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

10. REAL McCOY, “RUN AWAY” (Interview)

Today it’s commonplace for gruff MCs to feature soothing female vocalists on the chorus of their tracks, often over a club-ready beat. Rewind to 20 years ago, and Berlin-based Eurodance act Real McCoy perfected this template and ran with it to the upper echelon of charts worldwide with their energetic, strobelight-friendly hits.

“The reason I’m in this music business is because one of my heroes was Grandmaster Flash,” Real McCoy founder Olaf “O-Jay” Jeglitza tells Idolator. “I wanted to be cool. When I first came to the States, I had all this training for interviews, and one time one of the teachers brought one of their kids who said, ‘Oh, we always thought you were some black guy from Brooklyn’. That was, for me, the biggest compliment.”

If execs at Real McCoy’s label Arista had lost any sleep wondering if the band would be able to follow up mega-smash “Another Night” with another American hit in 1995, they needn’t have worried: the cautionary “Run Away,” the lyrics for which were inspired by George Orwell‘s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, matched its predecessor’s Billboard Hot 100 chart position of #3.

Though it was a hit in springtime 1995, the sentiment of “Run Away” couldn’t be more timely. Jeglitza says now it’s his favorite of all the songs Real McCoy recorded. “The lyrics fit so much more in the times now,” he notes. “It’s like 20 years later — ‘Big Brother is watching you’? ‘Cold cash money mentality’? It’s kind of like a dark thing.”

So dark, in fact, was the video shot for the US market by director Nigel Dick (Britney Spears‘ “…Baby One More Time”, Cher‘s “Believe,” etc.) deemed to be by Arista that the label scrapped it. The visual finally surfaced over 10 years later on YouTube. (Watch it above.)

“I started writing the lyrics and I kind of liked the dark message: run away and save yourself, and don’t get caught by the system. I was trying to have lyrics that had a message,” Olaf explains. “The interesting thing is that the meter I used, you can pop on a lot of tracks nowadays. If you put the rap from ‘Another Night’ on [current songs], it would slow down the tracks. But ‘money, sex and thought control’ still works on up-to-date tracks.”

Probably just one of the reasons we’re still bumping “Run Away” two decades later. — ROBBIE DAW

9. ACE OF BASE, “BEAUTIFUL LIFE” (Interview)

To-date, Max Martin‘s had either a songwriting or producing hand in an astonishing 21 chart-topping singles on the Hot 100, the most recent of which is The Weeknd‘s “Can’t Feel My Face.” Fun fact: the very first US hit the Swedish musician was credited on was “Beautiful Life” by Gothenburg quartet Ace Of Base, recorded while Martin was being mentored at Cheiron Studios in Stockholm by the late Denniz Pop.

“The ending choir was so fun to record. Denniz, Max and I were singing the final part on the demo ending, all in ecstasy, so to say,” says Ace Of Base’s Jonas “Joker” Berggren while speaking to Idolator about the song. “A real vocal quartet then recorded the ending of the song — two men and two women, one in each harmony. Then we put them in different volumes on all the different tracks, making them sound like a gospel choir from out of this world! So fun to work with such talented people.”

Utterly euphoric and unmistakably European in its sound, dance-pop classic “Beautiful Life” was the stateside lead single off Ace Of Base’s 1995 sophomore LP, The Bridge. A year prior, the band saw their debut The Sign (or Happy Nation, as it was titled overseas) go seven-times Platinum in North America, thanks to hits like the title track, “All That She Wants” and “Don’t Turn Around.” It was a feat that set the bar unbelievably high for their follow-up release.

“[The Bridge] was difficult, especially since we were one year late with the delivery if it,” Jonas explains. “I told the record companies that it was impossible to make an album and release it in ’94 since we were still promoting the first album like crazy. Many bands had copied our sound, especially in Europe, by then, so we had to develop it a little. We added a little live Spanish touch with some of the songs on the album.”

Berggren continues, “Another fun thing is that we had a ‘catastrophe’ meeting with the labels, since we had only sold 7 million copies of the second album worldwide. The first album sold 23 millions, more or less, over the first three years. For that meeting, all the record companies were present and everybody was so disappointed about the sales. I remember I said, ‘Hey — 7 million is great sales! Who is selling that much? Come on.’ Those were the days.”

“Beautiful Life” charted at #15 in both the US and UK (while placing Top 10 in other European territories), and eventually took on a second life as a TV and movie soundtrack staple — most prominently with the films A Night At The Roxbury, I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry and You Don’t Mess With The Zohan. Clearly Ace Of Base and former Saturday Night Live cast members go hand in hand.

“I am very proud of ‘Beautiful Life’,” Berggren says now. “We all are. The vocals and production still feel and sound kind of fresh after such a long time. Both Linn and Jenny had sung so great on the track. Everything was perfect, including the fun video.” — ROBBIE DAW

8. AIMEE MANN, “THAT’S JUST WHAT YOU ARE” (Interview)

Aimee Mann became a triumphant poster child for independent artists when, as an unsigned act, her music formed the soundtrack for director Paul Thomas Anderson‘s 1999 film Magnolia. The experience scored Mann an Oscar nomination for the song “Save Me,” but five years prior, the poetic singer landed her biggest solo hit via an altogether different soundtrack: Melrose Place.

Following her groundbreaking work with the 1980s new wave band ‘til Tuesday, the irony that her first chart hit as a solo artist was born from an Aaron Spelling nighttime soap may not be completely lost on Mann. “I didn’t watch the show at the time. I think my notion of it was that it was a little trashy, which is probably not inaccurate,” she recalls to Idolator. “But as I was asking around, people were like, ‘No, it’s great!’ I realized my friends were watching it in that ironically great, campy way.”

Known for her narrative lyrics and edgy guitar-driven songs, “That’s Just What You Are” saw Mann taking a more pop approach. The song was built around a catchy drum loop versus a kit, and layered with catchy acoustic and electric guitar melodies. Recorded on two continents, Mann was able to — ahem —squeeze  in some help from friends. “I was actually in Boston and then I moved to London for a while, [so] I recorded half of the song in each place,” she says. “I had met the guys from Squeeze, Glen Tilbrook and Chris Difford, in London, and they actually sang the background vocals, which we recorded there.”

When asked if Mann knew the track would be a single upon hearing the finished version, she explains that she wrote “That’s Just What You Are” in response to her then-label Geffen’s request for songs intended to be radio hits.

“I feel like I thought that it was a really poppy and accessible song, and my memory of the record company was that they didn’t think it was in the parlance of times,” Mann notes. “I still got that ‘we don’t hear a single’. And then I remember for the next record, someone at the record company saying, ‘Why don’t you write another song like ‘That’s Just What You Are’? And I was like, ‘You didn’t like it then!’”

Though the song wasn’t a big hit upon its release (it spent only six weeks on the Hot 100 and peaked at #93), it found better success on alternative and modern radio. Despite its position, “That’s Just What You Are” remains a cut that everyone around in the mid-’90s knew well enough to sing along to, and stands as proof that the biggest chart hits aren’t always the most enduring songs. — TYLER STEELE

Catch Aimee Mann’s Christmas shows this month with Ted Leo, Liz Phair and Jonathan Coulton. 

7. TLC, “WATERFALLS” (Interview)

TLC is known for being one of the biggest and best-selling girl groups of all time, and it is not all down to their upbeat party tunes or lovelorn ballads like their other counterparts. Instead, underneath the incredibly cool outfits and smooth dance moves, the ladies made sure to embed uplifting messages in their lyrics. For example, CrazySexyCool’s third single “Waterfalls” focuses on issues that were not often discussed in pop music — but TLC were brave enough to take them on.

T-Boz reflected with us about what the creative process was like. “When we recorded ‘Waterfalls’, we weren’t in the studio at the same time,” she tells Idolator. “I remember that being Lisa‘s favorite song. She was in a bit of trouble at the time, so she was in her bathroom just writing her rap to it. With everything that she was going through at the time, she knew exactly what she wanted to say. It came effortlessly to her.”

Along with being a powerful song that showcases one of Left Eye’s best rap verses of her short-lived career (the ending line “dreams are hopeless aspirations/ In hopes of comin’ true/ Believe in yourself/ The rest is up to me and you” remains an album highlight), the innovative music video for “Waterfalls” opened many viewers’ eyes to the harsh realities of taboo topics like AIDS.

“When we first saw the video, all three of us were in tears because we couldn’t believe it! No one could’ve done it better than [director F. Gary Gray]; he really brought our ideas to life,” Chili tells us. “At first, radio was not playing ‘Waterfalls’ — they didn’t really get what we were saying. So that’s why videos are so important, because they help to tell the story. That’s exactly what our video did, and once people saw it they were like, ‘Oh, shit! That’s what they’re talking about?’”

“Waterfalls” spent seven weeks atop of the Billboard Hot 100. The song also became nominated for two Grammys. Like many songs from TLC’s catalog, it continues to be a source of inspiration for artists across various genres. For instance, in 2014, Bette Midler released girl group-inspired covers album It’s The Girls, which featured the diva’s spare, piano-driven rendition of “Waterfalls.” Chili was a big fan.

“It’s so Bette! I couldn’t imagine her doing it any other way, and it was such an honor to know that she wanted to record our song,” the TLC member says. “She did such a great job and gave us so much love while she promoted the record.” — BIANCA GRACIE