1997 Top Songs

It was the year that "Pop" stopped being a dirty word and started becoming a blockbuster event.

A post-grunge one-hit wonder about guilt and abortion (the lyric: "we couldn't take the blame / we'd rather feel the shame"). It’s angsty, earnest, and very 1997. The melody is gorgeous; the self-importance is very high. 1997 top songs

The other side of 1997's hip-hop: braggadocio, looped samples (Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five), and shiny-suit production. It’s fun but less timeless than the East Coast rap that was about to emerge (e.g., The Notorious B.I.G.'s Life After Death ). It was the year that "Pop" stopped being

If 1996 was the year of the Macarena, 1997 was the year music reclaimed its soul—but it did so by putting on a tuxedo. It was a year defined by a fascinating duality: on one side, you had the polished, pristine final days of the "Big Diva" era; on the other, the jagged, electronic experimentation that would herald the new millennium. The melody is gorgeous; the self-importance is very high

A tribute to The Notorious B.I.G. that samples The Police's "Every Breath You Take." It’s heartfelt, but the legal/moral gray area of sampling a Sting song (which he reportedly earns 100% of royalties from) is notable. Still, as a grief-stricken eulogy, it’s powerful.

To provide a "good piece" on the top songs of 1997, it helps to look at the year not just as a list of tracks, but as a specific cultural pivot point. 1997 was the year the gritty grunge of the early 90s fully faded, replaced by a strange, beautiful, and sometimes chaotic mix of high-gloss pop, unstoppable divas, and the rise of electronic music.