If there was a year that defined my generation (Millennials), it was 1999—a year of unchecked, bloated optimism. 1999’s music, especially, provided a sunny, carefree hypersexual dream that felt like it could last forever, before the entire facade collapsed with Bush stealing the election, 9/11, endless war in the middle east and the looming, growing housing bubble about to burst. It truly was all downhill from here. The Y2K apocalypse was real. Only, it wasn’t a bang, but a slow, pathetic whimper that we’re still waiting to die from, 20 years later. And, these ten songs simply DO NOT encapsulate that last hurrah of innocent joy before the fall, like Smash Mouth’s "All Star" did.
Sure, it defined Destiny’s Child as pop royalty and it defined the trajectory of Beyoncé by cementing her position on top of music for the next two decades. I mean, what other song really shined, with that innocent-yet-sexy optimism of the late ‘90s? What song crystallized the conceit of women taking power back in relationships, that lasts to this day in pop music? But, was this song used two years later in wildly successful computer-animated movie about an ogre and a donkey? Hell no, it wasn’t! And, you can’t define 1999 if you don’t also have that on your resumé.
Okay, this song may have singlehandedly revitalized an outdated guitar star’s career AND gave Rob Thomas one last taste of the spotlight before they both dwindled away into obscurity. When you think hot summer day sweating your life away, drinking and smoking with friends you played hookie with in some shitty concrete jungle, sure, this song is playing in the background. But, nothing—I say NOTHING—says 1999 like skanking guitars and completely shoehorned in turntable scratches. Move aside, Boomer and Gen X has-beens.
I suppose this song closed the awful loop that Korn started in 1994, and yet, somehow exploded the next millennium with a surge of screaming vocals and heavy distorted guitars that were somehow okay to play on the radio all of a sudden. This song seemed to go hand-in-hand with the end of any and all claims of metal being a fringe genre. While this song DID define the Hot Topic generation, it didn’t define the end of Generation X quite like Steve Harwell’s portly swagger did.
Mr. Mathers probably was trying to concoct the song that would be everyone’s ’99 and the video for this song proves his ambition. This is definitely one of those tough contenders. A hard pitch—trying to tie up the decade and launch us into the next with about a million and one ‘90’s references. Nice try, Marshall. But, your sweaty, tryhard antics don’t hold a candle to a song that uses thirteen words and a whole goddamn verse to describe the "loser" hand gesture.
I suppose the music video alone just screams "1999," with imagery so iconic and so era-specific to this year that it immediately became a meme—parodied just a few months later, by the next pathetic runner-up on this list, for fuck’s sake! A song that is synonymous with the boy band genre, which in turn is synonymous with the very idea of 1999, this comes close. But, I’m sorry. Nobody is throwing loaves of bread at these guys 20 years later. No cigar.
If you’re my age, when you think 1999, you think about skateboarding, PlayStation, American Pie and this fucking song. Just like Slipknot killed metal, this song killed punk (if you we’re an obnoxious purist know-it-all about the genre). This song is the crowing achievement of punk’s embarrassed-yet-ambitious drive towards pop sensibility and the song that kicked the door open for the third wave emo craze of the 2000s. But, were these guys the surprise musical cameo at the end of a 2001 lackluster remake of It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World? I think not. Go back to San Diego, frauds!
Unlike Brittany, Miss Aguilera was of age and could be a bit more honest about her sexuality. Honestly, if this album came out just a year before, she could’ve had Britany’s crown, but maybe that’s an argument for some other column. Of course, there is no 1999 without middle school girls doing choreographed dances, singing along to this oversexed diddy. And, although she’s now at a legal age to drink, men still can’t rub women the right way after Christina asked them all politely to do so—this song just doesn’t summon the spirit of 1999 like the little band from San Jose that could.
The end of the millennium was the end of a lot of things and Dre saw the writing on the wall, for sure. Despite Mr. Young’s confusion about what year it was when naming the album, he did a good job creating a definitive article to close the door on gangsta rap. He almost closed the door on hip hop itself. But, this song—strings, trap beat and all—simply illuminated the path forward for hip hop. However, it didn’t illuminate the path forward for failed rappers in their early thirties, like Smash Mouth did. After all, there’s so much to do and so much to see. Now THAT’S 1999 talking.
There might not be a 1999 without this closeted Puerto Rican’s smash hit for all America. Yes, ALL America—writ-large—North AND South. We often forget how important this song was, in bridging the gap between English language and Spanish language pop. Also, when you think of summer jams, it’s hard not to include this one on your playlist. The fact that an aging U.K. punk pathetique band did a kazoo-laden cover of this diddy almost makes it an obvious candidate for the song that was 1999. But, the years start coming and they don’t stop coming and you realize that there was only one all star of 1999.
You could argue that no song in this year (or, decade for that matter) summed up how we as a generation got to this point and where we are going. You could say that the only accurate way to evoke the spirit of 1999 would be an 18-minute sprawling epic poem, spanning from lofty complaints about those in power to gut-wrenching jabs at personal failures of the powerless. You could argue that literally no other song in 1999 was as 1999 as "The Decline." You could argue that it’s a keen observation and admonishment of the decline leading up to now (and a depressingly accurate prediction of the decline to come). But, you’d be fucking wrong, because Steve Harwell did all of this and more with one line in the last verse of the song that clearly defined 1999. I mean, we could all use a little change. Oh, Steve, if only you knew how right you were.
