The worst songs from the 90s? That’s like asking for the best songs from the 60s. Something happened between those decades, and it wasn’t good.
I serviced Supermarkets that year and 1998 and got my ears filled daily by that damn soundtrack. Man, just over and over and over with Celine shite.
I used to work close shift at JJs, and the manager had an ‘‘anything goes’’ policy about what we played. The computer was hooked up to the speaker system, which means we could make awesome playlists. The absolute best thing about that job was the music.
I like ‘Macarena’, ‘My Heart Will Go On’ AND ‘MMMBop’, how embarrassing for me.
My vote for the worst song is Steps’ ‘5,6,7,8’, which I still like in a perverted, car-crash sort of way. I do know it’s terrible, though.
4 Non Blondes: “What’s going on?”
Ice Ice Baby
The lousy grunge cover of Mrs. Robinson - another good song ruined and a kink in the otherwise forward movement of grunge music in that part of the decade.
Hocus Pocus - Here’s Johnny (the repetitive bits)
A while back I was browsing through Wikipedia’s “[year] in Music” pages, and was both surprised and disappointed to see how often lousy were listed as being among the biggest singles of the year in the 1990s. I remember at least the early '90s as being a time when good music was actually popular, but apparently the songs I remember fondly weren’t the most popular. And things got REALLY bad later in the decade. Here are a few big hits of the '90s, some of which have already been mentioned:
Vanilla Ice, “Ice, Ice, Baby” (1990) – the only worthwhile part of this song is the part he stole from Queen’s “Under Pressure”
Roxette, “Joyride” (1991)
Mr. Big, “To Be With You” (1992)
Billy Ray Cyrus, “Achy Breaky Heart” (1992)
Culture Beat, “Mr. Vain” (1993)
Tag Team, “Whoomp! (There It Is)” (1993) – I’d probably feel more kindly towards this one if it hadn’t been re-mixed and re-released ad nauseum
Michael Bolton, “Said I Loved You…But I Lied” (1993)
All-4-One, “I Swear” (1994) – no link because the sound had been pulled from all the videos I could easily find
Seal, “Kiss From a Rose” (1995)
The Spice Girls, “Wannabe” (1996)
Los Del Rios, “Macarena” (1996)
Puff Daddy, “I’ll Be Missing You” (1997) – the only worthwhile part of this song is the part he stole from The Police’s “Every Breath You Take”
Elton John, “Candle in the Wind '97” (1997) – I actually like the original version, but it did not need to be remade
Aqua, “Barbie Girl” (1997)
Hanson, “MMMBop” (1997) – as much as I hated this song at the time, in retrospect it’s one of the least offensive on this list
Celine Dion, “My Heart Will Go On” (1998)
Aerosmith, “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” (1998)
Britney Spears, “…Baby One More Time” (1999)
Lou Bega, “Mambo No. 5” (1999)
Eiffel 65, “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” (1999)
TLC, “No Scrubs” (1999)
The Bloodhound Gang, “The Bad Touch” (1999)
In fairness, some of these are merely cheesy, or suffered more from being overplayed than being unusually bad. Others are truly terrible, although few are in the same league of badness as “Shut Up (And Sleep With Me)”. I’d never heard of that one prior to this thread though, while for a whole summer there was no escaping “Macarena”.
Oh yeah, as much as I like Pearl Jam some sort of dishonorable mention should probably go to the song that was, weirdly enough, their biggest hit single by far – their 1999 cover of “Last Kiss”. I mostly just find this funny though, because of the weird path the song took to the Top 40. The short version is that the song was recorded pretty much just for fun at a sound check and originally released as the annual Christmas single for members of the Pearl Jam fan club. (The Christmas single series has included other oddities like Eddie Vedder singing “My Way” with an Elvis impersonator.) “Last Kiss” went on to become a radio hit almost by accident, and the single was eventually released commercially (as a benefit for Kosovar refugees) due to huge popular demand.
It isn’t like the 90’s are the only decade where crappy songs were popular. Look at the popular songs from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, and cringe at what awful songs people really liked even though there was lots of other good stuff around in the decade. Seriously, this happens every single time there’s a “Best/Worst songs of the (decade)” thread.
Anyhoo, I think it’s worth differentiating between truly bad songs and songs that people just dislike because they were popular. “My Heart Will Go On” is, at worst, boring. The lyrics are only offensive for being schmaltzy and Celine Dion is very good at what she does. Likewise, “MMMBop” is perfect for what it is - an incredibly infectious, fun pop song.
“Macarena” is a better choice. It’s just weird, with that bizarre and awful vocal track stuck onto the chorus, and it was only popular because of the dance.
“Summer Girls” is another awful one. The song makes absolutely no sense, the guys singing it are smarmy and gross, and it’s not even good pop music.
“Butterfly Kisses” is truly heinous, and that song reminds me of two more awful ones - “I’ll Be” by Edwin McCain and “Lullaby” by Shawn Mullins, the three of which I group together in my mind just because they are the worst. There was this weird subgenre in the 90’s of unattractive guys with long, greasy hair singing the smarmiest of adult contemporary pop.
I’m glad that I haven’t even heard more than snippets of at least half the songs mentioned here even if I have heard of most, and many of the ones I have heard the full versions of aren’t that bad. And I was a teenager/early 20-something at the time.
But in the summer of '98, I held a burning hatred for Flagpole Sittah by Harvey Danger. Not that it was a bad song or that it was overplayed (it wasn’t, and it was, respectively, for the record,) but that it reminded me too much of Dammit by Blink 182, which it suddenly replaced in the “quirky pop punk” lists of program directors. See, I thought that the immensely popular Harvey Danger was kicking this one hit wonder, Blink 182, off the charts and they’ll never be heard from again. I should win a prize for irony or something.
‘No Scrubs’? Really? In my experience many people would point to that song and the album it came from (Fanmail) as examples of the best of late nineties R&B. Each to their own I guess.
Something did happen, my friend. You aged 30 years.
Hey, I love! I love!
The answer to the OP is “Bittersweet Symphony,” by The Verve.
I see to my surprise that the thread is still open. I would have thought that Sin with Sebastian was enough. Lemme have another go at it with Cotton Eyed Joe and crucified (ETA: love the video, hate the music)! Enjoy.
Closing Time is a good song.
Any discussion of “worst songs of the 90’s” cannot be complete without Paula Cole’s "I Don’t Wanna Wait"and Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel”.
Although it might not fall into Hazel’s category of “most people would vaguely recognize…” (it’s alt rock), I felt the strong need to submit it just in case.
Ween, Push th’ Little Daisies
You grew up, mate.
Sorry. It had to be said.
I disagree. In fact, I’d nominate Closing Time for a place in the top 10 just because you couldn’t get away from its whinging unmelodic pablum at all when it was on the air, even though it wasn’t a completely bad song. It just wasn’t good. I’d probably feel the same about any of their other songs if they had as much airplay (except Chemistry, that was a pretty good song.)
ETA: well, I still wouldn’t like Chemistry if it were as overplayed but I wouldn’t nominate it for top 10 worst 
“I Touch Myself” Geez, talk about a song you don’t want to play when children or grandmothers are around…
When you think you’ve hit rock bottom, there’s always the failed follow up single:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugov2OSr7oA&feature=related](Golden Boy)
It’s really quite bad, especially the excruciating “I’m special” segment at 2:00.