90s Rock: Best Songs (Part 4)

And finally, continuing on from last week, here are my last group of favorite 90s songs.  There really are too many songs that are awesome.  My list is probably hobo excrement.  Oh well, it has been fun anyway. 

16) "Photograph" by The Verve Pipe

I went through a phase where I listened to TONS of The Verve Pipe.  They are an excellent band.  They are not in my Top 10 favorite bands of all time, or anything, but they have an underrated catalog.  Much like this song.  "Photograph" was the first song I ever remember hearing by them.  Of course, they later found more notoriety with "The Freshmen" but the sick organ track that underpins this song is not to be denied.  Give it a listen if you don't recall this song. 

"Cup Of Tea" is also another underrated song by The Verve Pipe.



17) "Lakini's Juice" by Live

There is no arguing that "Throwing Copper" is Live's best record. However, my favorite overall song by Live is "Lakini's Juice." If you can't tell by now, I am a huge fan of dirty, deep guitar riffs. The distorted bass creeps into your ears like a burrowing earwig. It also uses excellent subtle placement of string arrangements. You can't go wrong here.



18) "Still Remains" by Stone Temple Pilots

The only band with two songs on the list. I just couldn't leave this one off. It makes the list with the following line alone: "Take a bath, I'll drink the water that you leave." It's pretty gross, twisted love song- and I love it.



19) "Little Things" by Bush

My band in high school used to rock the shit out of this song in our garages. One of our favorites to cover, "Little Things" is simple yet rocking. Why Bush didn't take the music industry by the throat and skull-fuck it, I'll never understand. "Sixteen Stone" is amazing. The rest of their catalog... just ok. This song deserves a spot on the list though.

What's that? You want shirtless Gavin Rossdale from Woodstock '99? Ok!



20) "Tomorrow" by Silverchair

Silverchair deserves a spot on the list. This is their first hit single in the US and probably their catchiest song (at least from their early catalog.) This song is most impressive given that it was written, performed and recorded by 14/15 year olds. Daniel Johns sings like a 40 year old. It is a solid song to round out the Top 20.



And so ends my Top 20. I should do this again in 3 months and I bet I'd get a different list. Enjoy all the Game 5's coming up, they should be fairly entertaining.

90s Rock: Silverchair

Silverchair was a kick-ass 90s band that I loved when I was growing up.  I not only enjoyed their music, but I very much enjoyed the concept of a few 16 year-olds making it big in the music industry.  Daniel Johns is a great songwriter that tends to investigate pop/rock songs in a very dirty/heavy way.  Let's look at some of their sweet jams.

"Israel's Son" - The opening track of "Frogstomp" is a great way to get the blood flowing. A slow, plodding bass line builds to explosion once the verse pops in. I could almost see a WWE Wrestler coming out to this song.



"Tomorrow" - It would be difficult to do a Silverchair post without including their biggest hit. This song makes virtually no sense lyrically, but it is catchy as all hell and is just as much fun to listen to now as it was back in the 90s.



"Shade" - Depending on who you talk to, "Shade" could be highly under OR over rated. It was never a huge hit, but this song seems to have a cult following of sorts. The D minor hammer-on chord to start the song is fucking money. Does anyone care to explain how a teenager has such a deep sing voice?



"Slave" - Opening the album "Freak Show" in similar fashion to "Israel's Son," "Slave" puts a nice metal twist on Silverchair's signature grungy sound. These teenagers were angry!!! The chorus reminds me of something Filter would have done.



"Freak" - More dark lyrics from a brooding teenagers, but this song is oddly catchy. Regardless of immaturity at the time, the talent does show right through. They must have had a lot of fun touring with these songs.



"Roses" - This is probably as close as Silverchair comes to imitating Nirvana (more "In Utero" style.) The verse riff is dirty and the chorus is catchy with a rock/metal flavor. Very underrated tune.



"Ana's Song" - This was another decent size hit back in the late 90s. I believe it references Johns' fight with anorexia, but who knows? What I do know, is that this song is awesome!



"Emotion Sickness" - So after listening to all that dirty rock, watch them bring the string section along for this excellent song. "Neon Ballroom" is definitely where the band begins to mature as musicians and people. Not to say I don't enjoy their early work more, but you can see them reach another level of musicianship on this record.



So there you go- Silverchair is the band of the day here. Have any favorite songs that I missed? Let me know in the comments.