3 One-Hit Wonders From the 1990s I Vividly Remember Listening to on the School Bus

In the 1990s, the school bus could be a wild place. You never knew when a food fight might break out. You never knew when a paper airplane might fly from the front of the vehicle to the back and hit you right in the eye.

That’s why so many young kids buried their heads in their headphones to get away from the madness. And that’s just what we wanted to dive into here. Indeed, these are three one-hit wonders from the 1990s I remember vividly listening to on the school bus.

“Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice from ‘To The Extreme’ (1990)

If you weren’t listening to Vanilla Ice in the early 1990s, you didn’t care about music. At least, that’s how it felt to many young fans back in the day. Indeed, in the early 1990s, not only were people listening to Vanilla Ice, but they were memorizing his lyrics, down to the syllable. It became something of a competition among friends—who could nail “Ice Ice Baby” from front to back, word-for-word? While today, Vanilla Ice is something of a punchline amongst music listeners, back in the day, he was a true wonder.

“Jump” by Kris Kross from ‘Totally Krossed Out’ (1992)

Speaking of rap artists from the early 1990s—the young duo of Kris Kross took the world by storm in 1992. Just a couple of years after Vanilla Ice hit the landscape, this rapping team showed their style. And what a style it was! As much as any song, Kris Kross was known for their clothes. Specifically, how they wore them backwards. You could see their impact while going to school on the bus. There were always a few classmates in 1992 wearing their shirts or jeans backwards. And it was all thanks to the hit tune, “Jump”.

“Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” by Crash Test Dummies from ‘God Shuffled His Feet’ (1993)

While many young kids related to Kris Kross because of their style and youth, this acoustic-driven song garnered a lot of fans in the 1990s thanks to the stories it told. This tune from the Canadian-born band Crash Test Dummies offered listeners three vivid vignettes. And each was about young kids dealing with difficult issues at home, school, or church. It was a supremely relatable song, and it’s one that even young, burgeoning music fans enjoyed on the school bus.

Photo by Michel Linssen/Redferns