If one song started the 90s as we remember them, it’s Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991). Released on Nevermind , it didn’t invent grunge, but it murdered the excess of 80s rock overnight. Within a year, lists of the greatest songs had to make room for Pearl Jam’s Alive , Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun , and Alice in Chains’ Rooster . But grunge wasn’t alone. Dr. Dre’s Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang (1992) introduced G-funk, proving that West Coast hip-hop would define the decade’s street sound. Meanwhile, Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares 2 U (1990) showed that a bald Irish woman with a Prince-penned ballad could break everyone’s heart.

By mid-decade, the “greatest” lists became impossible to pin down. In 1995, Tupac released California Love (with Dr. Dre), while Oasis and Blur fought the Battle of Britpop. Wonderwall and Song 2 became unavoidable. But the real story was the rise of female artists: Alanis Morissette’s You Oughta Know (1995) turned rage into a commercial juggernaut, and The Spice Girls’ Wannabe (1996) weaponized girl power with a hook that still haunts wedding DJs.

Then came Macarena (Los del Río, 1995)—a song critics loved to hate, but which spent 14 weeks at #1. Any credible list of the 100 greatest 90s songs must include it, not for artistry, but as a monument to the decade’s love of goofy, unifying dance crazes.

In 1999, as the clock ticked toward Y2K, music critics and fans began a ritual that would only grow more obsessive with time: arguing about the best songs of the 1990s. Unlike the clear-cut narratives of the 60s (Beatlemania) or 70s (disco vs. rock), the 90s refused to sit still. Any list of the “100 greatest” is less a ranking and more a map of a decade that began with hair metal’s last gasp and ended with Britney Spears’ schoolgirl uniform.

As the decade closed, two seismic shifts occurred. First, Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC perfected the boy-band ballad ( I Want It That Way , 1999), while Britney Spears’ …Baby One More Time (1998) blended teen pop with a Max Martin production that predicted the 2000s. Second, hip-hop went mainstream-mega: Lauryn Hill’s Doo Wop (That Thing) (1998) won five Grammys, and Eminem’s My Name Is (1999) arrived just as the list-makers were finalizing their votes.

No list of 100 can satisfy everyone. Angry letters are always written over omissions: Beck’s Loser (1993), My Bloody Valentine’s Only Shallow (1991), and even the macarena-despising critics admit that Smells Like Teen Spirit ’s dominance overshadows PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me or A Tribe Called Quest’s Scenario .

Ultimately, the 100 greatest 90s songs tell one clear story: the 90s was the last decade where radio, MTV, and word-of-mouth could crown a single song as a universal hit. Today, streaming fragments taste. But in the 90s, for better or worse, 100 songs really did sound like the whole world.