Music Chart Flashback: 1995
Music Chart Flashback: 1995
Twenty years ago this week, TLC topped the Hot 100 with a very important water advisory, Michael and Janet got angry, and Shaggy went boom. EW revisits the singles charts from 1995 and regrades each song.
Twenty years ago this week, TLC topped the Hot 100 with a very important water advisory, Michael and Janet got angry, and Shaggy went boom. EW revisits the singles charts from 1995 and regrades each song.
TLC, "Waterfalls"
youtube embed goes here!
Things that happen when you go chasing waterfalls, according to TLC: intravenous drug use, HIV, bodies layin' cold in the gutter. The rivers and the lakes that you're used to don't look so shabby now, do they, kids?
GRADE: A-
The Notorious B.I.G., "One More Chance"
youtube embed goes here!
Biggie is not only the client, he's the player president. So he knows what ladies appreciate: diamond necklaces, stretch Lexuses, and the best sampled bass line a minor 1983 DeBarge hit can provide.
GRADE: A
Monica, "Don't Take It Personal (Just One of Dem Days)"
youtube embed goes here!
Sometimes a girl gets in a mood, you know? Like an R&B Greta Garbo, Monica wants to be alone. And she just needs to put on a rayon vest and a newsboy cap and do her own damn thing until it passes.
GRADE: B+
Boyz II Men, "Water Runs Dry"
youtube embed goes here!
Either a lovely preemptive-breakup ballad, or a crazy-prescient theme song for the California drought. Or both? Boyz II Climate Scientists!
GRADE: A-
Nicki French, "Total Eclipse of the Heart"
youtube embed goes here!
Pretty much a total eclipse of originality, since French did nothing to Bonnie Tyler's '80s soft-pop epic except add hi-NRG synths and some unfortunate bangs. Bright eyes hears you, Nicki, he just doesn't want to turn around.
GRADE: C-
Bryan Adams, "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?"
youtube embed goes here!
Telling a woman you adore her and know she's the one? So nice! Telling her you "see your unborn children in her eyes"? Zodiac killers do that.
GRADE: B
All-4-One, "I Can Love You Like That"
youtube embed goes here!
More sweet promises of fidelity and tenderness, delivered in four-part harmony and without all the unborn-baby talk.
GRADE: B+
Shaggy, "Boombastic"
youtube embed goes here!
An excellent lesson in Jamaican patois that is also basically a song-length Yelp review of Shaggy's own sexual prowess. Mr. Lovah-lovah swears he's "rated as the best," so go ahead and get in the Jacuzzi, baby girl. Four and a half stars!
GRADE: A-
Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson, "Scream"
youtube embed goes here!
Back when the phrase "power siblings" promised more than a Derek and Julianne Hough dance-off, Michael and Janet made this furious cri de coeur—then shot an insanely elaborate $7 million video for it, because they could.
GRADE: A
Blues Traveler, "Run-Around"
youtube embed goes here!
"Because who doesn't love manic poetry-slam talk-singing and endless harmonica solos?" said the ex-boyfriend who let your Tamagotchi die and then broke up with you at a Better Than Ezra show.
GRADE: B-