Ladies and gentlemen, Let's get ready to RUMBLEEEEEEE!
I am back! About five minutes ago I received an email from Google/Blogger that John's World has been restored! It was a week and a day ago that I received another, shocking and disappointing email telling me that this blog had been deleted for spam. I really had no idea what I had done wrong and appealed their decision. As it turns out, it was apparently a case of mistaken spamdentity, lol, and now John's World is back online.
Of course, after almost five years of blogging here and with a lot of my own heart and soul put into it, I was understandably upset. In the time since they had deleted the blog, I started another John's World on WordPress, which you can check out here. From here on in, I will be posting all of my posts to both blogs (except Song of the Day, which I will only keep up here), just in case.
So we return to our I Love the 90's Song of the Day with a very celebratory mash-up of fun and rousing tunes from 1995 called Jock Jams. Enjoy and Happy Hump Day!
Now here's a boy band many of you probably forgot about. Color Me Badd was really a quick blip on the screen of pop music in the early 90's, scoring a few notable hits before disappearing into the sunset. Here's one of their most popular:
The 1990's could very well have been known as the decade of the boy band. Just a few short months ago I spoke of the boy band phenomenon, and how it has returned recently with the British Invasion of The Wanted and One Direction. Well, boy bands can really be traced back to the 80's, with the assemblage of New Edition, New Kids on the Block, and several others, but it was really the 90's when the genre of sugary sweet pop music performed by prefabricated pretty boys who could sing and dance came to be a major force in the music industry.
I had originally planned to do a mega-Song of the Day post featuring some of the best of 90's boy bands, but since there are so many to choose from, we'll be featuring a whole week's worth of boy band Songs of the Day, starting with one of NKOTB's last true hits from the year 1990. At the time, Jordan, Jonathan, Donnie, Joey and Danny were the pop idols of music, riding the crest of a wave that still flows even today. Enjoy Step byStep and have a wonderful Monday!
Simply put, RuPaul is one fierce diva! Nowadays, she's the star if her own program, RuPaul's Drag Race, but back in the 90's, she was just starting to come into her own with television spots, club appearances and a burgeoning career in music. In 1993, this record became an international smash, and it still gets everyone sashaying and posing whenever it's played. There are plenty of great one-liners in this, and many other Ru tunes. Oh, ,and pretty much all of her music is fun, too..enjoy!
Luther Vandross. Silky smooth voice. R&B soul music at its best! Poor Luther passed away a little more than seven years ago, and much too young. He was only 54, and at the time of his death there was little fanfare in the music world, or at least that's the way I see it.
Luther Vandross compiled a formidable music catalog with some great, great songs, like Never Too Much, Stop to Love, Any Love, and so many more. This one is one of my all time favorites, and it was a bug hit for Luther back in 1990, hitting #1 on the Hot R&B Chart and #4 on the Hot 100. Like all of his other stuff, this one is just pure ear candy, plain and simple. Enjoy ad Happy Friday!
Today's song is from 1992, and it's a tune that you either loved or hated. I, obviously, loved it! To me it's a nice piece of songwriting with a nice, catchy melody. It was written and performed by someone who had more success writing for others rather than herself and her group, 4 Non Blondes. I'm speaking of the talented Linda Perry, the lead singer of the group. In addition to writing hit songs for P!nk (Let's Get the Party Started) and Christina Aguilera (Beautiful), Linda has worked with the likes of Gwen Stefani, Courtney Love, James Blunt and Kelly Osbourne. Check out What's Up and have a great Tuesday!
Before this 1994 song of the 1993 album, Yes I Am, Melissa Etheridge was already popular. Appealing to college kids who were devoted to her unique brand of folksy rock and wonderful songwriting, Melissa was about as popular as one could get outside the mainstream pop music world. Then this one came along, and sent her star into the stratosphere.
Come to My Window is an absolutely beautifully written and performed tune, and the desperation of the lyrics and the depth of her love is just, well, intense! Enjoy and Happy Monday!
Today's song is a one hit wonder by New Zealand group OMC. The very catchy song was a big hit throughout late 1996 and early 1997, and I still can't help singing it in my head whenever I see something bizarre, lol.
Here's a great 1994 song from an alternative group called Live. I just love songs like this that have softer verses and rise into a crescendo at the chorus. Awesome!
TGIF all! We're back with today's I Love the 90's Song of the Day, Mariah Carey's 1995 smash, Fantasy. This was a great song, which masterfully samples the music track of another classic song from earlier years, Tom Tom Club's Genius of Love. The video was shot in an amusement park located in Rye, NY, just north of the Bronx, and the coaster Mariah rides, the Dragon Coaster, was my very first roller coaster ever... Yeah! :-) Enjoy!
Since today is hump day I wanted to post something with the theme of, well, you know... I figured, what better 90's song for a hump day than Madonna's Justify My Love. The song is from her 1990 Immaculate Collection album, and the controversy that surrounded this song and video brought it straight to number one. Clearly an introduction to her distinct "sex" years, the song is not her greatest, though the thumping, and decidedly sexual, back beat playing behind Madge's suggestive, almost spoken pangs, works well on a late night dance floor. Enjoy, and Happy Hump Day!
Back in 1993, the seven ladies who made up hip hop trio Salt N Pepa and R&B divas En Vogue got together to make this little ditty that's a little hip hop, a little R&B, and a whole lotta good!
I consider myself a good judge of people and that's why I don't like none of them.
- Roseanne Connor
On Saturday, Comedy Central hosted it's Comedy Roast in Hollywood and the honoree of the night was Roseanne Barr. Roseanne was a household name back in the late 80's and early 90's and is surely worthy of a mention in the I Love the 90's series.
Roseanne debuted in October of 1988 and ran for nine seasons on ABC, and for a long time during that run, it was one of the most popular shows on television. The program centered on the lives of Dan (John Goodman) and Roseanne Connor and their three children, Becky (Lecy Goranson/Sarah Chalke), Darlene (Sara Gilbert) and D.J. (Michael Fishman). The Connors were a blue-collar family that lived in Lanford, Illinois, and their lives were pretty ordinary, just like the lives of many of us, and the fun they poked out of everyday stuff was often sidesplittingly hilarious.
Along with a cast of characters that included Roseanne's sister Jackie (Laurie Metcalf), Darlene and Becky's men David and Mark (Johnny Galecki and Glenn Quinn), pal Crystal (Natalie West), Roseanne's mom Bev (Estelle Parsons), and a whole host of others, this show tackled all sorts of issues, from poverty to alcoholism and drug abuse, teenage pregnancy and abortion, race, infidelity, homosexuality, obesity, you name it, and always in an in-your-face and make you laugh kind of way.
Take a look at this memorable scene where Dan, Roseanne, and Jackie decide to smoke their first joint in years, using some pot they confiscated from David for bringing in the house. Hysterical!
I tell ya, watching that scene makes me want to go out and watch the whole series again from start to finish. It's been too long!
One of my favorite things about Roseanne was their annual Halloween episode. Every year the Connors really got into the spirit of the spooky holiday and always made it fun. Here is THE best Halloween episode. I love it when D.J. lip synchs, "Welcome to the Tunnel of Terror. Please join us."... Oh, that was an oft-used one-liner back in the day!
This clip also includes another thing that made this show so special. Roseanne was one of the very first shows that was able to keep viewers tuned in during the credits by actually giving them a lil something something at the very end that was worth watching. Check it out...
So there you have it, another great part of living in the 1990's. Just watching these two clips brought me back and gave me some smiles and some laughs and I hope it does the same for you. If you'd like to check out that Comedy Central Roast, it's being televised on Sunday, August 12th at 10 p.m., so set your DVR's. And if you'd like to read more about that one, check out E! Online.
Anyone who was around in 1994 has got to remember Hootie and the Blowfish. I mean, what a cool name for a band, right? These four guys met and formed the band at the University of South Carolina in Columbia in the late 80's and released their first CD, Cracked Rear View, in 1994. This, the first single off that album, was a smash pop-rock anthem that jumped all the way to number ten on the charts. Great song!
The band went on to a maintain a modicum of success in the years since, but officially announced their hiatal dissolution from making new music together in 2008. Since then lead singer Darius Rucker has gone on to success in the country music world with his first solo country album, Learn to Live.
Black or White was the first single off Michael Jackson's 1991 album Dangerous. The song's message was typical Michael Jackson, and the music is uplifting as well. The music video premiere was somewhat of a big event, directed by John Landis, starring Macaulay Culkin and George Wendt, and being broadcast simultaneously in 27 countries and watched by 500 million viewers, the most ever for a music video.
As with many of the superstar's music videos, this one was innovative, using technologies to 'morph' people, and animals, into other people. The scene towards the end when ordinary people from all walks of life change into one another as they're singing the chorus is my favorite part of the vid. Check it out below:
Oh yeah, this was a hot one alright! This song from surprisingly fitting Santana with Matchbox 20s' Rob Thomas was a smash back in 99', heard seemingly everywhere and all the time. But you could never help but sing along...
There were quite a few "Baby" songs during the 90's. Yesterday we had a dance/club song by Italian singer Corona and now we have a sweet, countryish one from Ms. Amy Grant, circa 1991.
Enjoy!
Okay, I am back from my short little trip, which I'll tell you about soon, but in the meantime it's back to I Love the 90's with a dance song from 1994. The singer is an Italian girl from Italy who really had just one album that made any waves here in the US. Rhythm of the Night was the first and more popular single, but this one was my favorite! Enjoy!
