The 1990s A to Z: 26 Killer Songs From a Very Strange Decade
30 years later, I still don’t know what to think about the ’90s
When Buddy Gott lured me into the writing prompt that resulted in the story “The 1970s A to Z: 26 Songs from a Rockin’ Decade” last year, I thought it was a one-off thing. Because I both can’t leave well enough alone and also clearly hate myself, in May I did a follow-up titled “The 1980s A to Z: 26 Songs From a Glorious Decade.” This meant that I unintentionally had created a series that I now had to at least attempt to complete.
I considered jumping back to the 1960s for the third installment, but that is going to be a gargantuan undertaking; I could easily do an A-to-Z with nothing but Beatles songs (there’s an idea for you, Alex Markham), Rolling Stones songs, Doors songs…you get the idea. The ’60s are also a decade that will obviously include no Bruce Springsteen songs (his debut album didn’t come out until January 5, 1973), and that just makes me sad. Thus, I moved forward to the 1990s.
That’s difficult in a different way, because the ’90s were just plain weird. For starters, it is the only decade between the ’70s and now without a single Springsteen album with the full E Street Band; if you ever wonder what it was like for the Israelites wandering in the desert for 40 years, a…
