10 rock songs that turn 25 years old in 2019

Time to rewind the clock back to 1994. I was in my late teens then, and these are the rock songs that were popular that year.

Every single song on this list is 25 years old in 2019. Crazy to think about, but it's true. Life was way different then. Internet was still in its baby stages (I didn't get online until 2 years later in 1996), no smartphones, no GPS.

And even if you did have internet back then, the only online streaming available was audio-only with audio quality so bad that it even made AM radio sound good.

In '94, everyone was still getting their music by either listening to it on FM radio, watching MTV music videos or hearing about new songs by word-of-mouth.

I'm not one of those people that thinks every song from the '90s was amazing. There are a few on this list that were total stinkers, and oh yes, I will give my opinions on them.

1. Stone Temple Pilots - Interstate Love Song

One of the best rock songs ever written, no question about it.

A friend of mine called me on the phone one day (back when people actually used phones to talk) and said that I had to come over to his house and listen to this new song because it sounded like Led Zeppelin. I said okay, sure, and went to his place to check it out.

And oh yeah, I liked it. Loved it, in fact. And still do.

Interstate Love Song is a perfectly crafted song beginning to end. Nothing about it is bad. All instruments are perfectly mixed. I love the fact that there is NO GUITAR SOLO in it. I also love the fact this song escapes being labeled as "grunge", because it's just that damned good.

Another thing I seriously dig is that the guitars are scaled back, the bass and drums have serious punch to them and the vocals recorded dry. It's like I said, absolutely nothing about the song is bad.

This is may very well be the best rock song the '90s ever produced.

2. Pearl Jam - Better Man

Before putting this list together, I'll be honest, I totally forgot about this song...

...because it's totally forgettable. This is not one of Pearl Jam's best. It's nowhere near as good as Alive or Even Flow.

The pacing is weird, the mix isn't the best, and overall this song just seems too happy to be a Pearl Jam song. It just doesn't work. At the tail you can even hear a mistimed drum hit. It's bad.

This was a time when the band was just slapping together songs quickly and without much thought, and it shows with Better Man.

3. Candlebox - Far Behind

I remember this song getting regular rock radio airplay, but what I remember about this song the most is the video. The lead singer is walking around a house holding this cheap-ass dinky microphone with one hand, and connected to it is a coily cord held with the other hand. The microphone goes nowhere.

Every time I saw this, I just couldn't help but think, "Why is this dude holding a cheap microphone while walking through a house?" Definitely one of the dumbest things I've ever seen in a music video.

Yeah, I know that music videos aren't required to make sense. But that microphone is just plain stupid.

Aside from that microphone crapola, I can't stand this song. It's boring, unimaginative, and the worst part is that the guitar solo has several notes that are off key. Very grating on the ears. The singer also goes off key several times - in a studio release.

This song sucks.

4. Collective Soul - Shine

I never liked this song. I don't hate it, but never liked it.

There is one thing in this song that absolutely drives me nuts. And once you hear it you cannot un-hear it.

The drums are fake.

I could tell the drums were fake from the first time I heard Shine. It's not that fake drums are bad. Lots of bands use drum machines. I use fake drums in my recordings. But in Shine, what it sounds like is that this song was a demo where the drum machine was used as a temporary filler track before a real acoustic kit could be put in later. But that never happened. Instead, what sounds like a demo was the actual studio release.

And oh, what a bad studio release it is. In addition to fake drums, everything just sounds muffled, almost like a blanket was put over the microphones when recording. And is there bass guitar there? I honestly can't tell!

There is one good thing about the song however. It's very catchy. That's why it works even though the recording is so bad.

5. All Apologies - Nirvana

This is one of the all slower songs from Nirvana, but it does have a good groove to it. And it also has one of those guitar riffs that sticks in your head for days.

Is this Nirvana's best? No. But it's not a bad song.

Nirvana had a way of songwriting that had real character to it. Whether they played slow, fast or anywhere in between, many of their songs worked well for what they were, and All Apologies is one of them.

The only bad I can say about this song is that it doesn't fit in anywhere. You can't bang your head to it, you can't dance to it, it doesn't have relatable lyrics, it's not happy nor sad. It's just... there. This is why it's not one of their best.

6. Cracker - Low

This is another one of those songs that got regular rock radio airplay. I never liked it.

I think the only reason anyone liked this song is because of the lyric "Hey, hey, hey, like being stoned". So of course, all the stoner potheads flocked to this song.

However, what happened because of that lyric is nothing short of hilarious.

David Lowery (lead singer) was pretty much ordered by Cracker's label to write a letter to hand out to radio stations that specifically said the lyric "being stoned" was actually "being stone", even though it was obviously stoned. And the only reason that ever happened is because if any overly sensitive listeners called a station and complained about the mention of stoned in the song, the station could just say they had a written letter from the band that said nope, you heard wrong even though you were right.

Yes, this means Lowery was told to write the letter as a cover-your-ass maneuver. Bands had to do that back in the day if there was anything lyrical that had the potential to ruffle the feathers of soccer moms.

7. Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun

Soundgarden was labeled as grunge. They weren't. These guys were too good to be grunge, and Black Hole Sun is an example of why that is.

I always considered Soundgarden to be a very innovative rock band. These guys did things musically that absolutely nobody else was doing before or since. Sometimes metal, sometimes hard rock, sometimes experimental, even sometimes prog. Soundgarden was light years ahead of everyone else. The only reason the grunge label was slapped on them is so more records could be sold.

This is one of those songs where both the song and the video are masterpieces.

Sonically, Soundgarden pretty much never sounds bad. The audio mix is as good as it gets.

Lyrically, the song is dark. My take on it is that it's supposed to convey a sense of depression and insanity, but Cornell himself said the song didn't have any real idea to it. Words for the sake of words, more or less. But those words resonated with a lot of people.

Visually, the video tried to interpret the song as the all the fake plastic junk of the world being washed away by a dark mass in the sky, i.e. the black hole sun.

It's all very cool and done right.

8. Alice in Chains - No Excuses

This is without question my favorite Alice in Chains song.

Out of all the popular AIC songs, this is probably the one that's the least rock 'n' roll of the catalog. It's still a rock song but has soft edges to it.

No Excuses is the first AIC song to hit #1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks. The song did well both with critics and fans. Nobody really had a bad thing to say about it, and neither do I.

Lyrically, the song is about friendship. The ups, downs and everything in between. This is a song a ton of people can relate to. If you've ever cared about a friend deeply, you will know what this song is talking about.

Sonically, No Excuses is really heavy on vocal harmonies. Almost too much. Almost. But it holds it together and works great for what it is.

9. Green Day - Basket Case

And this one is without question my favorite Green Day song.

This tune was obviously built as a pop song from the ground up, but even so it really works. It's almost exactly 3 minutes long, very catchy, very happy sound to it, very cool.

Sonically, this song was masterfully mixed. Everything is heard clear as a bell and nothing is too loud or too soft. Vox, drums, guitar, bass, all of it. The EQ is absolutely perfect. Even the stereo separation of the drum toms is perfect.

It's a damned shame more songs aren't mixed this way.

10. Meat Puppets - Backwater

I remember hearing this one a lot on WAAF 107.3 FM Boston back when I lived in New England. It got fairly heavy rotation there, and deservedly so because the song is just plain cool.

I'll admit the mix of this song isn't the best (the vocals are slightly too loud and bass too quiet), but it has a very cool groove to it.

Something unique to this song is that the vocals are smooth sounding. There isn't screaming or "belting" anywhere that just adds to the overall cool vibe of it.

The guitar tone totally uses the tried and true amp-to-mic technique. I can tell just from the sound that everything was recorded the old school way. No direct-to-mixer stuff here.

Great song overall.

Have these songs aged well?

As with all popular music, some stuff ages well while others are permanent fixtures of the time they were recorded in.

Almost everything that Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains did transcends the '90s, no question. You take just about any song any of those bands, release it today, and it would sound fresh. Their '94 releases have aged very well.

Everything that Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Green Day did back in the '90s stays there. That's classic rock now and not fresh. Whether they've aged well is debatable.

For the others (Candlebox, Collective Soul, Cracker, Meat Puppets), their '94 songs are also fixtures of the year they were released and have not aged well. Still groovy to some, but mostly just to people who grew up in the '90s.

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Published 2019 Mar 4