Top Hundred Songs Of The 90s -

And at the top of page forty-seven, centered, underlined three times:

And for one evening, sitting on a worn-out couch with my uncle, listening to the rain and the ghost of a hundred songs—I understood why they had to.

– “Best music video of the decade. Best opening riff. Best song to speed through a tunnel to.” top hundred songs of the 90s

I looked up at my uncle. He was staring out the window at the rain, his forty-six-year-old hands wrapped around a mug that said WORST. MILLENNIUM. EVER.

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). And at the top of page forty-seven, centered,

Then, the top five. The ink was heavier here, pressed down with conviction.

The top twenty was a war zone. Crossed-out numbers, arrows, angry annotations. had a note screaming: “OVERRATED. NO, YOU’RE OVERRATED. – Craig. Rick, fight me. – Fine, put it at 18. But I’m not happy. – No Gallagher brothers are ever happy. That’s the point.” Best song to speed through a tunnel to

The further I flipped, the more the 90s came alive—not as a nostalgic aesthetic, but as a chaotic, contradictory, beautiful mess. Page twelve: . Margin note: “We all hated this when it came out. We were wrong. It’s the perfect end credits song for the decade.” Beside it, Maya had drawn a tiny shrek head.