There’s nothing more boring than listening to people over 40 drone on and on about how music used to be better in the past. Having said that, those of us who are 40 and over have a hard time letting go of the music we heard growing up, and a harder time letting go of the stuff we listened to when we were in our 20s and had our whole lives ahead of us.

 There’s a strong emotional connection to that music, one that perhaps clouds our ability to appreciate the new stuff. Here’s a rundown of the top five songs in the United States in 1974, 1984, and 1994, with our comments about how today’s music stacks up against the oldies. Yes, music from the 1990s now qualifies as “oldies.”

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1. ‘Dancing Machine’ by the Jackson 5 (1974)

“Dancing Machine” was the fifth highest-selling song of 1974, according to Billboard’s year-end tally.  Honestly, it’s surprising that it wasn’t number one. This almost universally beloved song will get any party going within seconds, even if the only party you’re having involves vacuuming the living room or decluttering the attic. Few songs in 2024 are likely to have a similar effect.

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2. ‘Come and Get Your Love’ by Redbone (1974)

Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love” was the fourth highest-selling song of 1974. It’s a very good-natured song and a lot of fun on its own, but you need to see it performed live (including the ritualistic pre-song chanting) to get the full effect. Musically, its mix of enthusiasm, sincerity, and infectious melodies is engaging in a very innocent and good-natured way. Also, few (if any) rock bands today consist entirely of North American indigenous people.

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3. ‘Love’s Theme’ by Love Unlimited Orchestra (1974)

The third highest-selling song of 1974, “Love’s Theme,” was already a rarity upon release for being an instrumental song, to say nothing of becoming a hit anyway. This is unlikely to happen again in this day and age to a song without lyrics, and even if it did, the song would likely not chart, much less become one of the highest-charting songs of the year.

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4. ‘Seasons in the Sun’ by Terry Jacks (1974)

Sometimes, “they don’t make ’em like they used to” is the good news. This inane, easy-listening song sounds like nothing made today for numerous reasons, chief among them that this style of music went extinct decades ago, and the people who still have a career in soft rock are just the heavyweights like Barry Manilow. However, 50 years ago, it was the second highest-charting song of the year. Maybe it’s good that the past is dead.

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5. ‘The Way We Were’ by Barbra Streisand (1974)

The highest-charting song of 1974, “The Way We Were” was and still is a favorite of the brokenhearted and lovelorn the world over. Indeed, if you’re tearfully clutching a framed photo of you and your ex, it’s the ideal soundtrack for your wailing and caterwauling. Stylistically, though, it’s very much a product of its time, and whether you love it or loathe it, you have to admit that no artist in the year 2024 could deliver the schmaltz like Babs does.     

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6. ‘Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)’ by Phil Collins (1984)

“Against All Odds” was the fifth highest-selling song of 1984, and you may recognize it from elevators, dentists’ offices, and any other location where they pipe in horrible, easy-listening music to prolong your suffering. There is still lots of relentlessly uninteresting and mediocre music being made today, but without MTV serving as a delivery system for it as it did for Phil Collins in the 1980s, you’re not likely to hear much music that sounds like this today.

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7. ‘Footloose’ by Kenny Loggins (1984)

For reasons modern science has yet to explain, the 1984 Kevin Bacon movie “Footloose” was remade in 2011, and the new version came and went pretty quickly, because why would anyone remake “Footloose”? The title song, the fourth highest-selling song of 1984, was covered by Blake Shelton for the movie soundtrack, and that version peaked at number 63 on the Billboard Hot 100. There was no demand for a 21st-century reboot of the song, and 13 years later, nothing has transpired to suggest that the Kenny Loggins version will ever be dethroned.

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8. ‘Say, Say, Say’ by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson (1984)

Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson have better material in their respective catalogs than this collaboration. However, it still has the musical qualities that made each of them famous in their own right. The songwriting is there, the melody is there, and the vocals are there, and even “fifth Beatle” George Martin is on hand for production duties. Nothing today holds a candle to it, partly because there’s no one like Michael Jackson or George Martin anymore, both of them singular talents who broke the mold.

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9. ‘What’s Love Got to Do with It’ by Tina Turner (1984)

The second highest-selling song of 1984 was “What’s Love Got to Do with It” by the late, great Tina Turner. There’s nothing like it today in part because there’s no artist out there with the same story as Turner, who endured absolutely infernal abuse during her life and whose hard-won freedom and wisdom can be heard in every note of this song.

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10. ‘When Doves Cry’ by Prince (1984)

“When Doves Cry” by Prince is not just evidence that Prince Rogers Nelson could be a little peculiar sometimes. The highest-selling song of 1984, it sounds like nothing before or since, and the arrangement – which features not one note of bass – was and still is mostly unheard of in R&B music. The fact that a lot of people never even noticed the absence of the bass is one thing that makes this song one of a kind.  

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11. ‘Hero’ by Mariah Carey (1994)

“Hero” by Mariah Carey was the fifth highest-selling song of 1994, and stylistically, you’re not going to hear much stuff out there that sounds like it, because few singers today can reach those ridiculously high notes without a Phil Spector-esque producer tyrannical enough to elicit them. Whether her music is your thing or not, you have to give her credit for hitting those notes naturally and not doing a Milli Vanilli and miming to the sounds.

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12. ‘The Power of Love’ by Celine Dion (1994)

Just like with Mariah Carey, you may not particularly care for Celine Dion’s particular take on singing. However, you can’t deny that she possessed an extremely powerful voice in her 1990s heyday, and it’s part of why “The Power of Love” was the fourth highest-selling song of 1994. Sadly, Dion has been suffering from a rare neurological disease that forced her to cancel her last tour, so it seems unlikely that she’ll be able to produce music like she did during the “Titanic” years.

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13. ‘I’ll Make Love to You’ by Boyz II Men (1994)

Vocal harmony groups like Boyz II Men were all the rage during the 1990s, making it easy to understand why “I’ll Make Love to You” sold enough copies to become the third highest-selling song of 1994. Of course, if that’s all there had been to it, this song would have been forgotten the minute a new fad came along, but the fact remains that it’s endured for 30 years and has been a perennial slow-dance favorite ever since.

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14. ‘I Swear’ by All-4-One (1994)

“I Swear” was originally a country song sung by John Michael Montgomery in 1993, but despite coming first, that’s not the version everyone knows. The All-4-One version is, so much so that many people may not even know it’s a cover. It was produced by David Foster, the soft-rock schlockmeister who turned Chicago from an interesting horn-based rock band to a treacly adult contemporary hit factory, and he does the same service for these guys, smoothing out all of their edges and making them utterly uninteresting. Having said all that, the song is stuck in your head now, isn’t it?

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15. ‘The Sign’ by Ace of Base (1994)

“The Sign” by Ace of Base was on the radio relentlessly in 1994, which undoubtedly helped it become the highest-selling song of the year. It’s inoffensive enough, but otherwise, it’s hard to understand why this Swedish group sold enough copies to beat every other artist with a single that year. Unlike many other songs on this list, this could easily be made today, even though it’s nowhere near as good as anything released by other great Swedish bands, like ABBA. It’s not even good enough to be Roxette. We’re sure the members of Ace of Base are very sad to read that from the back seat of the Rolls Royce that’s taking them to the mansion they bought with the royalties.

This article was produced and syndicated by MediaFeed.

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