These three pop songs from the 1990s have a lot to thank classic rock for, even if fans don’t realize it. Whether they are covers or just borrow heavily from the genre’s classic sounds, these pop hits should give rock its flowers.
[RELATED: 3 Songs That Sound Like Driving Home on a Summer Night in the 1990s]
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“Torn” — Natalie Imbruglia
Natalie Imbruglia’s 1990s pop ballad is a cover of a song originally performed by the rock band Ednaswap. That alone should have pop fans giving rock its due. But even after being popified, “Torn” has a lot of rock elements. The simple guitars and quiet production evoke the rock of the 1970s.
“Well you couldn’t be that man that I adored / You don’t seem to know, or seem to care what your heart is for / I don’t know him anymore,” Imbruglia sings in this 1990s pop song. With a few production changes, this song could be a throwback rock hit. The driving chorus is classic rock magic hidden beneath pop production.
“You Get What You Give” — New Radicals
Though the New Radicals are technically rock, the success of “You Get What You Give” earned them a power pop classification. If you dig into it, this 1990s song has way more to do with classic rock than it does with radio-friendly pop. Sure, it has a melody that any pop star would be lucky to have. But it also draws on classic rockers who filled stadiums decades before this song came out.
“Wake up, kids / We got the dreamers disease / Age fourteen, they got you down on your knees / So polite, we’re busy still saying please,” the lyrics to this existential rock song read. It might not sound like the genre’s basic sound on the surface. But underneath, this song isn’t too far removed from what we consider classic rock.
“All Star” — Smash Mouth
Again, Smash Mouth might technically be rock, but their universal appeal makes them genre benders. On paper, this song seems very 1990s. It has very little to do with any other era of rock or pop. But that’s not entirely true. If we can remove the context of this song, we can find something akin to British Invasion rock.
The garage rock attitude and powerful guitar riffs are the exact same building blocks used by rockers of that era. “Well, the years start comin’, and they don’t stop comin’ / Fed to the rules, and I hit the ground runnin’ / Didn’t make sense not to live for fun,” are lyrics that could’ve worked just as well in the 1960s as they did in the 1990s.
(Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc)