In late 1996, the music industry was panicking. Grunge was dead (Kurt Cobain had been gone for two years), and the nihilistic tantrum of Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails was too dark for radio. Executives didn’t know what the future sounded like.
Then, 1997 happened. And it was the strangest, most chaotic, most beautiful car crash of genres ever assembled on a single year-end chart. top 20 songs 1997
1997 was the last year the music industry had no idea what to do. So it just played everything. And somehow, that was glorious. In late 1996, the music industry was panicking
But 1997 also gave us the anti-Spice Girl. At #20 was . A rock song with the chorus: "I’m a bitch, I’m a lover, I’m a child, I’m a mother." Radio played it constantly, often bleeping the title while playing the song. The cognitive dissonance was perfect. Battle 4: The One-Hit Wonder Graveyard This is where the chart gets weird. #10: "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?" by Paula Cole . A feminist anti-cowboy song with a kazoo solo. #14: "Semi-Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind . A bouncy, doo-doo-doo-doo’d pop hit that was secretly about meth addiction. #16: "Barely Breathing" by Duncan Sheik . A song so quiet you had to turn your car stereo to max to hear it. Then, 1997 happened
Then there was the outlier. At #19 was —a mopey alt-rock ballad about suicide and regret. It was the anti-Puff. No samples. No swagger. Just a singer staring at his shoes. It had no business being next to Mase and Busta Rhymes, yet there it was. Battle 3: The Teenage Mutant Girl Power At #13 was "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls . The song that introduced "zig-a-zig-ah" to the English language. It was chaos: shouting, laughing, a rap break from Mel B, and a key change that felt like a sugar explosion. Record labels had spent years trying to manufacture girl groups. The Spice Girls accidentally did it while being openly rude to their managers.
However, lurking at #2 was something alien: . Three blonde brothers aged 11, 14, and 16. A bubblegum pop song with a nonsensical chorus ("MMMBop, ba duba dop") and a guitar riff that sounded like a sugar rush. Critics called it a one-hit wonder. Instead, it became the most optimistic earworm of the decade.