The 4 Best '90s Duets That Defined The Era

The last decade of the 20th century was a complicated time for musicians. While the 1990s music industry was notoriously messed up, it also produced some of the greatest songs of all time. One niche area the '90s excelled in was duets. Over and over again, unexpected or simply unbelievable musical pairs came together to top the charts, win Grammys, and make (or break) records.

While there were dozens of successful musical duets in that 10-year period, a few stand out for what their existence says about the era as a whole. These songs were all successful, sure, although there were others that were more so on paper. Each of these duets had something extra that made them truly '90s, encapsulating the period and explaining the zeitgeist to those of us looking back from decades on.

Whether you love them, hate them, or forgot them entirely, here are the four best '90s duets that defined the era.

Despite an eight-year age difference, siblings Michael and Janet Jackson had an extremely close relationship. And the year 1995 was no exception, even though Michael had been accused of sexual abuse of a child in August 1993. He settled in a civil suit, but the media frenzy clearly affected him, and he channeled those feelings into his "HIStory" double album.

For a duet partner on the track "Scream," the album's first single, who better to turn to than his beloved little sister? Janet knew their shared childhood dysfunction, had stood by him through the accusations, and was the only family member whose solo success came anywhere near his. Together, the Jacksons dominated the charts in the early '90s. The extremely aggressive song trashed the media for what Michael believed he had been unfairly put through over the previous two years. The song set a record by entering the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 5, and it was certified platinum just two months after its release.

Mark Romanek, one of the decade's most iconic music video directors, envisioned the monochrome, spaceship-set video. He looked back on the experience with NPR, saying, "... the production was full of weird, crazy moments. I mainly recall times between takes just chatting with Michael about tons of eclectic subjects. His appearance was strange, but in those instances, he just seemed like a regular guy from Indiana." The video won a Grammy and was nominated for 11 MTV Video Music Awards, taking home three of them.

The two biggest divas of the 1990s coming together to record a song? It seemed impossible until it happened. Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston collaborated on 1998's "When You Believe," the end-credits song for the animated feature "The Prince of Egypt," a tune written and produced, respectively, by the equally iconic Stephen Schwartz and Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds.

So how did they manage to get Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston in a recording studio together despite their well-publicized feud? According to the two artists, the feud rumors were totally overblown. In fact, they had never even interacted before. Houston told CBS's BNET, "We had never talked and never sang together before. We just had a chance for camaraderie, singer-to-singer, artist-to-artist, that kind of thing. We just laughed and talked and laughed and talked and sang in between that ..." Carey recalled their experience in a similar fashion, telling MTV News, "... the coolest thing to me is that after all of the drama and everybody making it like we had a rivalry, she was just really cool and we had a really good time in the studio."

Although not everyone was a fan of the track at the time and it is mostly forgotten today, the song was a success worthy of the two women who sang it. While it only peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100, it was certified gold by 1999 and eventually reached platinum. It also won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Women artists were constantly being pitted against each other in the '90s, and up-and-coming singers got it just as bad as established divas. So the mononymous artists Brandy and Monica, both still teenagers at the time, found themselves involved in an alleged feud. So fans were blindsided when they collaborated on the smash hit "The Boy Is Mine."

Writer Rodney Jerkins told the New York Daily News, "I knew [Brandy and Monica] were good friends, but everybody thought they didn't like each other. So I figured I would ride on that, to make the duet like a boxing match, with the guy as the prize." Monica agreed to be on the track for that reason. "[Brandy] called me and asked me if I would do this song with her," Monica told the same outlet. "There had been so many rumors that we didn't like each other and that we were rivals. And she thought it would be fun." 

The tune was the uncontested song of the summer in 1998. It topped the U.S. charts for 13 weeks, plus came in at No. 8 for Billboard's Hot 100 Singles of the '90s. The video was just as big a hit as the song, taking the No. 1 spot on MTV's Top 100 Videos of 1998. "The Boy Is Mine" was nominated for Record of the Year at the Grammys and won Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals.

The 1990s were defined by the Disney Renaissance: a 10-year period from 1989 to 1999, when seemingly every animated Disney film released was not only financially successful but really, really good. Many of these films had iconic theme songs that made it onto the charts, but none was more successful than the version of "A Whole New World" from "Aladdin," performed by Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle.

The pair's version of the song sold over half a million singles in 1993, making it one of the year's best-selling songs, and it was certified gold a few months after its release. "A Whole New World" took home the Grammy Award for Pop Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. But perhaps the tune's biggest achievement was hitting No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, as no other song from a Disney animated film had done that before, and none would do it again until "We Don't Talk About Bruno" from "Encanto" topped the chart 29 years later. While "A Whole New World" only held the top spot for one week, it also had the distinction of ending the historic 14-week run by Whitney Houston's cover of "I Will Always Love You."

Bryson and Belle had worked together before, but this song is what cemented the pair as what Belle termed "official duet partner[s]" (via Billboard). When Belle visited Bryson in the hospital as he was dying, she held his hand and softly sang "A Whole New World."