The Top 20 - 90's

The other day I spent about three hours watching VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the 90's". I got to see the Top 60, which actually was like a big nostalgia sandwich. I listened to songs I haven't heard in years and I got to hear some of the ones that I hadn't been aware of before. It was a nice way to spend a sick day at home. Some old music, some of which was good, some of which was bad. Luckily I wasn't paying too much attention to some of the bad stuff but now I've been listening to music from the countdown for the last few days and it's been putting me in a good mood. Now I've got 90's songs stuck in my head and I've been realizing just how much music has changed since then. When I was younger, I wasn't all that interested in most of these bands and singers and music groups and rappers and for the most part I'm still not, but I think I'd prefer their music over most of the stuff coming out these days. Here, I'll put up the Top 20 from that countdown.

1. Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
2. U2 - "One"
3. Backstreet Boys - "I Want It That Way"
4. Whitney Houston - "I Will Always Love You"
5. Madonna - "Vogue"
6. Sir Mix-A-Lot - "Baby Got Back"
7. Britney Spears - "...Baby One More Time"
8. TLC - "Waterfalls"
9. R.E.M. - "Losing My Religion"
10. Sinéad O'Connor - "Nothing Compares 2 U"
11. Pearl Jam - "Jeremy"
12. Alanis Morissette - "You Oughta Know"
13. Dr. Dre (featuring Snoop Doggy Dogg) - "Nuthin' But A "G" Thang"
14. Mariah Carey - "Vision Of Love"
15. Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Under The Bridge"
16. MC Hammer - "U Can't Touch This"
17. Destiny's Child - "Say My Name"
18. Metallica - "Enter Sandman"
19. Beastie Boys - "Sabotage"
20. Hanson - "MMMBop"

Just look at that list. What's happened to most of these music acts? Nirvana and TLC both lost members to sudden deaths,  a shotgun blast and a car crash respectively. That ended those groups. U2 is still attempting to save the world but I don't think many people pay attention anymore. Backstreet Boys lost a guy, I think, and are somehow surviving as the last boy band of the 90s. Whitney Houston....she's doing...something, I think. I know she got divorced but that's about it. Madonna hasn't done anything noteworthy for a few years besides adopting a kid. Sir Mix-A-Lot is producing music and doing those VH1 countdowns. Britney Spears..well...we all know what happened there. R.E.M. is still touring. Sinéad O'Connor tore up a picture of the pope and became a priest. Pearl Jam is still out there but...I mean...I don't know, it's Pearl Jam. Not a fan. Alanis Morissette is still making music as far as I know. Dr. Dre popped out people like Eminem, Snoop Dogg, and 50 Cent. Mariah Carey had a breakdown at one point and disappeared for a little while but she's still making music. The Red Hot Chili Peppers just lost John Frusciante and I know that him and Anthony Kiedis were struggling with heroin addictions for a while. They're also still making music with their new guitarist, Josh Klinghoffer. Hammer went bankrupt and now he's got a tv show or a company or something to get his money back. Destiny's Child broke up a while after "Say My Name" and now Beyonce is the one people know the best. Metallica is still the same group of douchebags they were before, they're just older now. Beastie Boys are old white guys that are still rapping. I never liked them that much but they're still going, and being one of the longest running hip-hop groups for starting in 1981, that's pretty damn good. And then there's Hanson. They're all older now and have wives and kids but they still tour and make music. Thankfully it's not as high pitched as it used to.

Now here's a way to look at music these days. Hanson has been replaced by the Jonas Brothers. Britney Spears has been replaced by Miley Cyrus. I would come up with replacements for the others but frankly, these two are the most obvious. I don't know if it would be a coincidence that these two are "popular" and they're also pretty much Disney-backed groups. It makes me sick to see something like that, and at the same time, I try to ignore it. I've got my own music to listen to and enjoy but I have heard some of the songs put out by those two. It just kind of happened, mostly because of The Soup and various commercials. The thing is, it makes me sad to know that the songs in this Top 20 were pretty much some of the last partially decent songs in mainstream music when you think of what actually controls the airwaves now. 


This is just a big block of my opinions, of course, and there are 80 other songs and I'm tempted to make posts about each set of 20 just to see what all has changed and what's going on with those groups now. I'm not going to go into a lot of research, I'll just use what I've heard and read. It's what I did up there on that big block of the lazy "Where Are They Now?" type of section. 


This has been Bassty Time. 

The Set Up

Okay so I know that I haven't been updating frequently. That's more or less because I haven't been able to figure out what it is I want to write about. Sure, I could start writing about my day or what's going on in my life or my views on politics or pop culture or any other type of subject that most blogs already cover. I mean yeah, I'll get around to that stuff eventually. Maybe soon. I was going to do something about traffic in Illinois but I gave up on that because it just turned into one long post that most game chats censor with symbols like '$', '@', '!', '&', and '%'. So I just sort of deleted it, although it probably would have been fun to just open up a link and see that. I got a good laugh out of the preview myself. But once again, deleted it. Then I moved on to trying to just ramble on and on about myself into more detail than my first blog entry. It got to about a little over one in the morning and I decided it just wasn't worth it to continue and scrapped. I'll more than likely do it again but it'll look different. Not that, you know, you've seen the original, but it'll be different.

So I move on to this post and I think I've decided on at least some sort of schedule that looks something like this: Sunday - Friday, Random Entries; Saturday, Either write a random story, make a random comic, or take the day off. (I can tell you which one will probably come first). Pretty simple looking outline right there, right? Wrong. Or right. Depends on how I'm feeling and the general consensus seems to be: Lazy. I'm getting better, though. So I've just kind of given myself some ideas. Things like writing about hobbies, or interests, or doing movie and game reviews, or book reviews or whatever. You know, just some easy going, simple reading in my own unique fashion. So here are some of the ideas:

Movies - Star Wars Double Super Remastered Edited Trilogy (Soon to be in 3D!); Lord of the Rings Trilogy; 300; Anything and Everything by Mel Brooks; Any of the Monty Python Movies (And I'll throw in the show as well!); The Patriot; Inglourious Basterds; Inception; Star Trek (The newest!); The Matrix Trilogy;    There's probably more I'll think of but I'm drawing a blank right now. Don't worry. But these ones are the ones that come first.

Games - Halo 3, ODST, Reach; The Lord of the Rings games; The Total War series; Deadliest Warrior (The Game!); Kingdom for Keflings; Animal Crossing; Wii Sports; Wii Sports Resort; the EA Sports games I own; Red Dead Redemption; GTA IV; Sims 3; Sims 2; maybe Sims 1; World of Warcraft; The Saboteur; Smackdown vs Raw series; Assassin's Creed; Rock Band series; Guitar Hero (I have to to be fair...);
Like before, I'm probably forgetting some really important games but I don't feel like getting up and checking the stack.

TV Shows - Deadliest Warrior (The Show!); The Daily Show; The Colbert Report; South Park; Tosh.0; Saturday Night Live; MADtv; Ed Edd n Eddy; Courage the Cowardly Dog; The Big Bang Theory; Scrubs; The Soup ('s on, Friday at 10); Futurama; The Simpsons; The Office (The US version);
Not much else I can think of. My tv show choices don't really expand past this.

Music - The Beatles (I see a number of posts about them); Ska; Metal; Classic Rock/Rock; Alternative Rock; Heavy Metal; Death/Black Metal; Rap; Hip-Hop; Pop;
There will be a lot of criticism and a lot of praise. Be prepared.

Books - Lord of the Rings; Harry Potter; The Redwall series; The Inheritance Trilogy (I mean...Quadrilogy); Artemis Fowl;
Well I'm just lazy as hell on this one because I can't really remember many of the books I used to read. Oh well. They'll appear later.

Hobbies/Interests/Guilty Pleasures - I'll just put these up when the time comes. You don't need to know now.

So yeah. Thats about all I've got right now. I'll probably just randomly update with something outside of these when I feel like it. Stuff about me or how I'm feeling. You know, the usual blog stuff. I'll try to stay away from the politics, though.

Oh look! It's-a Me!

This is just going to be a short...or medium length...or long post just saying simple things about who I am. I'll get to the interesting stuff later.

I'm not some aspiring writer or anything special like that. I don't really plan on complaining too much about what's going on around me but I probably will. It's fun to complain and I figure that's what some people use blogs for. That, and trying to let people know about parts of their lives that may or may not be interesting. Oh, and just talking and telling stories for the sake of talking and telling stories. I might do that. I might not. Maybe I'll write a story on Saturday. Maybe I'll put up a badly hand drawn comic on Tuesday. Maybe I'll just start posting random posts in a language that very few people can understand like Esperanto, or Klingon, or Geonosian, Elvish, or Hieroglyphics. But of course, that would just be silly.

My name is Eric and I'm currently attending a community college in the suburbs of Chicago. Once I get through this place I plan on going to one of the universities in or around the city. Hopefully in a good neighborhood where I don't have to worry about going outside after it gets a little dark outside. I currently don't know what I want to do or what I want to specifically study so I'm still going on undecided and I've been looking through at least seven or eight different options I could try.

Couple of interests that you are now going to know about. I like hockey. Blackhawks Hockey to be exact, with sprinklings of Devils, Avalanche, Shark, and Canadien hockey thrown in there as well. I also occasionally enjoy football or baseball if it's worth watching. Ska music is, in my opinion, a very calming and very entertaining genre and I enjoy all of the waves that have come out so far. It's got a nicer sound than metal and rap and it's got some comedy in it which is always good. And the Beatles. THE BEATLES. I like those four, so you can say whatever you want about them. Some of their solo work has been pretty good as well. Sometimes I draw and I'm not very good at it. Sometimes I write and I'm not very good at it. So I'll just be putting some of that up on occasion for my own entertainment. I play music and I have written some. None of it involving any instruments besides drums but it was still music.

One last thing: I deliver pizza and various other foods. It should say so in some form in that little sidebar there. I haven't really tried any of the pizza I deliver, but I hear that it's good.