3 One-Hit Wonders From the 90s With Impossible To Forget Choruses

Lean in, I have a secret for you. Okay, ready…. here it is… the chorus is the only thing that matters in a song! Okay, phew. That feels like a giant weight has just left my shoulders. Okay, fine… I’m joking. Mostly, kinda, sorta. While the entirety of the song is important, from stem to stern, the chorus often plays, let’s just say, an outsized role.

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Below, we wanted to examine three prime examples of that. Three occasions when the chorus especially shone. And three times it did so in a one-hit wonder from the 1990s. For when is there a better time to examine the power of a chorus than in a one-hit wonder from a golden generation of music? Indeed, these are three 90s one-hit wonders with impossible to forget choruses.

“Life Is A Highway” by Tom Cochrane from ‘Mad Mad World’ (1991)

Released in 1991, this song got a big bump in the mid-2000s when Rascal Flatts recorded a cover of it for the Pixar movie Cars. But even before that, this song was on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Why? Because of the chorus. Sometimes, all it takes is four words sung at the right volume and with the right amount of passion behind it to turn a song into an earworm, and that’s what Tom Cochrane did in the early part of the decade with this track, which ended up peaking at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100.

“Insane In The Brain” by Cypress Hill from ‘Black Sunday’ (1993)

In some ways, it seems as if Cypress Hill was created to write indelible choruses that stick in your mind like a Jolly Rancher. The combination of their voices, their subject matter, their sense of rhythm, and bop—it all culminates into a song that never leaves your head. You hear it once, and it’s part of you for life. That’s an incredible magic trick. Yet, it’s something they did perfectly on their 1993 rap single, “Insane In The Brain”. The work, which hit No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100, made you feel both elated and crazed—just like a carnival roller coaster.

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

There’s an old riddle: When is a door not a door? Answer: when it’s ajar! Ha-ha! But the idea can be brought over to music, too, when it comes to this hit single from 1993, which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Indeed, when is a chorus not a chorus? When it’s a hum! Okay, not the same payoff in the punchline, but you get the idea. This chorus, which is more like the absence of a chorus, is memorable because it’s different. Sung simply with a low vocal timber by frontman Brad Roberts, it’s unforgettable.

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