I Still Love the 90s. Hard.

Tell me, do you like hip-hop?

Then I'm not talking to you.

How about indie folk?

Get the fuck out of my face. Seriously.

How about 90s rock music?

Yeah? How about 90s alt rock? Okay, how about 90s light alt rock?

Well then, all right! Let me buy you a beer!

No, not really. This is the internet. I have no way of doing that. But, tell ya what, I'll go grab one from my fridge, you go grab one from yours, and we can drink together across the wires.

I gotta tell ya, it's nice to finally find someone who's not too busy "gettin' their swag on" or "crankin' that" to appreciate a bouncy and/or mopey 90s rock song when they hear it.

It was a fucking amazing era, wasn't it? I swear, every time the radio plays Oasis, an angel gets high and fails out of angel college.

True story: in 1993, the Statue of Liberty read: "Give me your Blues Travelers, your Foo Fighters, your Collective Souls yearning to be Better Than Ezra." (Sidenote: It was promptly replaced to its original wording in 1995 when Collective Soul released "The World I Know." What a shitty song.)

Go ahead, call me a fag for listening to the Gin Blossoms.

I dare you.

The fact is, anyone who listens to Hey Jealousy and doesn't get a little wistful...well, they're the ones who are wrong.

The 90s were breeding grounds for some of the best One-Hit Wonders to ever not...ya know...get a second hit. Remember all the success The Verve had after their big breakthrough? Me neither! But Bittersweet Symphony was a great fucking song.

Like a cheesy, melodic wine, these tunes only get better with age. "Breakfast at Tiffany's," for example: like nails on a chalkboard when I first heard it, but 15 years later, it's delightful. Ditto for anything the Spin Doctors ever put out.

(Some of you right now are thinking to yourselves: who are the Spin Doctors? And who sang Breakfast at Tiffany's? ...was it the Spin Doctors? To you people: go read a book, the rest of this does not concern you.)

I'm sure a few of you are thinking, "you're just selectively remembering the best parts of the era; there was a also ton of shit on the radio from 90 to 99." This is the part where you "helpfully" namedrop bands like Goo Goo Dolls, Blessid Union of Souls, Sister Hazel, Hootie (and his Blowfish), Matchbox 20, Vertical Horizon, Live, Tonic...and Sugar Ray.

Mark McGrath: the worst thing to happen to music since AIDS.

I can't say much in response to that. But I can say this: Dizzy was a good song, Hey Leonardo (She Likes Me For Me) is better than you remember it being, Sister Hazel put out two great albums in the past two years, Hootie is the most tolerable thing in country music, and all those other guys are most likely working for minimum wage somewhere in Idaho. So it all evens out.

Now, I've already listed some wonderful goodness to come out of the speakers of the 90s, but I've left out some of the greatness.

Between 1990 and 1999, we were lucky enough to have the radio give us Everclear, No Doubt, Mighty Mighty (mighty) Bosstones, the lighter side of Green Day, the beginnings of Ben Folds, the Lemonheads, a very commercial (and more fun) Tom Petty, "Today" and "Tonight, Tonight," Oasis a.k.a. the most artistic drunks in the world, two types of Crows (both Black and Counting), Third-Eye Blind, the mopiest of R.E.M., and Lenny Kravitz.

Remember Lenny Kravitz?

So, haters of this wonderfully prosperous decade for the jaunty, jangly, less-distorted side of alternative rock music, you have fun with your Daughtry and your Fray and your Coldplay.

I'll be over here in the corner listening to Fastball.