The Top 70 Modern Rock Tracks of 1995-96 (Part 2)
Let's celebrate the Class of 1996's 25-year reunion with a continued musical walk down memory lane.
So, where were we? Kind of here?
All right then, carry on!
35). “Brain Stew/Jaded” by Green Day (from Insomniac, released October 1995) (peaked at #3 on March 3, 1996)
Now, as much as “Machinehead” is on this list largely because of its inclusion on the Joe Louis Arena playlists during playoff runs, then “Brain Stew/Jaded” only makes this list because of it. By the way, “Jaded” doesn’t get the love it should because it is always treated as a back half of the duality, but the guitar work on it is really great.
34). “Just a Girl” by No Doubt (from the Tragic Kingdom, released October 1995) (peaked at #10 on January 27, 1996)
Captain Marvel fight sequence? Captain Marvel fight sequence.
I always liked that Gwen Stefani played up the poutiness of her vocals in this song as if to emphasize the juxtaposition of what the industry wants her to be and the person she wants to be. Also, there is a delightful blend of new wave, power pop, and ska in here.
33). “What I Got” by Sublime (from their self-titled third album, released July 1996) (peaked at #1 on August 27, 1996)
Here’s the thing about “What I Got”…it’s just cool. There’s a weird dichotomy between the laidback nature of the verses and the assertiveness of the pre-chorus and choruses. The first of several songs on this list to be posthumously released after the lead singer’s heroin overdose, “What I Got” is probably the strongest of the four singles from the album, but if you wanted to throw in for “Doin’ Time,” I would totally get it.
32). “Big Me” by Foo Fighters (from their self-titled debut album, released July 1995) (peaked at #3 on March 23, 1996)
Every instrument. Every song. One week. Foo Fighters, at least first album Foo Fighters, is all Dave Grohl. And it’s remarkable. “Big Me” is so damn peppy and such a change of pace from “This Is a Call” and “I’ll Stick Around” (pin that), both of which were enough to get one to buy the album. But “Big Me” had the advantage of the surreal mocking of the Mentos commercials, which gives it a little bonus.
31). “Bulls on Parade” by Rage Against the Machine (from Evil Empire, released April 1996) (peaked at #11 on June 1, 1996)
I will admit that I did not always have the highest level of self-awareness as a high schooler, but I did know this: There was no way in the world that I was at all cool enough to pull off liking RATM. This was a step above my coolness pay grade between the very political lyrics and Tom Morello’s “vinyl scratch” guitar solo. But damn, this is a great song.
30). “High and Dry” by Radiohead (from The Bends, released March 1995) (peaked at #18 on February 3, 1996)
I have one very wrong music opinion that I cannot be swayed from: The Bends is the best album that Radiohead ever made. Yes, I know, I know why this is wrong, and yes, I have had people sit me down and try to intervene on this opinion, but here’s my argument. There are seven amazing songs on The Bends, “Planet Telex,” the title track, “High and Dry,” “Fake Plastic Trees,” “(Nice Dream),” “Just,” and “Black Star.” SEVEN! Do you realize how big a deal that was in 1995?! That was an album of getting your money’s worth! Apparently, Thom Yorke hates “High and Dry,” but that’s OK; John Lennon hated “And Your Bird Can Sing,” and it’s the lynchpin of Revolver, so… I’m wrong and I’ll live with it.
29). “Here in Your Bedroom” by Goldfinger (from the band’s self-titled debut album, released February 1996) (peaked at #5 on June 15, 1996)
"Here in your Bedroom" was written in eight minutes. I love that. I love that this is simultaneously a hallmark of ska-punk, and yet the band does not consider it ska-punk. I love all of the little flourishes in this song that make it so extra, including the hints of organ that are always there but never overtake the whole; I love what the bass does. The drumming is so great. The only reason that this doesn’t rate higher is that I did not really come to love/appreciate ska-punk until college, which screws with the mental timeline here.
28). “Counting Blue Cars” by Dishwalla (from Pet Your Friends, released August 1995) (peaked at #1 on June 29, 1996)
Fun fact: This was the first CD single I ever bought! I bought it at orientation in June 1996, right as this song was peaking on the airplay chart at the Tower Records that used to be on South U. It was the first of way way way too many CD singles bought at that location in my college years. So when this song became a plot point on a How I Met Your Mother episode, I got it.
27). “Just” by Radiohead (from The Bends, released March 1995) (peaked at #37 on November 11, 1995)
It could be argued that “Just” is the best song on The Bends. I’m not going to argue it because, well, we’ve already established I’m full of bad Radiohead opinions. But I certainly wouldn’t disagree with someone who did argue it. [sees people sharpening knives and assembling torches.] Moving on!
26). “The Old Man and Me” by Hootie and the Blowfish (from Fairweather Johnson, released April 1996) (peaked at #33 on April 27, 1996)
Oh wow, I just lined up my hot takes all in a row here, didn’t I? OK, here goes: “The Old Man and Me” is as good as any Hootie song on crackedrearview (which makes sense because it was one of the songs on the debut EP that morphed into the full album). The instrumentation on it is sound; the guitar is full and rich, the rhythm track gives it a memorial quality, moving ahead and drawing back in one fluid motion. Also, worth noting, people actually bought Fairweather Johnson! It went triple platinum!!! (It did make #13 on the Billboard Hot 100, so this could be a nod to genre edge blurring.) And perhaps it is Darius Rucker’s later career compelling me to ask: This is a country song, right? I mean, it certainly wouldn’t take much to make it a country song, at least.
25). “Don’t Look Back in Anger” by Oasis (from (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, released October 1995) (peaked at #10 on July 27, 1996)
It’s May, which means when I hear this song, I inevitably end up flashing back to a limo singalong on Prom night 1996. I have zero issues with this.
24). “Champagne Supernova” by Oasis (from (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, released October 1995) (peaked at #1 on April 6, 1996)
Morning Glory was the unofficial album of the 1996 Stevenson Aurora, mostly because I was always willing to bring my CD case into school and because I was doing a lot of the editing of the yearbook on the iMac in the backroom at a time when “being good at computers” was a rarity and not a standard-issue skill set. “Champagne Supernova” was 7 and a half minutes long, and it was built on being the fake Beatles, which given the hype about the Beatles Anthology at that time, people were into it. Well, some people were into it. OK, I was into it. I regret nothing. Oasis is great.
23). “Naked” by Goo Goo Dolls (from A Boy Named Goo, released April 1995) (peaked at #9 on February 17, 1996)
There was no way that “Naked” was going to live up to “Name” (still to come) as the fourth single off A Boy Named Goo, but this is where I just am befuddled by the choices that A&R folks made when picking singles off albums. It’s kind of remarkable that A Boy Named Goo even got a third single after the lack of traction on “Only One” and “Flat Top.” But “Naked” has some classic power-pop guitar work, and I am always here for power pop.
22). “Galaxie” by Blind Melon (from Soup, released August 1995) (peaked at #8 on September 8, 1995)
Fun fact: This was the first song I bought on iTunes when they released a version for PC in October 2003. I have always liked this song, but I was not buying Soup just for this song, and it was really hard to find it on the various file-trading sites of the day. Shannon Hoon’s voice is so raw on this track, and it’s a painful reminder of his loss right after Soup debuted as well.
21). “Do You Sleep?” by Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories (from Tails, released September 1995) (peaked at #20 in September 1996)
I frequently wonder if people remember Lisa Loeb’s follow-up single to “Stay (I Missed You).” It turns out I didn’t remember correctly either. I thought it was this song, which I really do love a great deal (and have a very specific memory of being the song for the routine for SHS Winterguard for Winter 1996. I have no idea what that memory is stuck there, but it is.) Nope, in reality, the follow-up was “Taffy,” of which I have no memory at all. But “Do You Sleep?” has some real power in a way that “Stay” does not, but one’s in a GEICO ad, and one is not, so…
20). “Love Untold” by Paul Westerberg (from Eventually, released March 1996) (peaked at #21 on June 1, 1996)
I am grateful to Cameron Crowe for choosing to make two Paul Westerberg songs the centerpiece of the Singles soundtrack, even as it had tracks by a number of rising alt-rock all-stars on it. “Waiting for Somebody” and “Dyslexic Heart” eventually got me to this song, which got me in college to checking out The Replacements and becoming a huge fan, if just in retrospect. The pining in this song feels very real but somehow blameless. Sometimes love just doesn’t work out. That’s a very powerful emotional notion to a high school senior.
19). “Novocaine for the Soul” by Eels (from Beautiful Freak, released August 1996) (peaked at #1 on October 12, 1996)
Because of the previously established artificial constraints, this song definitely bleeds into freshman year of college, but rules are rules. While “Fresh Feeling” coming down the line (and on the Scrubs soundtrack) is pretty great, I love the metaphorical idea of a numbing agent for one’s soul. Plus, the string section is really cool.
18). “Name” by Goo Goo Dolls (from A Boy Named Goo, released April 1995) (peaked at #1 on October 28, 1995)
And I just learned this song is about former MTV VJ Kennedy. [relistens to the song] OK, that actually makes a little more sense. But “the scars are souvenirs you never lose” is a great line that has been burned in my head for a quarter-century, so that counts for something.
17). “Bright as Yellow” by The Innocence Mission (from Glow, released June 1995) (peaked at #33 on September 16, 1995)
Another Empire Records soundtrack alumnus, I have spent a lot of time trying to decide if this is the best Mazzy Star song they didn’t record or the best Sundays song they didn’t record. That is not fair to Karen Peris’s absolutely majestically dreamlike voice, but there are moments where it feels like the producers asked for Mazzy Star’s non-union equivalent. The song is still remarkable.
16). “I Got Id” by Pearl Jam (from the Merkin Ball EP, released December 1995) (peaked at #3 on December 23, 1995)
Another song of the Yearbook room, I still remember thinking it was cool that Pearl Jam was working with Neil Young (and “Downtown” was a reasonably solid song). But this track always reminds me of all of the best things Pearl Jam could do on any particular song.
15). “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” by The Smashing Pumpkins (from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, released October 1995) (peaked at #2 on November 11, 1995.)
I think the most memorable opening line of any of these 70 songs might just be “The world is a vampire.” This song is great but gets bonus points for my biggest moment of senioritis ever. I was one of the copy editors for the Stevenson Spotlight, the school newspaper, in part because, again, I understood how the computer worked. We were hard at work on both our final issue and the senior issue, which I was assembling in Microsoft Publisher because it was in booklet form as opposed to newspaper form. It’s mid-May 1996, and we have a lot of work to get done, but being a journalism class, we also had current events quizzes on a semi-regular basis. Needing to get to work, I knocked it out relatively quickly. I headed back to the backroom to get to work on the senior issue when my classmates start complaining that the question about the concertgoer getting crushed to death at a concert in Dublin was unfair. I had happened to see on MTV that it happened at a Smashing Pumpkins show in Dublin, so as I walked back, I turned to my future college roommate and eventual best man and said, “Oh come on Dave, despite all your rage, you’re still just a rat in a cage.” The entire room starts writing, and our teacher looks at me and says “What did you say?” I said it again, and she smiled, shook her head, and let everyone get the pop culture reference cheapie. Thanks, Bedell!
14). “Photograph” by The Verve Pipe (from Villains, released March 1996) (peaked at #6 on May 11, 1996)
We’re now hitting the local bias section of the rankings for a given definition of local, like, say, East Lansing. Yes, “The Freshmen” is the one everyone remembers, but I can’t be held responsible for that. But “Photograph,” that’s a pretty great song! Even if Brian Vander Ark admitted, he just ripped off “Penny Lane,” which could explain why I liked it then and now.
13). “Wax Ecstatic (To Sell Angelina)” by Sponge (from Wax Ecstatic, released July 1996) (peaked at #15 on July 27, 1996)
The only song on this list I have heard played live while standing on my driveway, Sponge played a nice little set in 2018 or 2019 as part of our local summer festival, and I could make out the entire song a mile away thanks to the wind was blowing the right way. I like the four-note sequence that is very insistent in the background the whole time.
12). “Santa Monica” by Everclear (from Sparkle and Fade, released May 1995) (peaked at #5 on December 5, 1995)
It has one of the most iconic opening riffs of any 1990s rock song, and it’s all about being haunted by your high school girlfriend’s suicide. Yeah, that would do it.
As much as Everclear would go on to have success later in the decade, it’s always those opening notes that stick with me.
11). “Wonder” by Natalie Merchant (from Tigerlily, released June 1995) (peaked at #16 on December 23, 1995)
I might argue that Natalie Merchant was my main celebrity crush in high school. A lot of that stems from the amazing turn that 10,000 Maniacs did on MTV Unplugged in 1993. While “Carnival” and “Jealousy” are by far my favorites from Tigerlily, “Wonder” has the great visual of “fate smiled at destiny,” and while I shouldn’t think too hard about that, again…Natalie Merchant.
10). “6th Avenue Heartache” by The Wallflowers (from Bringing Down the Horse, released May 1996) (peaked at #8 on October 19, 1996)
With more time and access to everything I was thinking and feeling during this era, which, please no no no, but this should probably be in freshman year of college with the single release schedule, but I cannot ignore one of my favorite songs on a really great album. You’ve got Adam Duritz from Counting Crows on backing vocals, you have the first “real” song written by Jakob Dylan when he was just 18 years old, and you’ve got slide guitar from a member of the Heartbreakers. It’s awesome.
9). “Time Bomb” by Rancid (from …And Out Come the Wolves, released August 1995) (peaked at #8 on October 7, 1995)
Can I ever hear this song without thinking of my friend who had the misheard lyrics of this song as “Black coat, white shoes, black hat, Cadillac, yeah, The boy's a grandpa.” And I mean, that kind of makes it so much better. OK, maybe I liked ska-punk earlier than I thought. It’s the organ in the bridge after the fun guitar solo.
8). “Good Intentions” by Toad the Wet Sprocket (from In Light Syrup, released October 1995) (peaked at #20 on November 11, 1995)
Toad the Wet Sprocket is my favorite band formed after I was born that I have never seen in concert. This song, which was also featured on the Friends soundtrack alongside Hootie and the Blowfish’s cover of “I Go Blind,” has a funny history that “This version was recorded in January 1991 during the sessions for the band's third album fear but was not included because they felt it was too catchy and sounded like an obvious ‘hit single’.” Reader, it was not. But it’s also not the best song on In Light Syrup, which is easily “Brother” from the So I Married an Axe Murderer soundtrack from 1993. But it is still a really great Toad song..’
7). “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand” by Primitive Radio Gods (from Rocket, released June 1996) (peaked at #1 on July 27, 1996)
Arguably the modern rock song of summer 1996, this song and “Peaches” screwed up the auto-width on two of my Excel columns that I used to help write this article. The B.B. King sample is the best use of B.B. King in a modern rock song since “When Love Comes to Town,” and the loops and samples are highly memorable.
6). “Where It’s At” by Beck (from Odelay, released June 1996) (peaked #5 on August 3, 1996)
Hand me the Becktionary! No, no, the rhyming Becktionary. It turns out that I really like organ parts in rock songs. Who knew? I also appreciate a good drum break. (Or washboard break, as appropriate.) But, do I absolutely do a record scratch motion then hold my hand to my face like I was holding a mic every time on the chorus, yes I do. That’s beautiful dad.
5). “Banditos” by The Refreshments (from Fizzy Fuzzy Big and Buzzy, released February 1996) (peaked at #14 on June 29, 1996)
Consider all of the following: Name checks Captain Picard? Check. Features an obvious double cross on a heist? Check. Reasonable argument that the single is not even the best song on an underrated album? Check. The guitar line through out the whole thing is probably my favorite part of a classic of the year.
4). “In the Meantime” by Spacehog (from Resident Alien, released October 1995) (peaked at #2 on March 16, 1996)
I always liked how the song opened by mimicking the sound of a British telephone connecting. What I didn’t know at the time is that it is actually the sound of a telephone connecting, sampled from a Penguin Cafe Orchestra track. But I do like how the telephone opening, coupled with the cosmic background sound sets the listener up to the idea that this is a really long distance call.
3). “I’ll Stick Around” by Foo Fighters (from the band’s self-titled debut album, released July 1995) (peaked at #8 on November 11, 1995)
You know, I know the video isn’t supposed to make sense, per see, but if you look at the part where Dave is shout singing “I don’t owe you anything” at the spore and realize he initially wanted that spore to be a "bloated, charred, inflated girl representing Courtney", it becomes a whole different thing. And as much as shouting “I don’t owe you anything” is great for a high schooler, “I've taken all and I've endured, One day this all will fade I'm sure.” is a line that speaks to any stage of one’s life. Also, (I like that at some point, all of the later members of Foo Fighters just went all in on beards, which seems surreal to watch the video with very few current Foos now involved.)
2). “Til I Hear It From You” by Gin Blossoms (from Empire Records soundtrack, released September 1995) (peaked at #8 on August 26, 1995)
If one truly loves jangle pop (which, yes, I do), then Marshall Crenshaw’s 1982 classic “Someday, Someway” looms large over the genre. So who co-wrote one of the most recognizable jangle pop guitar riffs ever? Yep. Because there were at least four good songs on New Miserable Experience, a critical factor in CD purchasing in the 1990s high school mind, it might have been frustrating that this song wasn’t even on the band’s next album, but thankfully, as previously established, the Empire Records soundtrack was worth the purchase. Lush and melodic, dealing with the notion of holding out hope that things are not as bad as one thinks in a relationship, it works so well.
1). “Wonderwall” by Oasis (from (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, released October 1995) (peaked at #1 on December 30, 1995)
I’m not trying to be clever here. It’s “Wonderwall”, it’s going in the top spot. I do wonder why people were so upset with Oasis being such an obvious ripoff of the Beatles when they were so patently obvious about it. Naming a song after a George Harrison solo project, having the string section come in after the word “backbeat” , which also named the 1994 movie about the Beatles’ Hamburg days, it’s not like they were trying to hide what they were doing. I said maybe that’s the problem, bad poets borrow, great poets steal. Still generating $1 million a year in streaming royalties, it is easily the song of my senior year, then and now. Anyway, here’s Wonderwall.
Thank you for reading! Comments, quibbles, disagreements, notes! Leave them in the comments below or hit me up in the usual spots. Thanks for reading! We’ll be back again when inspiration strikes.
And after all, here’s the playlist:
The Top 70 Modern Rock Tracks of 1995-96 (Part 2)
Finally made it through, and while I am the wrong age to weigh in on the rankings, two quick thoughts:
I get what they wanted to do with the Just A Girl fight sequence. The correct song for that fight was in the credits- Celebrity Skin would have been *perfect*
I have soft spot for Don't Look Back In Anger- I listened to it nearly non-stop in the weeks leading up to my high school graduation (despite it being nearly 10 years old at that point). I just thought the vibe matched so well.