1995 Singles Lust

The first Top Ten list I made in the Seventies was simply my favorite songs of the year. I was so embarrassed when the lists were printed in The Austin Sun and my staggeringly MOR tastes stuck out among the vibrant album choices of luminaries like Bill Bentley and Bobby Eakin. For years, I hid the fact that, for me, it often was the song, and not the singer. This was my secret shame: I was a song slut. I carefully hid it for years with big talk about albums, concepts, and continuity, but inside I was really just a singles gal. It's why I have stacks of CDs and vinyl that I like for just one song.

I tried ineptly to explain this to a friend one night about three years ago. He shrugged and said, "Sometimes I just like the song, not the group." I was stunned at this admission. Yes! This is what I'd felt all along. I embraced this newly found liberation with glee. I bought CD and cassette singles like mad. I played Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend" endlessly (still do) and reveled in the glory of three-to-five-minute gems like I was 12 years old and buying 45s during the first British invasion.

Nineteen ninety-four was a tough act to follow in terms of singles, with great songs like the Offspring's "Come Out and Play" and Ini Kamoze's "(Here Comes the) Hotstepper," but there wasn't a month in 1995 where I wasn't sailing from one song or another. My favorite songs of 1995 were ebullient, joyous, and probably predictably mundane. Still, I thought Oasis' "Morning Glory" was as perfect a single as this year produced. Here are the others that caught my ear:

Foo Fighters "I'll Stick Around," Southern Culture on the Skids "Nitty Gritty," Chris Isaak "Somebody's Cryin'," Seal "Kiss From a Rose," Chris Isaak "Go Walkin' Down There," Seven Year Bitch "Hip Like Junk," White Zombie "More Human Than Human" and "Electric Head Pt. 2 (The Ecstasy)," Dave Matthews Band "What Would You Say?," Salt-n-Pepa "Ain't Nothing But a She Thing," Sixteen Deluxe "Idea," Elastica "Connection," Live "All Over You," Ed Hall "Pollution," Babes in Toyland "Sweet '69," Rolling Stones "Jump on Top of Me," Joan Osborne "Right Hand Man," AC/DC "Hard as a Rock," David Ball "What Do You Want With His Love?," Apache Indian, "Boom-Shak-A-Lak," Monster Magnet "Negasonic Teenage Warhead," PJ Harvey "Under the Bridge," Dash Rip Rock "Let's Go Smoke Some Pot," k.d. lang "If I Were You," Spot "Moon June Spoon, "Bush "Everything's Zen," Juliana Hatfield "Heartbeat," Smashing Pumpkins "Bullet With Butterfly Wings." - Margaret Moser