Poptime
Herein, I collect and count down my favorite pop, rock, r&b and hip hop singles released between the time I was born (1/74) and right this minute. Ordering is pretty loose and arbitrary until I reach the top 10 or so, when rankings will really mean something.I'm limiting myself to things that have actually charted in the Billboard Hot 100 (or Billboard subcharts or foreign equivalents when applicable). Otherwise, trying to narrow a list down to 101 songs would be border on impossible.
Powered by: Tumblr
Theme: Thought Cloud by Heather Rivers
-
Artist: Keith Sweat
Song: I Want Her
Year: 1988
Highest Chart Position: #5 (Billboard Hot 100)How many songs from the short-lived “New Jack Swing” phenomenon do you think are going to make this list? If you guessed one, you win a prize. My reluctance to embrace it originally was due to the fact I was bombarded with it during car rides with many of my friends while it was going on, and my reluctance to embrace it in the present out of a sense of nostalgia is mostly due to the cornball production and painted-on tough-but-tender personas of artists like Color Me Badd and, well, Keith Sweat.
So why does this song earn a free pass? It basically bundles every good thing about hundreds of other songs like it (and there were good things, I’ll admit it) and eschews all the bad in one easy-to-like package. That chorus, as simple and direct as it is, works at the basest of levels, appealing to the pre-evolutionary early man that forever resides in my DNA.
