The full list of Lithium’s top 100 alternative + grunge songs of ’90s

And as with all “best of” lists – no one is going to agree with the top 5 or top 10 or top 100, and there will be plenty of deserving songs that don’t make the list. No doubt that Nirvana had the most cultural impact in the 90s, but does that mean they automatically deserve a top spot? And does popularity/record sales matter or is it just about the music? If it’s just about the music itself, then can we agree on the factors that matter the most?

No? Okay. Well… let’s just get on with it shall we? Here’s Lithium’s Top 100 starting from the bottom:

Six bands dominated with five or more songs on the list. It’s the usual suspects in Nirvana (6), Foo Fighters (5), Pearl Jam (5), Red Hot Chili Peppers (5), Smashing Pumpkins (5), and Stone Temple Pilots (5) while Alice in Chains, Bush, Green Day and Soundgarden all had four songs on the list.

With 47 songs between these 10 bands, they make up nearly half the songs.

Then there’s Third-Eye Blind, Better Than Ezra, 311, Gin Blossoms, Oasis and The Verve. Not to mention the names that came out during that decade: Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder, Chris Cornell and Billy Corgan. Layne Staley, Courtney Love, Anthony Kiedis and David Grohl.

Doesn’t that take you back? I forgot about half of these songs, so what’s great about Lithium putting together this list is reminding us of the great music that came out 25 years ago.

So how did they come up with it? Here’s what the SiriusXM blog had to say about their selection process:

Narrowing down a decade’s worth of music to a list of 100 was a great deal easier than one would think. It only required two teams of experts, working 1,700 miles apart. The first team consisted of 9 of the world’s top alternative and grunge music experts locked in a conference room in the former Kmart World Headquarters in Troy, MI. These musicologists needed only 3 weeks to compile a list of songs they felt deserving of being on the Lithium Top 100.

I know that radio people don’t get paid much money, much less get paid to be locked in a conference room for three weeks, but that sounds like a lot of fun. Think of anything you’re passionate about and you’re then asked for your opinion for an authority on the subject?

But in what order? That’s where the second team began their work, in a laboratory built nearly a quarter mile beneath the surface of a nondescript patch of New Mexico desert. There, 17 rogue scientists used math, Bunsen burners and a particle accelerator to determine what song was truly number 1, and which one was 2. And 3. And so on.