The mid-90s—who else misses that era? Oh, to travel back in time to the middle of the 90s when a plethora of musical genres were bubbling up and garnering massive attention. When else could you go into a record store and hear some combination of grunge, rap, electronic, singer/songwriter, and pop music? What a time to be alive!
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Here below, we wanted to dive into three songs from three very different artists from that time period. Yet, they are all tracks that hit the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1994. These songs prove both how powerful and diverse the mid-90s were, musically. Indeed, these are three unique female pop stars, each of whom hit No. 1 in 1994.
“The Power Of Love” by Celine Dion from ‘The Colour Of My Love’ (1993)
Did anyone have a more powerful voice in the 90s than Celine Dion? She simultaneously had the ability to fill a giant concert hall in a split second and also come across brittle and near-broken. The Canadian-born performer was at the top of the world in the middle of the 90s, thanks to a string of No. 1s, but it was “The Power Of Love” that kicked it off. The track was the best-selling song of 1994 and marked Dion’s first No. 1 on the Hot 100.
“The Sign” by Ace Of Base from ‘The Sign’ (1993)
You couldn’t step outside of your home and avoid Ace Of Base in the mid-90s. And the song that the group, led by lead vocalist Linn Berggren, was perhaps most famous for was their danceable and supremely memorable “The Sign”, which the Swedish-born group released in 1993 on their LP of the same name. Suddenly, everyone was seeing signs everywhere, and they were singing about it nonstop. That was the force of Berggren and Ace Of Base three decades ago.
“Stay (I Missed You)” by Lisa Loeb from ‘Reality Bites’ (1994)
Raise your hand if you bought a pair of cat-eye reading glasses to be like Lisa Loeb in 1994? Well, her forlorn single about missing the object of her affection took the previously unknown artist to the top of the charts. The track hit No. 1 in the late summer of 1994 and stayed there for three weeks, making Loeb, her music video studio apartment, and eyewear famous. It was quite the turn for someone who was discovered just months before by her New York City neighbor, actor Ethan Hawke.
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