The 50 Best Pop Singles Of 1995 (Featuring New Interviews With Alanis Morissette, Garbage, Kylie Minogue, Monica, Ace Of Base & More!)

14. MICHAEL JACKSON & JANET JACKSON, “SCREAM” (Interview)

It’s a rare occurence when two close siblings who are among the biggest entertainers of all time manage to become one another’s competition. Michael Jackson and his little sister Janet had been battling each other for the ultimate pop star crown ever since the beginnings of their expansive careers, but when it came time for familial support, they knew when to put the friendly musical rivalry on hold.

Prior to the release of 1995’s “Scream” off Michael’s HIStory: Past, Present And Future, Book I, the singer found himself in the center of a media circus that was filled with career-deteriorating tabloid headlines. The scrutiny soon became too intense, and Michael decided to channel the frustration in one of his most aggressive and visceral songs of his career. Janet’s injections of tough girl vocals made “Scream” all the more combative.

Producer Jimmy Jam reveals an interesting tidbit to Idolator that could have caused a slight shift in both artists’ discographies: “We played a track that ended up becoming ‘Runaway’ for [Janet]. I remember her saying, ‘I want this one for me. He’s not going to pick this one anyway.’ She knew he was going to choose what ended up becoming ‘Scream.’ When we went to New York to play Michael the tracks, he liked them all but ended up picking ‘Scream.’ Janet looked at me like ‘I told you so’, but I think she was also happy that he didn’t pick ‘Runaway’.”

Michael was known for treating the recording studio as his own mini-concerts, and for “Scream” — which went on to be certified Platinum and peaked at #5 on the Hot 100 — the entertainer jam-packed his fiery aggression into just less than five minutes. Jam’s producing partner Terry Lewis recalls, “He went into the booth and he didn’t sing the song all nice in the microphone — he was performing like he was on stage at a stadium full of people! You could hear jewelry jangling, hands clapping and him spinning. It was crazy! It turned me into even more of a fan, and totally took me out of production mode. I was screaming like a little girl, and I’m not that kind of person!”

Aside from the song, the accompanying Mark Romanek-directed black and white video for “Scream” is forever etched in pop culture history as one of the most striking visuals of all time. It’s also one of the most expensive, costing approximately $7 million — a number that was unheard of at the time. The media’s scrutiny of celebrities has become even more heightened since “Scream,” but very few are brave enough to combat it with such unapologetic force like Michael and Janet did 20 years ago. — BIANCA GRACIE

13. JOAN OSBORNE, “ONE OF US” (Interview)

What if God was one of us? No really, what if he was? What if she was? Deep ponderings from Joan Osborne in 1995 had the whole word listening intently and talking about the meaning  behind the lyrics of her runaway hit “One Of Us.” Well, we were tired of second-guessing ourselves into a tizzy, and we wanted to know what Joan thought. So we asked her.

“I think people respond to this song because it is not telling them what they’re supposed to think, it’s asking them what they believe. And for a pop song, it talks about a very deep subject,” explains Osborne to Idolator. “Most pop songs are about romantic love, but this one is about faith in God. So it sparked a lot of conversation, and some controversy as well. People felt like they had to answer the central question of the song and they had to take a side or express an opinion about it. Whenever you involve people in a song in that way, it’s going to have a deeper effect than your typical pop song.” We’re with you, Joan. We’re with you.

While she was game to answer our inquiries, we’d always wondered about her take on this curious sliver of lyrics inserted into the otherwise heady anthem: “Back up to Heaven all alone, Nobody callin’ on the phone, ’cept for the Pope, maybe, in Rome”. Despite having too many semi-drunken dorm room debates back in college to count about the verse’s true intentions (Authentic? Ironic? Humorous?), we never had a clear idea; Joan does us a solid by letting us know how she interprets that part of the song, and she believes it is intended to be “firmly tongue-in-cheek. At least that is how I’ve performed it over the years.”

While released in 1995, it took until January 1996 for “One Of Us” to reach the Top 10, peaking at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was a critical darling, too, and Osborne received Grammy nominations for Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year, Record Of The Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best New Artist. But, with stiff competition (see our whole countdown) “One Of Us” didn’t win in any category.

Surprisingly Osborne considered herself a “lapsed Catholic” when she first heard “One Of Us,” yet the song spoke to her nonetheless. “I was really disenchanted with the Church as an institution, and I felt it had consistently abused its political power at the expense of its spiritual mission,” she says. “So what attracted me to the song was the notion of God being a part of the everyday world, a part of us as we are part of God. Not something that had to be attained through the medium of the church, but something available to everyone at every moment.”

Osborne was unable to repeat this song’s commercial success, despite a career with similar songs that sought to challenge listeners with thoughtful lyrics. Still, parent album Relish went on to sell 3 million copies, and a special edition of the LP was released in October upon its 20th anniversary. “‘St. Teresa’ is a favorite. I still do it almost every time I perform a concert,” Osborne notes. “Fans have come up to me after shows and told me beautiful stories about how that song has affected them. And I had the joy of having Patti Smith tell me that it was one of her favorite songs, so in that sense it’s very meaningful to me.”

She also has a special place in her heart for “Crazy Baby”: “It really was written as a message of love to someone who was struggling — and I think many people have heard that in the song, and taking a lot of comfort from it. What more can you want as an artist?”

Not much, Joan. But maybe someone could let us know if God is a slob like all of us? You know, so we don’t have to clean our apartments to get into heaven. — MIKE WOOD

12. SAINT ETIENNE FEAT. ETIENNE DAHO, “HE’S ON THE PHONE” (Interview)

By late 1995, ambassadors of British pop Saint Etienne — the trio of Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs and frequently boa’d lead singer Sarah Cracknell — had finished promoting their third album, Tiger Bay, and were preparing to gift the world with their very first greatest hits package. That collection, Too Young to Die, marked not only a half-decade’s worth of tastefully eclectic dance-pop singles (“You’re In a Bad Way,” “Who Do You Think You Are”) but also, unfortunately, a parting of ways with their label. Surprisingly, it also gave way to the biggest hit of their career, the Europop classic “He’s On the Phone.”

Finding themselves at a loss for new material to promote the collection, the band reached back to a recent collaboration with Gallic pop legend Etienne Daho for the moody “Accident,” an Anglicised cover of Daho’s own 1984 single “Weekend à  Rome.” How Daho and the Etiennes came to collaborate was a moment of pure reciprocal fandom. Lead singer Sarah Cracknell describes their meeting to Idolator: “Etienne came to one of our gigs in Paris and we all just got chatting after the show. We talked about a collaboration there and then and just went for it. He’s a great songwriter and a lovely man.”

Decidedly dark for a single, “Accident” was handed over to remixer Motiv8 (aka Steve Rodway) for deep sprucing. Having previously worked with the Etiennes on “Hug My Soul,” Rodway was newly hot at the time for his charting remixes of songs by Pulp and Doobie Brothers, and would soon bring Gina G to international fame. In the meantime, he painstaking rearranged Sarah’s vocals into a more melodic chorus and injected the track with what can only be described as a high dose of poppers: a galloping bass line, bright keyboards and a relentless nu-disco beat, with Daho’s spoken-word passage figuring powerfully in the breakdown.

After taking in hi-NRG barnstormer “He’s On The Phone” for the first time, Cracknell says, “I personally was really excited when I heard the mix. I’m sure Bob and Pete were too. It certainly sounded like a hit to me!”

And a hit it was: In 1995, “He’s On the Phone” peaked at #11 in the UK, marking Saint Etienne’s highest-charting single. It also dominated dance charts around the world, garnering a Top of the Pops appearance and a US release the following year. More than that, it became a favorite of fans and tastemakers alike, sparking later collaborations between the band and techno god Paul Van Dyk.

Despite this triumph, the band took an extended break through 1996 and 1997 to explore solo projects. Cracknell recently released her second solo opus, the gorgeous Red Kite (buy on iTunes) a baroque pop record that, despite its lack of synths, doesn’t sit very far from the pop she normally makes with her mates Bob and Pete.

With promise of a new Saint Etienne record sometime next year (catch the band’s UK Christmas shows this week), Sarah looks back on “He’s On The Phone” fondly, saying, “I think like most good pop records, it was a combination of a great melody, melancholy and some top hooks. Voila!” — JOHN HAMILTON

11. GARBAGE, “QUEER” (Interview)

After producing two of the most important records of the early 1990s with Nirvana’s Nevermind and The Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream, Butch Vig decided to form a pop-centric band as a release from the monotony of grunge. All he needed was a singer, and despite a disastrous audition, Scottish rocker Shirley Manson landed the job.

“I felt really overwhelmed, because when the band first approached me, they had asked me if I was a writer,” she tells Idolator. “In a split-second decision, I panicked and thought that I wouldn’t get the chance to work with them if I said that I didn’t write. So, I said, ‘Yeah, I write’, having never written a note of music or words in my entire life.”

While that first session proved unfruitful, the band gave Shirley another shot, and Garbage was born. Their self-titled debut LP arrived in 1995 and was a massive success, reaching #20 on the Billboard 200 and going double Platinum. It also delivered a batch of alt-pop/rock classics, including “Stupid Girl,” “Only Happy When It Rains” and “Queer.”

Garbage took a huge risk by releasing the latter as their second US single. The sneering, swaggering anthem not only acknowledged the disenfranchised, but also celebrated them in a completely non-condescending way. Which is why the song remains important and beloved 20 years later.

“As a band… we really believed in civil rights for everybody and we were really aware that the LGBT community did not enjoy equal rights,” Shirley Manson recalls. “We were outraged by it, so I have a great affinity for ‘Queer’ to this day. I think it speaks to anyone who doesn’t fit in, everyone who’s not being treated fairly.” — MIKE WASS