LFO, a trio by then composed of Cronin, Devin Lima, and Brad Fischetti, formed in the mid-’90s in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The best part of that line is the hint of a Boston accent on sonnets, such as it comes out SAWHN-ets. When you take a sip, you buzz like a hornetīilly Shakespeare wrote a whole bunch of sonnets “You knew that some previously forbidden transgressive zone in the human brain,” Sheffield raves, “had been very wisely barricaded up to that point, and was suddenly being removed from the hinges.” It is impossible to overstate how endearing this song is, but let’s give it a shot. It’s a b-boy bouillabaisse, futon talk of the highest and lowest order. Ĭronin’s verses on “Summer Girls” are a mind-bending barrage of non sequiturs, his wistful reminisces on lost love spiked with goofball pop culture arcana and stupendously random facts about himself. Listen, I’m not going to sit here and quote the whole song. It is easy nostalgia, and endless summer, and frivolous ecstasy personified. It is as silly and disposable and essential as the day it was born. (Even “Smooth” is, at its core, a Latin rock song.) 5.” And Len’s lo-fi joybomb “Steal My Sunshine.” And the teen-pop monoliths, from Britney Spears’s “.Baby One More Time” to the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way.” And the Latin pop explosion heralded by Iglesias and Jennifer Lopez’s “If You Had My Love” and especially Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” which America initially treated as a novelty and the rest of the world treated as cautious proof that American pop might eventually get around to acknowledging the rest of the world. Napster debuted in 1999 but was a year or two away from fully decimating the music industry, which had entered its Backstreet Boys–abetted Late Empire phase, flush with CD money, convinced of its own immortality, and thus theoretically willing (pop-wise) to take a chance on anyone, and to make a hit out of literally anything.Ĭher’s highly improbable Auto-Tune comeback smash “Believe,” for example, topped Billboard’s year-end 1999 chart, turning back time more spectacularly than her earlier hit “If I Could Turn Back Time.” But we also got the ecstatic Santana and Rob Thomas duet “Smooth” and Smash Mouth’s indestructible “All Star,” which both endure as fodder for deep-dive histories and dank memes, their ubiquity inextricable from their sublimity.Īnd Sisqó’s lascivious and absurd “Thong Song.” And Lou Bega’s insidiously ingratiating “Mambo No. The big singles that year just seemed a little bigger, and a whole lot weirder. 1, Christina Aguilera’s “Genie in a Bottle”-is the most baffling pop hit of 1999, which was arguably the most baffling year for pop overall. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100-beating out “Bills, Bills, Bills” by Destiny’s Child, and topped only by Enrique Iglesias’s “Bailamos” and, at no.
“Summer Girls,” which premiered in June of that year and peaked at no. I like girls that wear Abercrombie & Fitch The second half of the chorus includes definitely the first thing you know about Rich Cronin, and his risqué, mall-dominating teenage clothier of choice. This is the only chorus you will ever need. Wikki-wikki turntable scratches flutter about like so many seagulls as a grateful, mesmerized nation wonders, in unison, What the hell did he just say? This is the chorus. New Kids on the Block had a bunch of hitsĪnd I think it’s fly when girls drop by for the summer Do you remember?, Cronin purrs, ad-libbing, sensually biting his lip in your mind’s eye (and in the video) even before the polite but bumptious beat kicks in. (Hornball cinéastes may note that it also sounds quite a bit like Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga’s “Shallow.”) Shakers, dinky kitchen-table percussion, some tasteful and soulful electric guitar.
“Summer Girls,” the opening track and crown jewel of LFO’s self-titled ’99 debut album, glides in on a swoony, fingerpicked guitar riff reminiscent of Extreme’s 1990 hit “More Than Words,” a hard-rockers-gone-soft hyperballad that functioned, for flop-sweaty junior high gymnasium dance floors of that era, as the “Stairway to Heaven” of its time. We’re celebrating that by definitively ranking its top songs and albums, 20 years later. The Ringer’s 40 Best Singles and Albums of 1999ġ999 was one of the most interesting music years ever.
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