I've been going through the 1995 Newark High School yearbook to find pictures that I can post to my museum's Facebook, and I found this wonderful photo from the class of 1995:

I get such a kick out of going through the old yearbook photos...seeing how people looked, how they dressed, and getting a feel for the era and the area. Checking out all those baggy mid-90's clothes was pretty funny. (I tried going through an '03 yearbook to see if the clothes started to look funny to me yet, but they don't...probably will take another ten years before it does.) It's also got this amber effect, in a way- like this group of teenagers will always be 17/18 years old, looking towards the future...but their real-life counterparts are all about 37/38, likely with houses and families and all those grown-up concerns.

Anyway, I think 1995 was a pretty cool time- the economy was booming, Clinton was in office, technology was about to leap forward in a big way with the rise of the internet, and it felt like America was emerging from it's early 90's Recession era funk. There was this bright air of optimism in the air during that time period, I think. And it was a GREAT period for music.
So I thought I'd post some tunes from "their" time as a nod to the class of 1995, which is currently celebrating their 20-year!

Pick 1- Rock

I thought I'd go with something from another country for this slot. I know Silverchair better for their latter 90's tune, "Anthem for the Year 2000."

Pick 2 - Dance

Pick 3- British Pop

You can pretty much see the blueprints for the Backstreet Boys being laid out in this video. LOL.

Pick 4- Jam Band

I love that this is basically a satire making fun of the fact that lyrics are effectively meaningless when it comes to popular music, because it relies on the hook. You can't get much more 90's than that.

In any event, I still can't get over that 1995 was twenty years ago. It feels like yesterday, you know?