My Favourite Albums From the 90s and Early 2000s

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I hope you're enjoying what I'm doing over on The Star Wars Journal. If you haven't checked it out yet, and are interested in Star Wars, please do so. Not to worry though Josh's Geek Cave isn't going anywhere. In fact, today I have a fun little post for you today. I'm going to be talking about fifteen albums from the 90s and early 2000s that I consider to be my favourite. The ones I always go to when I want to listen to music, whether it's putting on a CD or just choosing an album to listen to on my iPod or my laptop. These aren't in any particular order, but I will be bookending this post with Savage Garden albums. So, let's get into it.

Aside from being the first CD that I was ever given as a gift, Savage Garden's self-titled, debut, album from 1997 is just a fun album to listen to. It has "I Want You" and "Truly Madly Deeply" on it and some other really awesome songs like track #1, "To the Moon and Back". When I'm looking for a big nostalgia boost, this is the first album I pop into the CD player or hit play on on my iPod.

 For all of my Canadian readers, how many of you owned at least one album from MuchMusic's Big Shiny Tunes series of compilation albums? I owned, and still own, six of them, but Big Shiny Tunes 4 is my favourite of the six that I own (3 through 8). "American Woman" by Lenny Kravitz, "What's My Age Again?" by Blink 182, "All Star" by Smash Mouth, and "Heaven Coming Down" by The Tea Party are my favourite songs on this album, but there are also so many other amazing songs on it. Though "Praise You" by Fatboy Slim is a bit long for my taste, and "Bawitaba" by Kid Rock is...well, it's Kid Rock, and while I have some nostalgia for this song, it's nowhere near my favourite song on this compilation album. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, my dad had this album on cassette when I was 13 years old and he'd always have it on in the car when he drove me to Teens First Summer Camp in the summer of 2000.

I talked about The Barenaked Ladies's 1992 debut album, Gordon, in my post on the first albums I ever remember listening to , and there I mentioned that I eventually got the album's re-release on CD when I was in high school in the 2000s. I talked about the song, "Grade 9" in that post, but my absolute favourite song on that album is, "If I Had $1000000", which is track 14. I can't even tell you why it's my favourite song on the album. It's just one of those fun songs that The Barenaked Ladies were known for.

I didn't have this album when I was a kid. I didn't have any Spice Girls albums when I was a kid. However, at Teens First Summer Camp in 1998, there were a group of girls who were huge Spice Girls fans, and one of them brought this CD to listen to, along with the band's second album, Spiceworld. So I heard every song on both albums several times a day that week. And that didn't include hearing the occasional Spice Girls song on the radio either. I have Spice and Spiceworld digitally, but recently I found the CD for Spice at a second hand store for a really good price, so I picked it up so I could add it to the 90s CD collection. 

My late grandmother had this CD and while I was visiting her and my grandfather up at the cottage for a week or two about ten years ago or so, I borrowed it and ripped it to my computer. I never heard the whole album when I was a kid, but of course "What a Girl Wants" and "I Turn to You" played on the radio a lot when I was in middle school, and "Reflection" is from Mulan so I heard that song a lot too. I still have it on my computer, so I listen to it a lot. Like with Spice, I'm hoping to get the CD for this album sometime in the future.

...Baby One More Time by Britney Spears is another in this duology of albums that I have digitally that I want to get the physical CD copy for in the near future. Britney Spears was huge in the late 90s and early 2000s, and while I didn't listen to the album when I was a kid, but I love it now, as an adult. Plus "Sometimes" and the title track, "...Baby One More Time" played on the radio all the time when I was in middle school and high school. 

Here's another compilation album that I love. MuchDance 1999 is probably the reason I ever listened to N'Sync when I was a kid. The radio station I listened to when I was a kid, MAJIC 100, tended to play more Backstreet Boys songs than they did N'Sync songs, so I was exposed to the Backstreet Boys more through the radio. But "Tearin' Up My Heart" is on this compilation album. It's also how I knew about Ace of Base as their song "Cruel Summer" is also on this CD. But "To the Moon and Back" by Savage Garden and a dance version of "My Heart will Go On" by Celine Dion, from the Titanic soundtrack, are also on here. 

I've also talked about Enrique Iglesias's second English album from 2001, Escape a few times on my blogs over the years. "Hero" will always be my favourite song on this album, because not only is it the song my friend Keira and I sang to each other the night of the party for my 16th birthday in 2002, but it played on the radio all the time. Because of that, I very much associate this album with those first two years of high school.

Faith Hill's 1998 album, Faith is an album that I enjoy because of the first track on the album, "This Kiss". That song was on the radio all the time when I was a kid, and I remember taping it off the radio after I first got my original boom box for my birthday in 1997 (I taped it off the radio in 1998). But also, this was another album that Grandma had that I borrowed and ripped to my computer. Except that, I ripped it to my old Dell desktop computer that had Windows Millennium on it, which my grandfather built for me in 2001. Thanks to thumb drives and my various portable music players over the years, I've kept the original MP3s from 2001 or 2002 on the various computers I've had since then. 

Rod Stewart's 2001 album Human is another album, like Escape, that I heavily associate with my early high school years. All of my CD purchases between 1997 and 2007 were made because there was a song or two from a particular artist that I really enjoyed because MAJIC 100 played them a lot. And because buying the individual singles from those albums wasn't an easy thing for me to do back then, I would just end up getting the full album on CD. Which I'm glad I did because I got to hear songs that I'd never hear on the radio, because they weren't the singles that the radio stations would play.

The same thing happened with Shaggy's 2000, Hot Shot. "Angel" played on the radio all the time between 2000 and 2002 or 2003, so I asked for the album for my birthday the same year I got Human. If I were ranking these albums from most favourite to least favourite, Hot Shot would be at the bottom of the list for sure, but it's still a great album.

Everything to Everyone is probably my favourite of the two albums I own that were recorded by The Barenaked Ladies. "Maybe Katie" and "Another Postcard" are the songs that I bought this CD for, but the rest of the album is great too. It was actually the music video for "Another Postcard" that made me want to buy this CD. So, on The New RO/CHRO/A-Channel, MAJIC 100 had a video version of the Majic 100 Top 20 Countdown show, hosted by the radio version's host, Kevin Nelson, and "Another Postcard" was usually somewhere in the top 5 or the top 10, so the music video, which is insane, was always shown. So, because I loved the music video, and loved the song, I got the CD.

"You're Still the One" is still one of my favourite songs of all time, but Shania Twain's 1997 album, Come On Over as a whole is great! The first track on the album, "Man, I Feel Like a Woman" is so well known that it appears in The Big Bang Theory season 3, episode 3, "The Gothowitz Deviation", when Penny is dancing to the song while making french toast for breakfast (against Sheldon's schedule naturally) at the beginning of the episode. This was another album that Grandma had up at the cottage, though I'd eventually get my own copy of the CD when I was in high school.

I've also talked about Planet Pop 2000 over on The Review Basement a long time ago. I got this as part of my birthday present from my grandparents in 1999, for my 13th birthday. At least one of my classmates loved this album too, and aside from listening to it just about every day for the rest of the 1999-2000 school year, which was my first year in middle school. There are so many great songs on this compilation album, but I listed my favourites in the original post I made on The Review Basement back in 2020 or 2021, whenever that was.

Finally we have Savage Garden's second album from 1999, Affirmation. This album has such a 90s vibe to it. The first song on the album, which is the title track, "Affirmation", is a real 90s dance track. Like, I could imagine Stephanie Tanner dancing to the song on Full House in the later seasons of the show, or the characters from Saved by the Bell dancing to the song. The third track on the album, "I Knew I Loved You" is one of my favourite songs of all time and so many songs from the album ended up being played on the radio here in Ottawa that I got so excited to get the CD. It's funny because I actually got the CD in the summer of 2000, not long after the fifth track "Crash and Burn" was released as a single and started being played on the radio. And that summer, as I mentioned earlier, I went to Teens First Summer Camp for my second week at the program, and during that week, one of the older teen volunteers, Veronica, and I sang "The Animal Song" for our Friday morning talent show, which we practiced throughout the week.

That's it for this post. A nice, easy post, talking about fifteen of my favourite albums from the 90s and early 2000s. I could probably do a follow up post to this in the future because I really had to pair down the number of albums I wanted to talk about in this post. Join me tomorrow over at The Star Wars Journal to talk about season 2 of Andor as I'm watching the last three episodes of the series tonight. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

My 90s Experience: The Mighty Ducks Trilogy (1992-1996)

 Hi everyone, how's it going? So, imagine it's 1998 and you just did a marathon of all three Mighty Ducks movies, starring Emilio Estevez, as the third movie, D3: The Mighty Ducks is out on home video and you decided to rent all three. That's what I'm going to be talking about today. Let's get into it.

For the longest time I swore that I'd seen The Mighty Ducks on VHS when I was in the hospital one time. However, when I sat down to watch it on Monday night I didn't remember any of the scenes from the movie or even why Gordon Bombay, played by Emilio Estevez, was coaching the team to begin with. Which actually worked in my favour because I was surprised with every scene and I had no expectations of the movie other than it be good. It was. In fact it was REALLY good. Better than I thought it was going to be.

One of the things that made me enjoy the movie so much is the cast, both the kids and the adults. The kids don't have much character development, but in this case I don't mind so much. Mostly because right from the opening credits, I knew that this was Gordon's movie. And being that I loved Emilio Estevez in The Breakfast Club, I knew that I was going to be in for a good time even though I'm not big on sports movies, nor am I into Hockey movies. You may commence with the Canadian jokes.

In a way, this was also Charlie's movie as he was the most focused on of all of the kids in the movie. Not just because his mom was Emilio's love interest in the movie, but because he was the captain of the Ducks. Charlie was played by Joshua Jackson, who plays Pacey on Dawson's Creek. There are too many cast members to list here but some notable ones are Elden Ratliff as Fulton Reed, Matt Doherty as Averman, who I thought was Mark Castile, who played Mark on Step by Step, Marguerite Moreau as Connie Moreau, who also played Julie in Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home, Danny Tamberelli, who played Little Pete on The Adventures of Pete & Pete on Nickelodeon, and Brandon Adams, who was also in The Sandlot as Kenny DeNunez, which came out back in 1993. Oh and Lane Smith, who played Perry White on Lois & Clark plays Bombay's former coach. 

I also like there were two girls on the team and it wasn't a big deal. Bombay didn't make a stink about it and none of the boys said they couldn't play or anything like that. They were just on the team.

If you haven't checked out The Mighty Ducks you absolutely should. It's funny, fun, and heartwarming probably isn't the right word, but definitely entertaining.

  Now, the second movie is my favourite of the three Ducks movies. I dunno, there was just something about it that made it more endearing than the first one. I think it's because the stakes are higher in this one. Afterall, the Ducks go off to the Goodwill Games, as the American team. Notable additions to the cast is Kenan Thompson, who plays heckler Russ Tyler, Aaron Lohr as Dean Portman, who provided the singing voice for Max in A Goofy Movie, Mike Vitar as Luis Mendoza, who was also in The Sandlot, and Colombe Jacobsen, who had also been in the Baseball movie, Rookie of the Year back in 1993. 

There was a commercial for this movie on TV during episodes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on Global in 1994 and that commercial appeared twice during an episode that I have taped off of Global during that time. So I was really excited to finally see it.

 

I kinda feel like the third movie is the weakest of the trilogy. Mainly because Emilio Estevez is hardly in it, due to him being in Mission: Impossible (uncredited) and The Jerky Boys: The Movie, both of which came out the same year as this movie. This is squarely Joshua Jackson's movie as a result, as his character, Charlie, is the main character. This time the team is off to high school at a prestigious academic institution called Eden Hall Academy, where they meet the typical teen drama characters of jocks and cheerleaders, mixed with snobby rich kids. One of the bullies is played by Michael Cudlitz, who I know, stepping back into 2025 for a moment, as Lex Luthor in the final two seasons of Superman & Lois. 

Because of this change up, not only do the kids get to shine, but we got a new coach, Ted Orion, played by Jeffrey Nordling, who guest starred on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Tahna Los, a friend of Major Kira's, in an episode early in the first season. Just like the last two movies, the Ducks win with only a couple of seconds to spare in the game at the end of the movie.

Oh, and they worked into the plot of this movie that the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (called the Anaheim Ducks in 2025) were named after the team in the movies (the NHL team uniforms were showcased in both this movie and the second one).

I had so much fun watching these three movies. Like I said, the second one is my favourite and the third one is the weakest of the three, but they're all really good movies. Check them out if you can.

I think that's going to be it for me for this week. I'm going back to 2025 now, but I'll see you back in the 90s next week for more nostalgic fun. Until then have a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.   

My 90s Experience: Classic Star Wars: Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1994)

 Hey everyone, I'm back! So I really wanted to talk about the 1994 re-release of Splinter of the Mind's Eye. More specifically the introduction that George Lucas wrote for the book, which was re-published on May 1st, 1994 under the Classic Star Wars banner. I don't have that edition, however, this version has been reprinted a couple of times since then. So, let's go back to 1994 and see what George Lucas had to say about Star Wars and this novel's place in the franchise.

1994 was an interesting year for Star Wars. The Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine became Star Wars Insider, Star Wars: TIE Fighter came out on the PC, and George Lucas started writing the prequels. Before that though George wrote an introduction to the new edition of the classic 1978 Star Wars novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

In the introduction, George talks about how he realized what a vast universe Star Wars could be when he was writing the original movie, and that he wasn't destined to tell all of the stories set in that world. He also talked about how it amazed him that today (1994) there were so many talented people writing stories inspired by the glimpse of the world of Star Wars that the movies showed. Of course, this was 1994 George Lucas, so he probably couldn't imagine what Star Wars would look like 31 years later.

And that my friends is it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow to talk about The Mighty Ducks, D2: The Mighty Ducks, and D3: The Mighty Ducks. Until then have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

My Star Wars Experience: Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster (1978)

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well! I'm back with the next installment of "My Star Wars Experience". Today I'm looking at the very first original novel that was published for Star Wars in 1978. It's the beginning of the Expanded Universe, now known as Legends (he Marvel Comics run from 1977 to 1986 was ignored until 2006 when Lumiya was introduced as the main antagonist of the first two books of the Legacy of the Force series). Let's get into it.

Written by Alan Dean Foster, Splinter of the Mind's Eye was written with the intention of turning it into a low budget sequel if Star Wars ended up being a moderate success, and a sequel novel if Star Wars ended up failing. That's why the book is set on a foggy planet, as that would be easy to film if the book had been turned into a low budget movie sequel that reused costumes and props from Star Wars. Luckily the movie was a huge success and the money made at the box office enabled George Lucas to make The Empire Strikes Back, which came out in 1980. Despite this book being iconic in terms of starting the novel section of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, many people overlook this book today, thinking it's weird. So, let's go back to 1978, when this book came out, and see where Star Wars was within its universe.  

Leia wasn't Luke's sister, Darth Vader wasn't Luke's father, Emperor Palpatine hadn't been introduced yet except as a name in the novelization of Star Wars, nor was he a Sith Lord named Darth Sidious he was just a dictator, the Clone Wars was just some conflict that happened many years before the events shown in Star Wars, Threepio wasn't built by Darth Vader when he was a boy named Anakin Skywalker, and there was no New Republic or First Order or High Republic or anything like that. Lando didn't even exist yet. Luke and Leia were friends, and possible love interests for each other, Threepio and Artoo were simply Droids built by a corporation however many years earlier, and Han Solo owned the Millennium Falcon with Chewbacca.

In the real world of 1978, there was no Star Wars franchise. It was just a movie called Star Wars and its sequel, then known as Star Wars II, was in development. George Lucas had twelve movies planned at this time, telling different stories, directed by different people, and following different characters in each trilogy. He would later scale that back to nine movies, and then eventually just six. There was also no TV shows, TV movies, streaming services or even home video. Though something I'll be talking about next week was about to air on television to the dismay of everyone in the world. I'll get into that next week though.

Like with the movie it was a book sequel to, Splinter of the Mind's Eye is a unique piece of Star Wars media. It's not only a book of the '70s, but, like the movie, it's also a very pulpy Science Fiction story. The characters's motives aren't super deep. Unlike Star Wars today, this more pulpy style of storytelling was what Star Wars was in the '70s. You can see it in the movie, comics, and this novel.

A lot of people find the Luke and Leia romance to be weird because of what we know about them today. However, as I mentioned earlier, they WEREN'T brother and sister at the time this book was published. Darth Vader wasn't their father yet either. Actually, only three months after this book was published, George Lucas wrote the second draft of Star Wars II, possibly titled Star Wars II: The Empire Strikes Back at this point, and this is the draft where he combined the characters of Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader into one character named Darth Vader. So Splinter of the Mind's Eye was the last novel written before the change from Anakin and Darth to Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader.

I like this novel. It's not my favourite Star Wars novel, but I like it because it's such an interesting artifact of Star Wars history. It shows what a sequel movie could've been had Star Wars not been as successful as it ended up being in 1977. 

That's it for me for now. However, I'll be back shortly for a look at the 1994 reprint of this book for My 90s Experience. Mainly because I want to talk about the introduction written by George Lucas for that edition, shortly before he began writing The Phantom Menace. Later.