High School Hits Every Teen Of The '90s Will Remember Forever

Ah, high school in the '90s. It was a time before cell phones, social media, and skinny jeans. Bill Clinton was president, "Friends" was on TV, and teens spent their days glued to MTV. The 1990s was, obviously, a major decade for music. Think about how much music history is crammed into a ten-year period: Grunge dominated alternative radio in the early '90s, and R&B icons like Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey were at the top of the charts. Britpop crossed the pond in the mid-90s, and teen pop idols like Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys emerged at the end of the decade. For anyone who was in high school in the '90s, certain songs stick in your memory. When one of them pops up on your Spotify shuffle, you're instantly transported back to school dances on sticky gym floors, your high school best friend's living room, or your car as you drive home from school. 

It's impossible to boil down a whole decade's worth of music into just five songs, but like our list of five high school hits from the '70s that stir up emotions in every boomer, we reviewed chart data, best-of lists, and our own memories to choose songs that will resonate with those who were teens in the '90s. We made sure to represent a diverse range of genres, years, and artists in an attempt to demonstrate just how important this decade was for music. Here is a list of five high school hits that every teen in the '90s will remember forever.

When "Smells Like Teen Spirit" hit the airwaves in 1991, it became a mega hit with the high school and college crowd before going mainstream. One music writer in Salon compares its impact to that of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind." In 1991, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" brought grunge to the masses, reaching No. 1 on Billboard's Alternative Airplay chart and No. 6 on the all-genre chart.

Besides referencing the Teen Spirit brand of deodorant, Kurt Cobain — just 24 at the time — captured the era's sense of youthful ennui in lyrics like "I found it hard, it's hard to find / Oh, well, whatever, never mind." In a 1991 interview with Pulse, Cobain explained, "It's a typical teenage aggression song. It has revolutionary themes, but I don't really mean it in a militant [light]. The generation's apathy is getting out of hand." Today, many Gen Xers remember the song as a major turning point in music as well as their own personal lives. Cobain's emotional performance and inscrutable lyrics helped a whole generation of dudes begin to unlearn toxic masculinity, express their feelings, and grow out their hair. It's easy to see why we'll never get over the loss of Nirvana.

TLC's socially-conscious 1995 hit "Waterfalls" urged their teenage fanbase to "stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to," with verses warning of the dangers of drugs and unprotected sex. A memorable and expensive music video directed by F. Gary Gray (who would go on to direct the iconic heist film "Set It Off") made the lyrics literal, with actors portraying the tragedies described in the song as TLC emerged from a lake during the chorus. "Waterfalls" became the TLC's longest-charting No. 1 hit, staying at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart for seven weeks. 

While the music video might seem a little silly and over-dramatic now, it brought people to tears when it was released. At the time, most mainstream musicians weren't talking about serious issues like AIDS and addiction, and definitely not with the empathy that TLC brought to their lyrics. The song's success changed the cultural perception of the group. "The song made us much more relevant — not just a fun girl group," Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas told the Guardian in 2018. "We were bringing awareness to subjects people were nervous talking about. It was groundbreaking for us: from then on, we were seen as the real deal."

Long before "Anyway, here's Wonderwall" became a meme, Oasis's 1995 hit was beloved by sensitive high schoolers everywhere. "To me, it was a song that really helped me cope with the hardships that I went through my freshman year," remembers one music blogger who was 14 when he first became an Oasis fan. Beneath all the Beatles references, "Wonderwall" is a simple and earnest love song. Lyrics like "I don't believe that anybody / Feels the way I do about you now" meant that the tune was destined for many high schoolers' mixtapes, gifted to their first crushes or partners. 

"Wonderwall" became Oasis's biggest hit in the U.S., reaching No. 8 in 1996 and bringing Britpop to new listeners. The simple chord structure made "Wonderwall" an easy song to play, meaning that any teen with a guitar was likely to start playing it. At least one guitar shop even put up a sign banning the song. If you're sick of "Wonderwall," we can't blame you, but try to imagine hearing it for the first time rather than the ten-thousandth. To many, "Wonderwall" conjures memories of first loves and a teenage passion for music.

Brandy and Monica were both in their teens when they teamed up to record the 1998 R&B hit "The Boy Is Mine," inspired by the 1982 Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney song "The Girl Is Mine." The duet (and accompanying music video) portrays the two women fighting over a man, slinging insults at each other in an extremely catchy tune. With lyrics like "There's no way you could mistake / Him for your man, are you insane?" the song appealed to high schoolers' inherent love of drama. It hit No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 and stayed there for 13 weeks, becoming both singers' first No. 1 song. 

The drama portrayed in the song's lyrics spilled over into both singers' personal lives, with the media often pitting the two against each other. Rumors about their feud spread quickly, making "That Boy Is Mine" even more iconic for gossip magazine-reading teens. "I must admit I was an active participant in the Brandy vs. Monica wars in middle school," music critic Latoya Hagler remembered in Soul In Stereo's series "1998 Rewind." While the teen singers' drama became an unforgettable pop culture moment, the song is so good that it more than holds up, almost 30 years later. Go ahead and grab a friend (or frenemy) and put it on at karaoke — spoken word intro included.

It's hard to overstate how much of a milestone Britney Spears' debut single was. It basically kicked off the teen pop boom of the late '90s and early '00s. Spears was just 16 when she recorded the song in 1998, which was written and produced by Swedish hitmaker Max Martin (thank him for that iconic "BA-DA-DA-DA" at the beginning). The accompanying music video showed Spears singing and dancing in a high school classroom in her instantly iconic school uniform, paired with braided pigtails decorated with pink puffs. The song and music video made her an instant sex symbol, despite her young age (and while plenty of middle- and high-school kids had age-appropriate crushes on her, grown men could be just plain creeps). Years later, Billboard declared that the song and video "created millennial pop" and Grammy.com wrote that it "changed pop music and American culture forever."

Unsurprisingly, the song — which hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — resonated with teens who were close to Britney's age. Whether it was the melodramatic heartbreak portrayed in the lyrics or the "I'm bored at school and also I want to impress my crush" vibe of the music video, there's a reason "... Baby One More Time" was inescapable in the late '90s and remains a classic song (and Halloween costume) today. Still confused about the nonsensical lyrics, decades later? Read about the meaning of Britney Spears' "... One More Time" here.