Favorite Songs of 1999

As I lived through 1999, most of the songs I liked off the radio were played on 103.7-WRUF “Rock 104”. I also bought a few CDs/cassettes that year, favorite among them REM’s Up, the Moody Blues’ Strange Times, and the Talking Heads' Greatest Hits. REM was even more gloomier than they usually were with Up, but I liked several of the tracks, as the following list reflects. My favorites among them were Suspicion and Walk Unafraid. I feel that Suspicion would have been a monster singles hit had they released it and promoted it that way. The Talking Heads had three old hits that I hadn’t heard before, hearkening back to the 1970s. Don’t Worry About the Government was a hilarious depiction of life in the bureaucracy, while Warning Sign and No Compassion seemed to go well in succession together (although they were probably originally on separate albums). The Moody Blues came out with a rare new CD, and my favorite track on it, My Little Lovely, was written and sung by Ray Thomas, who was also responsible for my #9 all-time favorite song For My Lady. At the end of 1999, I rediscovered some of Soundgarden’s old songs, and I got into listening a lot to their track Face Pollution, off of their early 90s album Badmotorfinger. Here’s my list of favorites for 1999:

Thank U (Alanis Morissette)
What It's Like (Everlast)
You Get What You Give (New Radicals)
Special (Garbage)
Dragula (Rob Zombie)
Jumper (Third Eye Blind)
Every Morning (Sugar Ray)
Dizzy (Goo Goo Dolls)
Why I'm Here (Oleander)
That Don't Impress Me Much (Shania Twain)
Scar Tissue (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Around The World (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Smooth (Santana with Rob Thomas)
Take A Picture (Filter)
Sugar (System of a Down)
Pardon Me (Incubus)
Airportman (REM)
Suspicion (REM)
You're In The Air (REM)
Walk Unafraid (REM)
Daysleeper (REM)
Falls To Climb (REM)
My Little Lovely (Moody Blues)
Heavy (Collective Soul)
Beautiful Stranger (Madonna)
Don't Worry About The Government (Talking Heads)
Warning Sign (Talking Heads)
No Compassion (Talking Heads)
Face Pollution (Soundgarden)

As for songs that actually came out and were played on the radio in 1999, my top-favorite was Scar Tissue by the resurgent L.A. band the Red Hot Chili Peppers. System of a Down blasted onto the scene that year with their scorching Sugar. The Goo Goo Dolls surprised me with a likable song in Dizzy. Garbage continued their run of catchy tunes with their sad Special. Take a Picture, by Filter, was one of the songs that took me a while to appreciate, but it's stayed with me all these years as a favorite. Madonna’s submission to Austin Power’s movie soundtrack was one of her best: Beautiful Stranger once again demonstrated her pop savvy. And the tearjerker of the year award unexpectedly goes to Third Eye Blind with their compelling plea to stop a suicide in Jumper.