132 Love Songs From the 1990s

Were the 1990s good to you? While many Gen Xers got married in the 1990s, Gen Y grew up on the decade's television, music, and technology scene.

The economy experienced a resurgence with the introduction and growth of the internet. We ran out to our local stores for free promotional discs to sign up for Earthlink or AOL email accounts. (Some of us still use those email addresses!) We used clunky search engines like Lycos, WebCrawler, or Excite for dial-up internet service. Our 35 mm cameras (with actual film) served us well. So did our pagers, fax machines, Sony Discman and MP3 players, and those answering machines for our landline phones. If all of that sounds ancient, how about this throwback: Remember when Amazon.com sold only books and Blockbuster carried all the latest VCR tapes?

Back then, we looked stylish in our Mom jeans, Doc Martens, jelly shoes, grunge wear, or goth gear, and we caught Seinfeld and Friends every Thursday without fail. Collecting Beanie Babies was an obsession. (What did you do with yours?)

Of course, the decade wasn't all fun and games. There were tragedies and turmoil both at home and abroad, including:

• the Persian Gulf War
• the Clinton-Lewinsky matter and that blue dress
• mass shootings at Columbine
• the deaths of Princess Diana and Mother Theresa within a week of one another
• the Oklahoma City bombing
• the Los Angeles riots and
• widespread fear of Y2K as the new millennium approached.

However you spent ups and downs of the 1990s, hopefully, there was love in your life to see you through. Bring back the memories of this change-filled decade with a nostalgic playlist of pop, rock, country, and R&B love songs.

Unless you were hiding under a rock throughout the1990s, then you must certainly recall when this song was all the rage. Whitney's spine-tingling high notes are unmistakable.

The year was 1992, and the powerhouse vocalist recorded a cover of the 1974 Dolly Parton country song for The Bodyguard, the motion picture she was co-starring in. The song describes the bittersweet parting between a man and woman. As they part company, the narrator wishes her friend well and promises to remember him fondly. Houston's version became a phenomenally successful R&B, pop, and adult contemporary crossover hit which spent 14 weeks at the top of the Billboard charts, a record at the time. When Whitney Houston died in 2012, the song once again entered the Billboard charts and peaked at number 3.

Although Aerosmith had been making music since the 1970s, this rockin' love song from 1998 was the band's biggest hit, topping the charts across the globe. The guy in their song doesn't want to surrender to sleep because he just wants to stare at his lover as she dreams. Although that may sound a little creepy to some, be assured that his intentions are pure. He is completely smitten with his honey and fears that if he closes his eyes, he might miss her smile, the flutter of her eyes, her heartbeat.

The ditty was inspired by a 1997 Barbara Walters interview of James Brolin and Barbara Streisand. In the interview, Brolin awkwardly confessed that he missed his partner when he slept. (Old people love goals.) The couple married in 1998.

This upbeat 1990 rock song received heavy rotation on MTV (which was a continuous music video channel at that time). In the song's video Janet pranced around in her high-waisted Mom jeans on the beach while threatening to spill out of her tight cami top.

The tune was a chart-topper internationally and celebrated a successful relationship between opposites. The narrator is pleased that she and her lover always seem to iron out any conflicts that arise between them. Although their friends swore they'd never make it, somehow the couple always proves them wrong.

Janet Jackson was inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.

Shania Twain was a young Canadian singer who was beginning her country recording career in Nashville when the famous record producer "Mutt" Lange tracked her down at Fan Fair in 1993. He offered to write songs with her and produce her music. It was a Beauty-and-the-Beast-type of love attraction involving a man almost two decades her senior. They married later that year, and he helped catapult her to country and pop crossover superstardom.

By 1998, Shania was singing this song about how her lover was still the one turning her on. The song's narrator shows pride that the love relationship has beaten the odds and is still going strong romantically. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for Shania and Mutt. He cheated on her with her best friend, and the two were divorced in 2010. Mutt married his mistress and in a plot twist you couldn't make up, Shania married the mistress' husband.

None of us flourish in life without the guidance and assistance of others. This heartwarming 1996 song pays tribute to those contributions. The Grammy Award-winning song became a worldwide smash hit and is Celine Dion's biggest song. Use it when you want to express true gratitude to a best friend or loved one for their loyalty, strength, and unwavering support through both difficult and triumphant times. Better yet, express your gratitude with an entire playlist of songs that say thank you.

This soft rock love ballad represented a significant departure from Extreme's usual metal sound, but it proved to be a recipe for success for the band. The mellow number describes how the narrator wants more than to merely hear his partner utter the words, "I love you." Instead, he needs to see her demonstrate how much she cares through her attitudes and actions. The song was Extreme's only number one mainstream hit.

Before the friend zone was even a named thing, the woman in this 1992 pop song felt hopelessly stuck in it. Her male friend confided the details of his dramatic love life and shared his wishes and dreams with her while she silently pined away for him. Rather than professing her hopeless crush on him, she listened and waited patiently for his love.

Then something magic happened: he saw her in a romantic light. She got the fairytale ending she had been hoping for all along.

The chart-topping tune became a signature song for Vanessa Williams and allowed her to redeem herself in the public eye. After being crowned the first African American Miss America in 1984, Williams was pressured to resign after it was discovered that Penthouse magazine had obtained unauthorized nude photos of her and planned to publish them.

Anyone who has ever been abandoned by a lover can relate to the longing and searing pain expressed in this 1990 hit. Although written and first recorded by Prince, the song was made famous by Sinéad O'Connor. The power ballad describes a narrator's stark loneliness without her partner in her life.

Now alone, she counts the desolate days since her other half ripped out her heart and withdrew his love. Although she has the freedom to do whatever she wants, she feels like a bird without a song. Nothing compares to her lover.

Although the song was a widespread success, ranking at the top of the charts across the world, it was O'Connor's only mainstream Top 40 hit. This effectively made her a one-hit wonder.

This high octane declaration of passion and commitment snagged Meat Loaf both a Grammy Award and his only number one hit. (Unfortunately, he didn't properly credit the female soloist in the song, later identified as Lorraine Crosby. She was merely referred to as "Mrs. Loud.")

In the 1993 heavy rock ballad, the narrator pledges how he would do anything—well, almost—for love. He offers dramatic examples, including running into hell and back and taking a vow and sealing a pact. However, if you're like me, you probably wonder what exactly he's referring to when he says he'd do anything for love but he won't do that. (Hey, don't let your mind go to dark places. The answer is in the lyrics.)

As the love-struck narrator persuades his sweetheart of his devotion, he describes five things he would never do:

• "I'll never lie to you (and that's a fact)"
• "I'll never forget the way you feel right now"
• "I'll never forgive myself if we don't go all the way tonight"
• "I'll never do it better than I do it with you" and
• "I'll never stop dreaming of you."

Because his lover still doesn't completely trust his promises, she retorts that eventually he'll become bored and realize it's time to move on or inevitably sooner or later he'll be screwin' around. Nope. He swears those are two additional things he won't do.

This 1995 love ballad was the second song that All-4-One borrowed from country singer John Michael Montgomery to make an R&B/pop crossover hit. (In both instances, I prefer the country version.)

The ditty features a man who promises to grant the woman he loves a fairytale ending. She grew up reading stories of Cinderella, watching all the romcoms, and dreaming of her very own Prince Charming. Now he entreaties her to open up her heart and look at him as a potential love match because he has so much tenderness and love to provide.

Aftereffects of a breakup can leave you wounded and shellshocked as you try to get your bearings and move on. The girl in this 1996 folk-styled love song misses her ex-boyfriend and hopes that he will return as she goes about her daily routine.

She mentions small details of vulnerability—keys left in the door, spots on the mirror, leaving the light on—to signify that she's struggling to make sense of the giant hole left in her life by this loss. What did she do to make him go away? She can't yet wrap her head around his leaving because they were meant for one another.

Infused with the blues, this flirty 1991 rock song won Bonnie Raitt another Grammy Award. (She has a total of 10). The ditty playfully describes how there is talk about town that the narrator and her friend stand too close, laugh too loud, and stare too long to be "just friends." The narrator pretends to be caught off guard by the rumors that they are lovers. Having ulterior motives, she suggests that maybe others see something they don't. Why not prove the rumors true? Bonnie Raitt was named one of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time according to Rolling Stone magazine.

If people are whispering about you and your good friend, why not make a playlist of songs about rumors and gossip then set out to really make folks talk?

When Saddam Hussein invaded then annexed Kuwait, gas prices jumped from just under $1.00 a gallon to $1.25 a gallon overnight. Before long we had a war on our hands. We sent troops overseas for Operation Desert Storm, and this song became an anthem for all of the lovers separated by miles and uncertainty.

The 1991 R&B/pop crossover song was Oleta Adams' only Top 40 hit. The emotional ballad describes a woman who wishes to bridge the distance between herself and her significant other through any transportation method possible. She implores him to "get here if you can." Among her suggested modes of travel are:

• railway
• airplane
• hot air balloon
• sailboat
• magic carpet ride
• swinging rope to rope from the trees
• riding a speedy colt across the borders and
• caravan "cross the desert like an Arab man."

The 1990s had its share of one-hit wonders, and unfortunately, the rock band Steelheart was one of them with this electric guitar-intense love song. The 1991 number describes with soaring vocals how the protagonist had long dreamed about holding a woman like the one he loves now. As she rests in his arms, he promises to hold onto her forever, this goddess with the angel eyes.

A romantic invitation to kiss beneath the moonlight as the fireflies dance about…that's what this sweet pop song from 1998 is about. It was featured in the television series Dawson's Creek as well as several films.

Although Sixpence None the Richer is a Christian rock band, there has been ongoing controversy about the unspecified genders of the lovers involved in this love song. (One lover is in a dress and the other is in a flowered hat.) No judgment here, but people weren't as open in the 1990s as they are now.

Opposites may attract, but they typically spell more disharmony.

We couldn't get enough of Hootie & The Blowfish back in the 1990s. "Only Wanna Be with You" was the group's most famous song. The 1995 rock number refers to a man's love for his girlfriend. They both come from different worlds, want different things, and don't even seem to get along all that well. However, he just knows he loves her and wants to be with her. Who, like me, has been there too?

The song's lyrics feature a tribute to Bob Dylan by citing several Dylan songs and lyrics, something Dylan's management company knew about in advance. However, when the tune became a commercial success, Dylan sued Hootie & The Blowfish and received an out-of-court settlement in 1995.

Don't you wish hearts could be unbroken? The lovelorn woman in this 1996 R&B/pop crossover hit pleads with a lover who has left her feeling broken and dejected. She begs him to return and undo all the suffering he has created in abandoning her. Sadly, she perceives the exclusive solution to stopping her tears as reuniting with him. Girl, get a hold of yourself. He's gone.

The song won a Grammy Award, became an international smash hit, and is widely known as Toni Braxton's signature song.

Based on this 1991 Grammy Award-winning remake of Percy Sledge's classic, one might believe that men are the more emotional sex. This ditty features a man who realizes he is helplessly blind to his sweetheart's faults and thinks of nothing else but her.

Swept up in love, the narrator is willing to subject himself to self-denial to make his lover happy. He will gladly play the fool to keep her affections. The desperate, tender-hearted narrator promises to protect his partner's honor against all threats, even if that means turning away from his best friend. With Michael Bolton's soaring vocals, the song hit number one on charts across the globe.

Brian McKnight was at the peak of his career when he released this 1999 R&B/pop crossover hit that counted off all the reasons he and his lover belonged together. According to him, their love is undeniable and she has breathed new life into his lonely heart. The international hit song became McKnight's signature song.

Some relationships feel as if they were written in destiny. This 1999 pop song details the surreal feeling that one's romance is fated and provides the missing pieces one has been searching for:

I knew I loved you before I met you
I think I dreamed you into life
I knew I loved you before I met you
I have been waiting all my life.