As hard as this might be to accept for some Millennials, the 1990s were thirty years ago. Those of us who grew up in that decade, which saw the internet take hold and mobile phones become popular, are now settling into middle age and accepting that our youth is now far behind us. We still have our memories, though, from the crazy fashion to the incredible music scene. The 1990s saw rap become mainstream and the grunge movement change the face of both rock and fashion, but they also saw a lot of cheesy pop music.
As far as a lot of people were concerned, though, the 1990s were all about cheesy pop music. It was the decade that gave us boy bands and girl bands, with the Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls taking the planet by storm. We won’t pretend that all of that cheesy pop was amazing in terms of quality, but it was catchy and provided the soundtrack for a generation of children and young teenagers. If you were there at the time – or even if you weren’t – here are the biggest and best-known cheesy pop songs of the 1990s.
Wannabe – The Spice Girls
This was the song that launched the career of the world’s biggest-ever girl band and made us all wonder what a “zig-a-zig-ah” was. More than twenty-five years later, we still don’t have an answer to that question, but we all know the line, as well as every lyric that led up to it. It’s hard to put a finger on what made the Spice Girls so popular, especially if you weren’t around to see it at the time. The video was cheaply produced, and the group seemed thrown-together, but they were a marketing dream. Were it not for this song, though, the Spice Girl Mania that followed throughout the following two years would never have happened. It’s not without reason that it’s been named by some music experts as the catchiest pop song of the past sixty years.
Barbie Girl – Aqua
The first time a generation of boys saw Lena from Aqua, they experienced feelings they’d never felt before. It almost didn’t matter what she was singing about, which is fortunate because the lyrics to “Barbie Girl” are an atrocity. The whole song was nonsensical, but that didn’t stop people from buying it in their millions. That resulted in the song being omnipresent on radio stations for what felt like an entire year and incurred the profound displeasure of Mattel, who just so happen to own the copyright to “Barbie.” It turned out that neither Aqua nor their label had ever sought permission to use the character’s name in their hit song, and Mattel weren’t fans. Somehow, the copyright holder lost the resultant lawsuit, and the song remains available to listen to in the unlikely event that you’d ever want to do so.
I Want It That Way – Backstreet Boys
Hands up if you still know every lyric of this Backstreet Boys classic by heart? It was released at the very end of the decade, as if it was intended to mark the end of the boyband era. We can think of no better send-off. The video to “I Want It That Way” was parodied by Blink 182, and the song itself went on to be parodied in a less than complimentary fashion by Weird Al Yankovic. You can tell you have a monster hit on your hands when it gets Weird Al’s attention. Even after listening to the song a thousand times, we still aren’t quite sure exactly how the Backstreet Boys wanted “it,” or even what “it” actually was, but it didn’t stop boys and girls alike screaming it at the top of their lungs at school discos. This might even have been the soundtrack to your first kiss.
Cotton Eye Joe – Rednex
Apparently, had it not been for Cotton Eye Joe, the lead singer of the Rednex would have been married a long time ago. That’s frustrating for the singer because he knows neither where Cotton Eye Joe came from nor where he went. This was a strange dance-influenced parody of country music, and yet the whole world went crazy for it. Even now, so many years later, someone’s seen fit to make a “Rednex KO” online slots game that features the song playing on a loop in the background. It’s a long way from being the first-ever game based on music to reach online slots websites, but they tend to be based on individual bands or artists rather than one single song. We can’t imagine who enjoyed “Cotton Eye Joe” at the time, let alone what kind of person might be willing to spend money on online slots that feature the song more than two decades later, but there must be someone out there. The mystery of Cotton Eye Joe’s whereabouts and identity is destined never to be solved.
Hit Me Baby One More Time – Britney Spears
A sixteen-year-old girl dressed in a provocatively short school uniform, singing a song that seemed to be asking her lover to hit her. That’s the back story of “Hit Me Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears, and when you look at it in black and white, it seems more than a little unsavory. That didn’t seem to matter as much in the 1990s when the concept of things being creepy didn’t cross the minds of music executives. The song was a colossal hit all over the world and immediately made a new global icon out of the teenage singer, who became one of the biggest stars of the decade. The fact that someone of her tender age couldn’t possibly comprehend heartbreak on the level described by the song’s lyrics was irrelevant – when Britney sang those lines, you believed her. You might still see people trying to pull her iconic look from this video off at fancy dress parties, but nobody beats the original. There’s only ever been one Britney.
We make no apologies if reading this article has got one or more of these songs stuck in your head. You decided to click on an article about cheesy 1990s pop songs – you should have known what was coming! Whether you loved these tracks or you hated them, we can all at least agree that nothing like them will ever trouble the charts again. The era of pop music appears to be over, and us 90s kids were the last to enjoy it.
