Peter: It’s time for a very special episode of Peter & Tyler!

We’re jumping in the Wayback Machine and heading all the way back to 1994.

Tyler: I was eleven!

Peter: Excellent!

I graduated from high school in ’94. It was a good year. A young Rob Schneider taught the country how to laugh again.

Tyler: Pulp Fiction was released. Man, that movie is thirty years old. Thirty years before ‘94 was the Beatles’ invasion of America.

Peter: Whoa! That’s a fun fact. Either fun or depressing. Time flies, I guess. Anyway, we’re going to be talking about the top singles from that very special year!

Tyler: Our reference will be traditional: Billboard’s Hot 100 for the entire year.

Peter: I was kidding about Rob Schneider. That guy is trash.

Yes! Billboard! From their charts to our ears. And hearts. Probably.

Or not. I haven’t heard most of these songs in a long time.

Tyler: Oh, likewise. It’s been a few hundred lifetimes.

And don’t worry, beleaguered reader: we will be arbitrarily skipping plenty of tracks. It is not exactly a science.

Peter: Alright, let’s get after it. Where do we start?

Tyler: We’re gonna count this down. The number 100 single of 1994, based on whatever Billboard used as gauges at the time, is…Brandy’s “I Wanna Be Down.”

Peter: I actually don’t remember this song.

Tyler: I have vague memories of this.

Peter: It’s not terrible.

Am I a Brandy fan?

Tyler: I wonder what Brandy’s up to these days.

I have a feeling that’ll be a valid question for a lot of the artists we cover tonight.

Peter: So true.

I’m not hating it.

Tyler: You might hate our next selection.

Clocking in at 97!

“What Is Love,” from Haddaway.

Peter: I remember this one.

Not fondly.

Tyler: So bad.

Peter: This was only 97? It was so huge.

Tyler: This list is often baffling.

Peter: It must have bled into ’95.

Tyler: I don’t even like the SNL Roxbury sketch. The song is far too irritating.

Peter: I saw the Night At The Roxbury movie in the theater.

“Fun” fact.

Tyler: Can you believe they made a movie out of that bit? I mean, that’s totally believable, but man. Talk about Lorne scraping the bottom of a barrel.

Peter: Where’s the Mango movie at?

Tyler: Oh God.

Peter: Yeah, “What Is Love” sucks. What’s next?

Tyler: I wanna spend one half-second on number 95, General Public’s “I’ll Take You There.” I have no memory of this song, whether it’s a cover or an original, and I cannot attest to its quality. I mention it here solely because it was present—as noted prominently by Wikipedia—in the movie Threesome.

I never saw Threesome. Like most of us.

Racy early-to-mid-‘90s boundary-pushing!

Peter: I don’t remember any of those things!

It was a movie? Threesome?

Tyler: It was. Stephen Baldwin is one of the leads, I believe.

Peter: Oh yeah, this is a cover.

I have no memory of that movie.

Probably for the best.

Tyler: Agreed. I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

Moving right along, we’ll leap to 89. The random-ass success of “December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night).” The Four Seasons track. Man, do I detest this song.

Peter: Me too.

Tyler: It’s not good!

Peter: It’s truly horrible.

Are all of these going to suck? We need more Brandy!

Tyler: Trust the formula!

Peter: I’m a Bran-fan now.

Tyler: Number 85 comes to us from iNi Kamoze. The very memorable “Here Comes The Hotstepper.”

Peter: I actually kind of like this one.

Tyler: Never been a fan. I’m hating on everything tonight!

Peter: It’s got that Jamaican dancehall thing going.

Snow walked so iNi Kamoze could fly.

Remember Snow? “Informer?”

Tyler: Oh yeah.

Peter: Still waiting on his second act.

Unless he’s dead. Is he dead?

Tyler: I don’t recall hearing any news of Snow’s passing.

Peter: It would have been big news.

“Here Comes The Hotstepper” is good. I think you’re wrong on this one.

Tyler: Well, bully for you.

Worth noting is its presence in Robert Altman’s Pret-A-Porter, a film with a mainstream legacy far smaller than the song’s.

Peter: I never saw that!

Tyler: I feel like it was a very ads-on-VH-1 movie, back when there was a dash in “VH-1.”

Peter: Alright, what’s next?

Tyler: We’re gonna jump eight spots, to #77.

I guess at this point we’ll make quick note that we’re making selections based on a combination of memory, personal history, and good old-fashioned wisecrackability. The songs we’re hopping over may be all-timers, and we wish them no ill will. We just don’t recall them, or have much of a relationship with the works.

#77, though, was all over MTV and VH-1. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, baby, with “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.”

Peter: Great tune.

Tyler: Yes.

Kim Basinger and Petty making a righteously macabre pair in the video.

Peter: She’s dead in it, right? Sort of a Weekend at Bernie’s thing?

Tyler: You got it. If Terry Kiser wore a wedding dress and looked like Veronica Lake.

Peter: I had to Google Terry Kiser.

Tom Petty’s music is so timeless. Untroubled by the passing fads.

Tyler: One of the greats. And “Last Dance” is a very very good example of the man’s charming talents.

Peter: Agreed. Okay, two thumbs up for “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.”

Tyler: We’ve got a twofer coming up next! Oh man! Brace yourselves!

#72: “Amazing,” and #68: “Crazy.” Oh yes, Peter, it’s those rascals, Aerosmith.

From drugged-up ‘70s-strut-rockers Tyler doesn’t like to MTV-dominating ‘87ish-to-mid-‘90s outfit Tyler also doesn’t much enjoy. These songs bring back memories, but to me now they offer no attraction.

Peter: Yeah, I’m not a huge fan. But it’s true, they’ve been able to navigate numerous different eras. Unlike many of their peers, Aerosmith survived the arrival of grunge. They were still very big in 1994. A lot of bands like them had been washed away by the flood of alternative music that followed Nirvana and Pearl Jam’s arrival in the early nineties.

They made good videos. That helped.

Tyler: These two songs, as much as any others on this list, were immortalized by their videos. I don’t think “Amazing,” “Crazy,” and the earlier hit “Cryin’” are nearly as successful without Alicia Silverstone.

Peter: Which one is it where she jumps off the bridge, and you think, “Oh no!” But the joke’s on you because she’s got a bungee cord attached to her?

That was like The Sixth Sense of videos.

Tyler: That bungee cord is not attached to her when she jumps. And am I wrong or is the guy Stephen Dorff?

Peter: Is it?

Tyler: Yep. Just checked. Dorff!

Peter: Nice. Good for him.

Tyler: Kind of a poor man’s cross between Johnny Depp and River Phoenix.

That video is for “Cryin’,” by the way.

Peter: Thank you. Yes, I remember that. It was a biggie.

Tyler: I wanna make a quick stop at #67, a song called “Never Keeping Secrets,” by Babyface.

Babyface would later have some hits I still know, but “Never Keeping Secrets” isn’t one of them. Nevertheless, I want to use this opportunity to highlight the stretch of interstate near Indianapolis that is designated as “Kenneth ‘Babyface’ Edmonds Highway.”

Peter: Hey, love that for him!

I don’t remember this song.

Tyler: Well, by gum, let’s scoot up one spot to #66: Jimmy Cliff’s cover of “I Can See Clearly Now.”

Cool Runnings, son!

Peter: I never saw that either!

Tyler: You were too old for that kinda revisionist-history Disney fluff. I recall it fondly, but, yeah, it’s not a glaring hole in your history.

Peter: Fair enough.

The song is fine.

Tyler: The original, an early-‘70s hit by Johnny Nash, grandly outpaces Cliff’s. This remake is, yeah, fine. Inoffensive.

Up to #62, with the first single off the first album from current cohost of The Voice, Snoop!

Back when he was Snoop Doggy Dogg, as memorably repeated in his song here, “Who Am I (What’s My Name?)”.

Peter: This one I remember. It was pretty big.

Tyler: Snoop back in ‘94 was a startlingly fresh talent. He’d been all over Dr. Dre’s ground-shifting The Chronic, leaving an indelible impression on tracks like “Nuthin’ But A ‘G’ Thang,” where Snoop’s raps were languid and smooth and irresistible. “What’s My Name?” would lead to bigger successes off that debut album, Doggystyle—including, just maybe, a track later on in this list!

I could not have told you any of that in actual 1994, mind you.

Peter: I was too busy listening to grunge music to appreciate the renaissance in rap and hip hop that was taking place in the early nineties.

And now Snoop’s working for NBC! Crazy. He has led a life.

Tyler: He covered the Olympics! Very, very successfully!

Snoop would, incidentally, later work with the artist just above him here at #61. We’ve got 2Pac, with “Keep Ya Head Up.” I came to know the song years later, when it was included on 2Pac’s Greatest Hits. The production is woefully dated, but the message was a positive one directed at Black women.

Peter: The production is rough.

Tyler: Oh yeah.

Peter: He was so charismatic.

Tyler: He really was!

Let’s move to #54. The Boss. Bruce Springsteen, with “Streets Of Philadelphia.”

Peter: I love this song.

Tyler: This song was written for the Jonathan Demme film Philadelphia, which featured Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks. Hanks and Springsteen both took home Oscars for their contributions.

Peter: Bruce and Neil Young both wrote songs for the movie, and both were up for that Oscar.

I actually prefer Neil’s “Philadelphia,” but both are terrific.

Tyler: My family had the soundtrack.

Peter: On CD?

Tyler: Yes indeed.

I wouldn’t mind revisiting the movie. I wonder if it holds up. Denzel and Hanks at the tops of their games has to have at least a little merit.

Peter: For sure.

Tyler: Moving up to #52, it’s Martha Stewart pal Snoop again! “Gin and Juice.”

I never liked gin. Didn’t dig that peppery piney flavor. Juice, big fan!

Peter: Big juice guy? What do you like? Orange? Grape?

Tyler: I like a nice classic orange. One place I worked made freshly-juiced apple juice, which was otherworldly. Served warm, but, just, one of the best beverages you’ll ever enjoy.

Peter: That sounds good!

This song rules.

It holds up really well.

Tyler: It’s a classic. One for the ages.

We’ve got a bit of a pivot coming right here.

Peter: Pivot!

Tyler: Moving up but one spot again, we find at #51 “Found Out About You,” by Gin Blossoms.

Gin and Juice Blossoms? Forgive me.

Peter: It’s a good name for a cover band. You’d have to have a pretty eclectic setlist.

I wasn’t a fan of this song at the time. I don’t really mind it now.

Tyler: They really had a moment.

Peter: They did indeed.

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