Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/04/23/teens-try-to-guess-1990s-songs.html
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It surprised me a little that more of them knew Los Del Rio’s “Macarena” than Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic.”
Chances are they heard Macarena at a wedding or bar mitzvah or some other big family event. DJs probably still wheel it out to this day.
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Man, I’m glad I didn’t listen to “90s music” when I lived in the '90s.
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Yeah, the song samples they gave were pretty lame for my tastes. TOOL, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, I mean not one grunge song included ? That’s what the 90’s music scene was all about. Of course I lived in Seattle from 89-93.
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Nice to see they went for the Can con… but honestly, those are some dubious choices.
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Yeah, I also lived though the 90s and only recognized Ironic and Macarena.
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I think that kid is going to be super disappointed with Sugar Ray.
If the year is 1992 and you asked me to guess some songs from the late 60s/early 70s, there’s a whole lot I wouldn’t have recognized, and a lot I probably would have. So I guess everything is the same.
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And I lived in Arkansas, but that’s what we listened to. More to the point, apart from Alanis, who kind of marks '90s REM-wannabe jangle-pop, none of it is '90-genre music. It’s all pop or hip-hop that could have been produced in the decades before or after.
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I wish I could say the same! I worked retail during much of the '90s. I know all this crap. The shop owner had commercial radio blaring the whole time we were open (except during Xmas, when we got the bargain-bin Xmas carol CD treatment).
Once I got my degree and moved on from that job, my knowledge of pop music became nonexistent. Ignorance really is bliss! 
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There are others in that series that include better songs. They have about 4 trillion react videos on the FBE channels, which I largely manage to ignore unless I’ve been dipping into the sauce, which often results in me falling into a YouTube hole that inevitably leads me to react videos somehow.
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They say Macarena is “from 1993”. A milennial must have made this video and looked the song up on Wikipedia.
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Born in the 60s. I could identify the artists of 5/8 of those songs.
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Yeah, no grunge, no punk, no britpop, no boy bands… That’s sort of all I took from the nineties. Well, that and techno, but they didn’t have any techno either!
I won’t post it, but my sister recorded a vid of her 10 year old son humming this, demanding to know what it was from:
So of course being the techie I am, I had to figure out what it was, because it’s one of those songs that once you know what it’s called and who did it, you’re unable to remember it. (not the first time I had to look it up…)
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Yes! This! No britpop? No boyband?? No Grunge?!
90s was about all the “groups” singing songs, Nirvana. oh! and Britney Spears (whom they covered).
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I feel a certain satisfaction that Brian Adams has been filtered out of the public mind.
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It is shocking that they didn’t slip some grunge in there. Nirvana or Pearl Jam could be the “high shelf” option. Seven Mary Three could be the “Sugar Ray” option.
I bet the kids do better in ten years. I think for many people you really start to explore music in High School and College. I knew way more 60s music at 28 than at 18. So there is hope. (I was happy that everyone knows Missy Elliot).
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There are a whole lot more videos like this one on YT. If you didn’t find what you thought was the iconic 90’s offering, certainly one of the other videos will have it. I watched one other video and was satisfied that the kids had no idea that Sneaker Pimps existed, but they liked it.
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If there schools are anything like the ones here the Macarena is a staple at any event that has a DJ, dance/jog a thon/etc…
Daughter is in the demographic and she I think could id a good chunk of them.
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It does seem very US centric. I wasn’t listening to any of that in Britain during the 90s even though I think most of it got in the Top 40. I want to know where the drum and bass, and trip hop is (I’m making it easy, no bouncy techno or gabber).
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