Top 20 Songs 1997 Official

Then there was the outlier. At #19 was —a mopey alt-rock ballad about suicide and regret. It was the anti-Puff. No samples. No swagger. Just a singer staring at his shoes. It had no business being next to Mase and Busta Rhymes, yet there it was. Battle 3: The Teenage Mutant Girl Power At #13 was "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls . The song that introduced "zig-a-zig-ah" to the English language. It was chaos: shouting, laughing, a rap break from Mel B, and a key change that felt like a sugar explosion. Record labels had spent years trying to manufacture girl groups. The Spice Girls accidentally did it while being openly rude to their managers.

None of these artists would ever have a top 20 hit again. 1997 was a hit-and-run. You got your 15 minutes, then vanished. At #15 was "Everlong" by Foo Fighters . Wait, no—that's a lie. "Everlong" peaked at #3 on the Modern Rock chart, but on the Hot 100? It didn't even crack the top 40. The future of rock (Dave Grohl) was languishing while "Tubthumping" by Chumbawamba (#17) was a massive hit. Yes, the song with "I get knocked down, but I get up again" was more popular than any Foo Fighters song in 1997. top 20 songs 1997

In late 1996, the music industry was panicking. Grunge was dead (Kurt Cobain had been gone for two years), and the nihilistic tantrum of Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails was too dark for radio. Executives didn’t know what the future sounded like. Then there was the outlier

However, lurking at #2 was something alien: . Three blonde brothers aged 11, 14, and 16. A bubblegum pop song with a nonsensical chorus ("MMMBop, ba duba dop") and a guitar riff that sounded like a sugar rush. Critics called it a one-hit wonder. Instead, it became the most optimistic earworm of the decade. No samples

1997 was the last year the music industry had no idea what to do. So it just played everything. And somehow, that was glorious.