun and harmless.
Billy Ray Cyrus - "Achy Breaky Heart"
Yes, the achy breaky fart song. A wonderful mulleted man singing with all his heart about how breaky his achy heart is sounds like a dumb idea for a song... and that's because it is. But it's so fun anyway, why does it need to be hated? It breaks my achy bre- never mind.
Los Del Rio - "Macarena"
It's the fucking Macarena, how can you hate the Macarena? You think you're too good for the Macarena? Get over yourself. HEYYY MACARENA!!
ANYWAY, one to the list proper here:
10. Creed - "With Arms Wide OPAAAN"
A band that probably gets more hate then they deserve, but sometimes I understand that hate when I listen to a song like "With Arms Wide Open". The message of the song isn't bad, a song about his doubts about being a father soon and how he's going to do everything he can for his new child despite the fears that come with being a new father. There's something about this song that always makes me feel strangely awful and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because of how depressing and dreary it all sounds that just puts me in a bad mood whenever it plays. Scott's vocals aren't the worst in this particular song, but everything around him is just sucking all the life out of whatever room this is playing in.
9. Savage Garden - "I Knew I Loved You" (1999)
There's a certain level of cheesy romantic song I enjoy and this certainly crosses that line. The overly sappy lyrics paired with the stereotypical acoustic guitar and even using chimes to go into the chorus are just too much. The vocals don't really help with the super breathy verses and falsetto choruses really taking the song from cheesy to unlistenable. I don't know, I've always found this song annoying even as a kid when I heard it on the radio in the car. It's just one of those songs that never clicked with me and I often found myself annoyed when it came on.
8. Lou Bega - "Mambo No. 5" (1999)
ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR-FIVE is an instantly recognizable line from 90s pop music and if you were alive in the year 1999 this song was everywhere. When I say everywhere, I MEAN EVERYWHERE. Not only becoming the number one song in dozens of countries (except, the USA for some reason), but also getting tons of play on TV, commercials, and sporting events. There was even a Disney version where Lou replaced all the girls' names with Disney characters... that's how big the song was. The song was originally created in 1950 in Cuba by a Mambo/Jazz musician named Damasco Perez Prado. Lou Bega mixed the original music with more modern pop elements and added his iconic lyrics where he talks about all the women he's sleeping with by name-dropping them all in the chorus. It's hard not to deny the song has a bit of charm musically, but it doesn't make up for a lot of the annoying things Lou does with his parts. He doesn't have the best voice and his charm (if you can call it that?) leaves a lot to be desired.
7. LFO - "Summer Girls" (1999)
Starting the song with the lines "New Kids on the Block had a bunch of hits, Chinese food makes me sick" has to be one of the worst ways to open a song. Like right out of the gate you know you're in for disappointment. The song doesn't get any better from there, with even more awful lines coming from three guys with less charisma combined than one Lou Bega. Each verse is somehow worse than the last followed by one fart of a chorus that leaves you wondering how this song was actually ever a hit. The funniest thing is how they repeat the line "You look like a girl from Abercrombie and Fitch" multiple times like it's the best pickup line ever created by humankind. Either that or the song was somehow sponsored by the clothing brand itself. The song came out at the peak of the boy band craze, which makes how popular the song became make a little more sense. These guys weren't even as good as most of the other big names like Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and Boyzone. Yes, Boyzone.
6. Rednex - "Cotton Eye Joe"
I feel like a lot of people might be annoyed by the placement of this song on this list, but hear me out... this song is really annoying. The song has been a staple at weddings and other similar events for decades now, but it doesn't make me hate it any less. When the DJ puts this one on the playlist, well I lose a little respect for him honestly. To be fair, people do seem to enjoy this song and I'm totally okay with that. Personally, the song just feels like a loud mess of Europop and country dance mixed into a very annoying 3 minutes. The mix of the different genres just never really did it for me along with the vocals that give the song no help in being any less annoying. So yeah, perfect time to go to the bathroom or get some air when this song comes on.
5. Bryan Adams - "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You
Listening to this Bryan Adams song is the equivalent of watching paint dry. The only thing worse than an annoying dance song is a really boring generic love song. I don't know why, but I have a strange hatred for this song... which feels like a lot of the songs on this list. Maybe it's how much it played on the radio and TV growing up, but even after all these years this song still does nothing for me. This feels like the kind of song an AI would make if you asked it to make the most generic 80s love song ever made.
4. Shawn Mullins - "Lullaby" (1998)
Anyone under the age of 20 is probably wondering who this guy is, and you really don't need to know. He had one big hit, which was this song called "Lullaby". A song that had a mildly catchy chorus, but that's about all it had. The music sounds like any other alternative radio song you'd hear in the late 90s. The verses verge on creepy as Shawn sort of talks/mumbles his way through them saying a bunch of useless stuff until he can finally get to the hook. Look I don't know a ton about this guy, but from the other songs I listened to, it sounds like he makes decent country music. Unfortunately, his biggest hit is also one of the worst songs to really get to know his music.
3. Collective Soul - "Shine" (1994)
I have a strange hatred for this song and it's probably not completely fair. You know when you hear about how amazing something is over and over and then when you finally experience it you feel completely underwhelmed. That was this song for me, all I ever heard was how great it was, and when I finally gave it a listen it completely let me down. I will say that this song does have a few moments I kinda like, mostly the solo in the middle of the song really. Besides that, it's a typical grunge song without much that makes it stand out. The vocals aren't very interesting and the chorus isn't as memorable as everyone seems to think it is. Outside of that small solo, the guitar riff that plays throughout most of the song is pretty boring too. The song just feels like it's a little bit too slow and it just annoys me. Maybe it's not bad enough to really belong on this list, but I just feel annoyed by how much love this mediocre song gets I suppose. Maybe one day it'll grow on me... I can only hope.
2. S Club - "Bring It All Back" (1999)
A group that was much much bigger in the UK, but still had decent success outside of that area too. S Club 7 was a pop group with 7 members who were all fairly young (late teens-early twenties). The group was actually started by Simon Fuller who had just been recently fired as the manager of the Spice Girls. S Club was more for younger audiences and the music was meant to appeal to the youth of the 90s, probably comparable to One Direction in the 2010s or a lot of those Disney pop stars like Hannah Montana and The Jonas Brothers. They have a few decent songs and they're actually still doing shows to this day. But "Bring It All Back" is a song that I really do not like. Even as a kid, I found this song to be too positive and cheesy, it just sounds like it's trying too hard to be this super happy song. Really it just feels so fake and corporate in its execution, like real people don't write music like this even when they're trying to be positive. It's like the Flinstones Vitamins of music, yeah it's good for you and it sounds like something you should like... but you're much happier when it's finally over.
1. Warrant - "Cherry Pie" (1990)
With the rest of the songs on this list, I can at least find some positives in them. Every other song on this list I will listen to again at some point for nostalgia reasons or just because I know other people can have fun with them. This fucking song though... I can't find a single reason to be positive about this piece of crap. I'm honestly pretty sure this song was a huge reason why the hair metal genre died in the early 90s. To be fair, that genre was already on its way out but this song certainly sped up the process of hair metal's death. It's such a sleazy and gross song with some of the worst lyrics you'll hear in a rock song. Clearly, these guys wanted to be the new Poison or Motley Crue, but all they ended up being was a one-hit wonder whose song was mostly used as a punchline for bad jokes. Like when the characters in a movie go to a strip club and the dancer comes out to this song, but it turns out the stripper is one of the character's mom. That kind of joke. It's interesting because this is really similar to what happened to grunge music in the early 2000s. Lots of artists trying to ride the final wave of grunge's popularity and scoring one-hit wonder status. Thankfully lots of great rock music that actually innovated the genre came out after this and we got a ton of great rock music in those 10 years. But it wasn't before some growing pains and the last of the 80s trends finally died off. By the way the song "Cherry Pie" is about sex in case you didn't get that listening to it.
I should probably mention I quite enjoy some hair metal bands, it's just that the early '90s had a lot of trash that just wasn't doing the genre any favors, and the fact that it had already been years past its peak popularity and was only going down. It was time to let it go.