3 One-Hit Wonders From the Late 1990s That ‘Total Request Live’ Made Famous

You just had to be there. And if you were, you know what I mean. That’s right, the late 1990s were quite the time, especially when it came to popular music. Fear of Y2K loomed, and the carnage of grunge depression and east coast-west coast rap battles were in the rear view mirror. The world wanted pop music, and MTV’s after-school program Total Request Live was happy to oblige.

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The hour-long program hosted by Carson Daly helped create a buzz for myriad songs, from boy bands to pop starlets to a certain sharp-tongued Detroit-based rapper eager to tell us his name. But it also helped create fame and fortune for several one-hit wonders. Want to take a walk down memory lane? Indeed, these are three one-hit wonders from the late 1990s that TRL made famous.

“Save Tonight” by Eagle-Eye Cherry from ‘Desireless’ (1997)

A popular song and music video that TRL played over and over, this track from the Swedish musician Eagle-Eye Cherry dropped in 1997 and hit No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. The tune is all about the power of now. Don’t think about tomorrow, don’t worry about the future. No, think about this moment, this night that you have on your hands this instant. For in a way, that’s all we ever have. Using a lovely dulcet singing voice, Eagle-Eye Cherry was as convincing as any vocalist, and it was with that clarity that he found his way into our hearts and minds.

“What It’s Like” by Everlast from ‘Whitey Ford Sings The Blues’ (1999)

The song that made every tough guy in your high school want to pick up an acoustic guitar, this track from the former House of Pain rapper showed that old dogs can learn new tricks. Way before Machine Gun Kelly, Everlast moved from hip-hop to guitar-based music when he released his 1999 LP, Whitey Ford Sings The Blues. On it came his hit storytelling track, “What It’s Like”, which hit No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and told the stories of some damaged, downtrodden people. A great sense of melody met some nice finger-picking acoustic on this number.

“Praise You” by Fatboy Slim from ‘You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby’ (1999)

This song, which hit No. 36 on the Billboard Hot 100, is a romp. Released by the British-born beat maker Fatboy Slim, it’s a dance song that is befitting of a solo party in your living room or a giant flash mob in the middle of a city like London or New York. It’s one we can all get behind. And that was the mood in 1999 when it was released, and TRL decided to make it a pet song for its daily program. It’s like its composer found the fountain of joy and bottled it for us all to sample whenever we wanted.

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