Sunday Driving

After a fun-filled weekend hanging out with the fam in Canfield, one of our (read: my) favorite things to do on the car ride back to KY is listen to the the '90s channel on Sirius. Every Sunday at noon, they play the Top 40 countdown from a particular year from my formative decade.

Yesterday, they played the countdown from this week in 1998.

Ahhh...winter of freshman year. So many memories. I decide to see how many of the Top 10 songs I can guess. Somehow, I get Mindy to join me.

After hearing some of the songs in the bottom part of the countdown, it becomes evident that there's definitely a stickiness to songs in the Top 40 as songs I associate with summer and fall of '97 are still on here (e.g. "Fly" by Sugar Ray, "Brick" by Ben Folds Five). So we take that into account on our guesses.

We don't try to guess the order, but I want to at least have the #1 picked out...I'd feel like a failure if we miss that one. We cheat because we probably end up with 12 or 13 guesses.

Wrong guesses include "Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia and "Still the One" by Shania Twain, but I was pretty sure we were jumping the gun on those because I don't recall those until a few months later in '98. "Bittersweet Symphony" by the Verve was another wrong choice, but I was fairly certain that wasn't that big (or at least lasting) of a U.S. hit. The other wrong guesses were pretty desperate and not worth mentioning.

Before we get to the top 10, I call that there was a Lisa Loeb song out at the time called "I Do" but didn't think it was top 10 material. It was #11, so I feel good about our guesses headed into the top 10.

Here's how we did:

10. "Kiss the Rain" by Billie Myers, 0 for 1 - We both remember this song from this time period, but never knew the artist, and aren't mad at ourselves for missing this one.

9. "Together Again" by Janet Jackson, 0 for 2 - We definitely heard this song before, but wouldn't have known if it was from 1988 or 2008, so we're not upset for missing it but are starting to get frustrated we have no correct answers yet.

8. "You Make Me Wanna" by Usher, 1 for 3 - Finally, we're on the board! This was in fact, one of my confidence picks. I remembered being so annoyed by the song freshman year and just knew it had to be here. And yes, that means like me, you've been not enjoying Usher songs on the radio for 11 years now.

7. "Tubthumping" by Chumbawamba, 2 for 4 - Mindy's contribution to the list which definitively illustrates the lag factor to the Top 40 charts. Her selection of this inspires a later correct guess of mine. And surprisingly, even though you haven't just heard this song 5x/day for 5 months, this song feels as overplayed now in 2009 as it did 1997-8.

6. "Show Me Love" by Robyn, 2 for 5 - OK, it stinks being under 50% for the 10 through 6. Fun fact: we learn Robyn is from Sweden and is the same age as us.

5. "Walking on the Sun" by Smash Mouth, 3 for 6 - Back to .500...this was my choice inspired by Mindy's Chumbawumba call. I'd have thought these songs were dead by February of freshman year, but the pop charts are a funny thing.

4. "3 a.m." by Matchbox Twenty, 4 for 7 - Last second choice just as the top 10 started, and really, what was 1998 without drunk college kids from the suburbs singing Matchbox Twenty songs? I start to question how I was able to keep my sanity during this time period with all this going on around me.

3. "As Long As You Love Me" by The Backstreet Boys, 5 for 8 - Another lock of mine...how did I remember this? No comment.

2. "Truly, Madly, Deeply" by Savage Garden, 5 for 9 - Ouch, how'd we miss this? Remember this song being everywhere freshman year? Check. Hated this song being everywhere freshman year? Check.

1. "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion, 6 for 10 - The 3rd of my 3 locks, and it's great to get the #1 song right. However, I started to doubt myself when they kept mentioning we have a new #1 this week. I figured this would've been #1 from back in December when Titanic was first out, but whatever.

So we finish at 60%, not bad.

Bonus...we switch over top the '80s channel after our countdown ends in time to here the #1 song from this week in 1980: "Do That To Me One More Time" by Captain and Tennille.