Peter: This is it, Tyler!

Part four of four!

Tyler: They stuck with us!  They’re still here!  Hi, readers!

Peter: We have readers now?

Tyler: By the half-dozens!

#10!  Coming in cold!  It’s the Swedish (Icelandic?) wonders Ace of Base!

“Don’t Turn Around.”

Peter: Ace of Base, the third biggest pop band to come out of Sweden. ABBA’s the biggest (of course). Can you name number 2?

Tyler: Lord, no.

Peter: Roxette!

Tyler: …no.

Peter: I was surprised. Ace of Base were huge.

Tyler: I can get down with some Roxette.  ABBA of course are unimpeachable.

Peter: My wife is a secret Roxette fan. She had the cassette single of “Must Have Been Love” back in the day.

Tyler: Secret no longer!

Peter: I assume she’s still into them.

Anyway, “Don’t Turn Around.” I don’t like this one.

Tyler: Nope.  Me neither.

Sorry, Swedes.

Peter: We have lots of Swedes in Minnesota.

Tyler: Well, you may then be cast out of your homeland.  Be strong!

Peter: I’ll try to keep a low profile.

Or I’ll wear an Ace of Base t-shirt to blend in.

Tyler: “But Ms. Peter loves Roxette!”

“<Swedish-accented gasp> All is forgiven!”

Peter: She’s part Swedish!

It’s a mixed marriage.

Tyler: Ah yes.  Caucasian and super-Caucasian.

By the way, are you ready for #9?   Hint hint, it’s not going to interrupt our lunatic riffing at all.

Peter: It’s more Ace of Base!

See, they were huge!

Tyler: #9 is “All That She Wants.” So many great tunes ranked beneath these synthy confections.  Fie!

Not a fan of this one, either.  Bit of a theme emerging.

Peter: Yeah, I agree. I don’t like it.

Per Wikipedia, it’s “a reggae-pop song that describes a sexually promiscuous woman.”

Tyler: A sexually promiscuous woman with an eye on multiple children?  “All that she wants is another baby/She’s gone tomorrow, boy.”  Though it only occurs to me now, typing that out, that their “baby” could be a term of endearment.  Perhaps the plot isn’t as thick as I thought.

Peter: I always thought that! That she wanted more children!

Tyler: Right?

Peter: But I think you’re correct. I think “baby” just means another boyfriend. I finally got that, after all these years.

Tyler: We’ve really shamed ourselves with this one.  Yikes.

Peter: Typical Swede. We’re just another notch in the ol’ bedpost to them, Tyler.

They’re a comely lot. But don’t be deceived by their siren song of meatballs and fish.

Tyler: I picture your wife reading these comments over your shoulder and banishing you to the IKEA couch.

Peter: It wouldn’t be my first night on the FRIHETEN!

It’s funny that this song has a reggae feel.

Tyler: Whitecore nonsense.

Next, number 8. “All For Love.”  Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart, and Sting.  From Disney’s The Three Musketeers, hence “All for one, and all for love,” the very, very blockheaded chorus.

Peter: I feel like this is a weird grouping. Rod seems like the odd man out. A real Grey Duck situation, you know?

Tyler: See, to me it’s Adams who is punching above his weight.  Rod had Faces and the early ‘70s to establish his cred.  Sting fronted The Police, a band that’s not to my taste, but wasn’t cheeseball.  Bryan Adams from the start was a fairly soft touch.

Peter: Interesting.

This song. I don’t know. It’s okay. I think I really disliked it at the time.

Tyler: See, I think I loved it.  If memory serves, we had the cassette single.  I was a real sop at age eleven.

Peter: We had that movie at Anoka Cinema, I believe.

Have you seen it?

Tyler: I never read nor saw it. Isn’t Oliver Platt d’Artagnan?  Did I spell that right?

Peter: Yeah, that sounds right. I saw it, but I don’t remember much.

Tyler: Bryan Adams kinda took the mantle from Kenny Loggins for Hollywood troubadour.

Peter: I can see liking this song at eleven. I probably would have too.

Listening to it now, there isn’t a thing wrong with it. It was just too poppy for me at the time.

I was a pretty huge Sting fan though.

Okay, what’s next?

Tyler: “Breathe Again” from Toni Braxton. She’s elsewhere on this list, but this is the first tune that rang a bell.

Number 7.  She also appeared at #17 with “You Mean The World To Me.”

Peter: Oh, yeah. I remember this.

It’s fine. Not really my thing.

Tyler: Yeah, this one is pretty mild.

Peter: Real dentist office vibes.

Tyler: I will go to the grave defending Braxton’s later “You’re Makin’ Me High.”  That one is fire.  “Breathe Again” is all kinds of Babyface, who wrote and produced it.

Peter: Ah, that explains a lot.

Tyler: Next, we’ve got another song made famous by a movie!

Peter: “Turtle Power”?!?

We should be so lucky!

Tyler: In my earliest pop-culture days, I had a cheap grocery-store paperback dual-biography of MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice. It claimed that Ice would come to the Turtles’ rescue at the end of Secret Of The Ooze.  The bio lied!

By “earliest days,” I mean five years ago.

Peter: I expect more from the marketers of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.

Shaking my head.

Tyler: And I do believe it’s “Ninja Rap.”

Peter: Is it called “Ninja Rap?” I couldn’t remember.

Tyler: I honestly do think that’s correct.  Shameful, that knowledge.

Peter: What’s the real song?

Tyler: It’s the famously-bespectacled songstress Lisa Loeb and her band Nine Stories, with a good old-fashioned parenthetically-titled mega-hit, “Stay (I Missed You).”

All the way up at #6.

Peter: From Reality Bites!

Tyler: I saw that movie so, so, so many years before it would’ve made any kind of sense to me.

Peter: It’s pretty iconic for my generation. It’s good. I like it. Thumbs up.

The song is also pretty iconic.

Tyler: Yeah, it was massive.  Her and her glasses and the video.   Isn’t she wandering around a house or summ’at?

Peter: That sounds right.

Tyler: It’s a fine pop track.  Catchy, got a nice quickly-sung break.  No beef from this corner.

Peter: Yeah. No complaints. I was probably kind of snooty about it at the time.

Ethan Hawke gave Ben Stiller a copy of this before Lisa had a record deal.

Tyler: Go Ethan!  That dude had all the looks of a flash-in-the-pan.  He’s got my love forever for the Before… series.

Peter: He guested on Reservation Dogs recently. Good stuff.

Anyway, he lived across the street from Lisa in New York and they had mutual friends.

Destiny!

Tyler: That’s a nice story.

One might call Ethan Lisa’s hero.  Which leads us to our next song!

“Hero,” by Mariah Carey, at #5.

Peter: Nice segue.

Tyler: I’ve got ‘em all night long.

This song is all kinds of Cheeto.

Peter: I don’t like it.

Tyler: It’s just too damn much.  It’d be better as a romantic power ballad.  The lyrics are so drippy.

“Without You” worked because it was an impeccable composition.  “Hero” is…not that.

Peter: To quote my friend Rick: “with all the amazing grunge that came out that year you kind of forget people were still making other, shittier kinds of music.”

Tyler: You’re friends with Rick Moranis?

Peter: I wish!

Tyler: I don’t wanna hate on “Hero” too much.  I’m certain it meant, and still means, a lot to a whole lot of people.  It’s meant to be inspiring.  It is, no doubt, to a lot of listeners.

Okay, now, we’ve got a real study in contrasts here with #4.

Another power ballad from another iconic ‘90s pop diva with a stunning voice.

Peter: Yeah, let’s skip this one too. It’s Celine, right?

Tyler: Hater!

Peter: I think Celine is a really talented singer! I’ve just never been into the material.

Tyler: In seriousness, I get it.  When I was a kid and my mom was all about Celine, I hated her music.  Derided her because she didn’t write her own songs, like the dopey 4%-rebellious youth I was.  Once I grew to appreciate the concept of interpreters, I reconsidered my preadolescent and teenage scorn.

Really, my deepest appreciation for that woman is borne of her triumphant, majestic, now-that’s-inspiring performance at the 2024 Paris Olympic opening ceremony.

Peter: Wow! I had no idea you were such a big Celine Dion fan. I feel like I don’t even know you.

The room is spinning.

Tyler: I’m half-Canadian!  I can’t help it!

If I slam Bryan Adams, I gotta make up for it with some appreciation elsewhere.  To Celine!

Je t’aime!

Merci!

Do you know the backstory of the Olympic performance?

Peter: No! Do tell.

Tyler: She spent years afflicted by a terrible neurological disease called stiff-person syndrome.  Paris was her first public appearance and performance since before the syndrome took hold.

Commence Peter-guilt in 3…2…

Peter: Not so fast! Because I have stiff-person syndrome!

That is not true. I apologize.

Good gravy, well that is something. Good for her.

Tyler: The moment was pretty great.  To put it lightly.

Peter: I remember Elliot Smith chastising his fans for hating on her after the two of them performed on the same Oscars telecast. He said she was very nice.

Tyler: Good for Elliott.

Onto #3!  It’s another power ballad, by a group that had a barrel full of hits in the early ‘90s: Boyz II Men.

“I’ll Make Love To You.”

This has gotta be their biggest hit.

Peter: I was not a fan of this song at the time, but I was wrong. This song rules.

Did you see the 2019 Charlize Theron/Seth Rogen film Long Shot?

Tyler: That’s the one where she’s a political candidate?

Peter: Yes! Did you see it? It’s so good.

Tyler: I have not.  Rogen’s terrific and Theron is the brilliant stuff of humble dreams, but that one’s a blind spot for me.

Peter: Well, spoiler alert, Boyz II Men are in it.

Tyler: Do they save the day like Vanilla Ice?

Peter: I like that you’re willing to climb back onto that bicycle. You’ve been burned in the past in these types of scenarios. But here you are, putting your heart and faith on the line.

I actually don’t remember what role they play. But they’re in it!

Seriously though, that movie turned me around on Boyz II Men.

Tyler: Well alright.  How unlikely.  Kind of a long shot.

I did it!  I did that!

Peter: We’re really on fire tonight. Maybe we should make it a five-parter.

Tyler: Let’s just pause here and spend our next session breaking down numbers 2 and 1 for paragraphs and paragraphs.

Peter: It’s like a punishment out of Greek mythology. We’ll spend eternity reviewing the hits of 1994.

What’s #2?

Tyler: “I Swear,” by All-4-One.  Man, I dislike this song.

Peter: Agreed.

Terrible song. Just awful.

Tyler: According to Wikipedia, All-4-One formed in 1993. No doubt knocking off our friends Boyz II Men.  Yet, “I Swear” tops “I’ll Make Love To You.”  Nonsense.

Peter: They wouldn’t have worked in Long Shot. Would have ruined the movie.

Tyler: This was a country hit, too!  Not by All-4-One, that would’ve been impossible.

Peter: Wow! That’s crazy.

Tyler: Are you ready for #1??

Peter: I’m all a’quiver!

Tyler: Well, readers, you need not worry that this is gonna go on even longer, because topping the Hot 100 of 1994 is…Ace of Base.

“The Sign,” the title track from their big album.

Peter: Of course. They’re back. Like a bumerang. (That’s Swedish for “boomerang.”)

Tyler: What’s Swedish for “SMH, man?”

Peter: This song sucks. 1994 deserves better!

Tyler: But wait!  There’re another fifty super-100 hits!

No, there aren’t.  1994’s pop music has been dissected.

Peter: My generation stood for something, man! I’m not entirely sure what, but we deserve better than this. I’m kind of shaken by how bad a lot of these songs are/were.

Tyler: Hasn’t that always been the case, though?  For every Beatles, there’re a hundred Herman’s Hermits.

Peter: I suppose. I just filtered out the bad, I guess. Still, it makes you appreciate the good stuff from that era all the more. It’s like my wife always tells me, “When God closes a Stǿrås Innjørdën he opens a Főnstǝrviviǵ.”

Tyler: Assembled by the consumer.

Peter: My wife doesn’t say that. It’s actually a Matt Oswalt joke. Shout out to Matt Oswalt!

Tyler: Matt Harvey Oswalt?

Peter: I assume.

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