35. No Doubt – “New”
Return of Saturn, the album No Doubt would eventually release in 2000, was their final before becoming a fully-fledged pop act, and it presents a band still deeply rooted in ska and punk despite their obvious mainstream sensibilities and ambition. “New,” which came out the year prior on the soundtrack of the Doug Limon film Go, was produced by The Talking Heads’ Jerry Harrison, and is a raw but satisfying pop-punk number led by sawtoothed riffs and garbage can snares. At the center is a yearning Gwen Stefani, begging to be able to savor the taste of something new. Here, she is singing about a boy, of course, but two years later came “Hey Baby,” the delectable synth-heavy chart smash that made pop too irresistible for No Doubt. — JORDAN SARGENT
34. Powerman 5000 – “When Worlds Collide”
Michael Cummings is Rob Zombie’s younger brother—and he sounds like it. As frontman of the industrial-metal band Powerman 5000, he too has a silly-awesome stage name—Spider One—and a thing for the sound of sleazy hard rock riffs rubbing up against slick dancefloor drums. Putting aside any notions you may have about ’90s hairstyles and squelchy synths, “When Worlds Collide,” by far P5k’s biggest hit, holds up. The band finds a sweet spot between headbanging and hip-shaking, and Spider is a campy and charismatic presence. — ANDY CUSH
33. Marilyn Manson – “I Don’t Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me)”
Marilyn Manson’s Mechanical Animals, his Bowie-esque glam-rock space-opera concept album, gets its version of the Thin White Duke’s funky “Fame.” This strutting, chicken-scratching tune also features a guitar solo from Dave Navarro and Young Americans-style soul-singer backing vocals. “We wanted to do a song that captured that era: that ’70s disco-rock cocaine music, with Bowie and the Stones,” guitarist Twiggy Ramirez told Guitar World. “When all the rock bands went disco. Aerosmith did it. Kiss’ Dynasty. It was a weird era of Studio 54, cocaine, “boogie nights” and rock music turning disco that I remember growing up in.” — WINSTON COOK-WILSON
32. Nine Inch Nails – “Starfuckers Inc.”
True to its title, the fourth single from The Fragile is an anthem of undisguised contempt for the rich and famous and their various hangers-on. In our era of treacly celebrity worship and everyone loving everyone, its sentiment feels distinctly of another era, in ways both good and bad. (The literal personification of a starfucker as a “whore” who will “suck you off [and] not a drop will go to waste,” and the patently insane grunted “ASS KISSER!” ad-lib before the second chorus, fall solidly in the latter category.) The verses are full of jungle breakbeats and IDM vocal chops, the instrumental breaks are all searing noise, the chorus is a power-chord punk shout-along, and the bridge, out of nowhere, offers a brief ambient-electro interpolation of a Carly Simon song. If the lyrics to “Starfuckers Inc.” are a touch old-fashioned and obvious, the music still sounds like an unpredictable future. — ANDY CUSH
31. The Cranberries – “Promises”
The Cranberries first performed this raucous guitar-driven jaunt at the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, before it was eventually released as the lead single for the band’s underappreciated 1999 album Bury the Hatchet. A straightforward and angry rock song about the dissolution of a marriage, “Promises” lets the late great vocalist Dolores O’Riordan show off her incredible range and power. — MAGGIE SEROTA
