Pop & Wave

Now That’s What I Call the 1990s focuses on the decade’s second half, splitting its time between pop songs and the alternative music that followed in grunge’s footsteps. Pearl Jam and other hard-edged bands are absent from this compilation; instead, slicker groups like Live (“I Alone”) and Collective Soul (“Shine”) represent the wave of mainstream rock that swept through the Clinton era, with Everclear (“Father of Mine”) and Sublime (“What I Got”) thrown in for good measure. Des’ree’s “You Gotta Be” and New Radicals’ “You Get What You Give” help anchor the album’s pop side, while the inclusion of Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be” is a reminder that the decade also spawned many an omnipresent wedding song. Ignoring grunge, Euro-dance, and teen pop makes this a narrow-minded compilation, but for those who like the aforementioned songs, Now That's What I Call the 1990s is an easy way to get them all in one place.

Now That’s What I Call the 1990s focuses on the decade’s second half, splitting its time between pop songs and the alternative music that followed in grunge’s footsteps. Pearl Jam and other hard-edged bands are absent from this compilation; instead, slicker groups like Live (“I Alone”) and Collective Soul (“Shine”) represent the wave of mainstream rock that swept through the Clinton era, with Everclear (“Father of Mine”) and Sublime (“What I Got”) thrown in for good measure. Des’ree’s “You Gotta Be” and New Radicals’ “You Get What You Give” help anchor the album’s pop side, while the inclusion of Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be” is a reminder that the decade also spawned many an omnipresent wedding song. Ignoring grunge, Euro-dance, and teen pop makes this a narrow-minded compilation, but for those who like the aforementioned songs, Now That's What I Call the 1990s is an easy way to get them all in one place.

When Jeff Lynne was growing up, he listened to music on longwave radio, soaking up all the sounds coming through the big radio in the living room. His 2012 tribute to these days, appropriately called Long Wave, is a far-reaching salute to the glory days of pop in the years before the Beatles. It's too easy to peg this as a standards album, a designation that isn't quite accurate. Lynne may cover many show tunes along with '50s favorites of big-band vocalists but he spends nearly as much time with rock & roll, and not just the operatic pop of his fellow Traveling Wilbury Roy Orbison, either. He cranks through Chuck Berry's "Let It Rock," slides into the silken harmonies of the Everly Brothers on "So Sad," and grooves through Don Covay's "Mercy, Mercy."