Playlist: Childhood Alternative

Source: Uploaded by user via Tori on Pinterest

Remember those posts I start and then never finish? This is one of them. I've been meaning to share with you my ultimate 90s rock-alternative playlist since I posted my first playlist back in January, but just hadn't gotten around to doing it. Finally, two things happened that convinced me to finally sit my butt down and finish this post: 1) I found this playlist on Spotify, which Thought Catalog called "The Best 90s Playlist Ever, Ever," and 2) I won an iTunes gift card from a giveaway at The Lovely Mist! Well, I did a little analysis of the 317 songs on the Spotify playlist, and this is what I determined:

• There were 124 songs that I didn't consider alternative, so I didn't really care about them for the purposes of this post. But, I had 18 of them in my iTunes anyway (including songs from Rent and Beauty and the Beast—duh!).
• Out of the remaining songs that I did consider to be rock-alternative music:
• Love this song! I already have it in my iTunes: 94
• Hmm, doesn't sound familiar. Guess I'm not as well-versed as I thought I was: 65
• I know this song, but I don't have it in my iTunes (and don't care enough to buy it): 31

If you can do simple arithmetic, you might notice that adds up to 314, not 317, but I don't really feel like finding the three wayward songs I missed. I think I did enough unnecessary "research" for this blog post already, don't you think? Anywho, the point is, after all this, I wanted to share my ultimate 90s alternative playlist. I have a "Childhood Alternative" playlist in my iTunes, so named because I grew up with these grooves on the wonderful B93.1 radio station in Central California and the first chords of these songs always take me back to that decade of my youth. It's definitely the most-played group of songs on my iPod, and I used to study to it in college.

Source: lyricssayitall.tumblr.com via Meghan on Pinterest

It was really hard for me to narrow down the list enough for a blog post. My real playlist has more than 200 songs on it, but I thought that was a little excessive. It was torture to even narrow it down to the following 56 songs, and I was really picky. I even left Vertical Horizon out because my favorite album of theirs was released in 2000. Sigh. Any artists with ** after their name means pretty much any song on their greatest hits album could be on this list, but I limited myself to one song for each. Enjoy!

Note: Songs are in no particular order.

1. The Freshmen, The Verve Pipe
2. Stay, Lisa Loeb
3. Meet Virginia, Train**
4. 3 AM, Matchbox Twenty**
5. One Headlight, The Wallflowers
6. Wonderwall, Oasis
7. Kiss Me, Sixpence None the Richer
8. Iris, Goo Goo Dolls**
9. I Don't Want to Wait, Paula Cole**
10. Ironic, Alanis Morissette**
11. (What If God Was) One of Us, Joan Osborne
12. Bitch, Meredith Brooks (Not Alanis! Why does everyone think that?)
13. Lovefool, The Cardigans
14. Breakfast at Tiffany's, Deep Blue Something
15. Save Tonight, Eagle Eye Cherry
16. Counting Blue Cars, Dishwalla
17. Sunny Came Home, Shawn Colvin
18. Father of Mine, Everclear**
19. All For You, Sister Hazel
20. Lullabye (Rockabye), Shawn Mullins
21. Closing Time, Semisonic
22. Tubthumping, Chumbawumba
23. Torn, Natalie Imbruglia
24. Every Morning, Sugar Ray
25. It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine), R.E.M.**
26. Follow You Down, Gin Blossoms**
27. I'll Be, Edwin McCain
28. What I Got, Sublime**
29. No Rain, Blind Melon
30. Roll to Me, Del Amitri
31. Two Princes, Spin Doctors
32. Run-Around, Blues Traveler
33. Desperately Wanting, Better Than Ezra
34. You Get What You Give, New Radicals
35. Shimmer, Fuel**
36. 1979, Smashing Pumpkins
37. Leaving Las Vegas, Sheryl Crow**
38. Good Riddance (Time of Your Life), Green Day**
39. Smooth, Santana** (feat. Rob Thomas)
40. Mr. Jones, Counting Crows**
41. Absolutely (Story of a Girl), Nine Days
42. Inside Out, Eve 6
43. You Were Meant for Me, Jewel**
44. She's So High Above Me, Tal Bachman
45. What It's Like, Everlast
46. My Own Worst Enemy, Lit
47. Crash Into Me, Dave Matthews Band**
48. Right Here Right Now, Jesus Jones
49. Run, Collective Soul**
50. Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen), Baz Luhrmann
51. Out of My Head, Fastball
52. L.A. Song, Beth Hart
53. Little Black Backpack, Stroke 9
54. Wonder, Natalie Merchant
55. Don't Speak, No Doubt**
56. And, of course: Semi-Charmed Life, Third Eye Blind**

Whew! Kudos if you read that entire post. So tell me, what songs did I miss? Which musical genre takes you back to your childhood?

P.S. — Whatever you do, do not search "90s music" on Pinterest. I was trying to find a generic picture for the top of this post, and instead I got a bunch of Madonna porn. No thank you.