The 1990s Are Still in My Head Quiz

Answer: Spice Girls

The Spice Girls formed in 1994 with the nicknames Scary Spice (Melanie Brown), Sporty Spice (Melanie Chisholm), Baby Spice (Emma Bunton), Ginger Spice (Geri Halliwell), and Posh Spice (Victoria Beckham). Their debut album, 'Spice' (1996), sold more than 23 million copies worldwide and became the best-selling album by an all-female group more than two decades into the 21st century.

The Spice Girls led the teen pop resurgence (of which bands like the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC were a part), and capitalized on the underground Grrrrl Power movement in music to make a mainstream "girl power" group. They also propelled an era of celebrity obsession in pop culture, according to journalist Paul Gorman. 'Entertainment Weekly' proclaimed them the bestselling girl group of all time in 2019, and they have certainly been on the bestselling artists and one of the most successful and recognized British pop groups since the Beatles.

Answer: Backstreet Boys

In the midst of the 1990s boy-band craze, the Backstreet Boys formed in 1993 in Orlando, Florida, where they debuted at Sea World as the opening act for Shamu, the orca. By the second decade of the 21st century, they had become the best-selling American boy band, with over 100 million records sold.

They are the first boy band to have their first ten albums reach the top ten on the Billboard 200, and the first artist/group since Led Zeppelin to accomplish this feat. The Backstreet Boys are also one of the few bands to have more than one album certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Answer: Alanis Morissette

Born in 1974 in Ottawa, Canada, Alanis Morissette started writing songs at age ten. She opened up for Vanilla Ice on his 1990 tour. She was only 16 when her first album, 'Alanis', was released in 1991. Her third album, 'Jagged Little Pill' became one of the most successful albums of all time, having sold more than 33 million copies worldwide. Through the 2010s it held the record as the world's second best-selling album by a female artist (behind Shania Twain's Come On Over') and the world's best-selling debut album. With 'Jagged Little Pill', Morissette became the first Canadian woman to have a number one album on the US Billboard charts, and the first Canadian to have a double-diamond record.

Morissette wrote "Uninvited" for the soundtrack of the romantic fantasy film "City of Angels" (1998). Nominated for three Grammy Awards in 1999, "Uninvited" won Best Female Rock Vocal Performance and Best Rock Song.

Overall, Alanis Morissette was the second singer from Ottawa to have great charting success in America (the first being Paul Anka). A model when she was in her teens, she also acted on television as a child in the series 'You Can't Do That on Television', and in the movie 'Dogma' (1999) she played the role of God.

Answer: 98 Degrees

Whereas most American boy bands are manufactured by producers, 98 Degrees formed on their own in 1996 in Los Angeles, California (although all four founding members originally came from Ohio). They distinguished themselves from the boy bands of the 1990s like the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC by emphasizing that they wrote their own songs and that their work had more R&B than pop roots, and 98 rejected the "boy band" label preferring "vocal group".

They disbanded in 2002 but reunited at the Summer Mixtape Festival in Hershey, Pennsylvania in 2012.

Answer: Christina Aguilera

Born in New York City, Christina Aguilera debuted as a child star singing 'The Star-Spangled Banner' at the 1992 Stanley Cup Finals. She was also part of a cohort of child performers on 'The Mickey Mouse Club' (1993-96) who later became stars, including Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, during the teen pop surge of the 1990s. The songs "Genie in a Bottle", "What a Girl Wants", and "Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You)" were hits from her 1999 self-titled debut album. "Genie" topped the US Billboard 100 chart and the charts of many other countries, and the album surged to number one on the US Billboard 200. RIAA certified it 8X platinum!

Her career continued well beyond the 1990s, a time when she had less artistic control. A more mature and assertive Aguilera defied the executives at RCA with a cover of Labelle's 1974 hit "Lady Marmalade", made with Pink, Mıa, and Lil' Kim for the soundtrack of 'Moulin Rouge!' (2001). Aguilera really came into her own with the album 'Stripped' (2002) and its international breakout hit "Beautiful".

Christina Aguilera's vocal technique has been compared to Whitney Houston's and Mariah Carey's, extensively using melisma (singing one syllable over multiple notes, and in their case in a rather virutostic manner).

Answer: TLC

The name of the American girl group TLC was formed by the initials of the nicknames of the two founding members Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, and then Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas who joined a little later. The threesome made a number of hit singles in the 1990s including "Creep", "Waterfalls", "No Scrubs", and "Unpretty". The album 'CrazySexyCool' (1994) went platinum, as did three others. TLC was the first R&B group that the Recording Industry of Japan (RIAJ) awarded a Million certificate, for 'FanMail' (1999). They were inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame in 2022. Decades into the 21st century, TLC remained the best-selling American girl group internationally, with over 85 million records sold.

Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes died in an automobile accident in 2002, but TLC continued as a duo. A documentary Lopes was producing at the time her death was released posthumously as "The Last Days of Left Eye".

Answer: *NSYNC

American record producer Lou Pearlman met Chris Kirkpatrick and told him he would finance a boy band if Kirkpatrick would form one, and so Kirkpatrick recruited the rest of the group. Jason Galasso was originally the bass singer before he dropped out, not being interested in becoming a teen idol. (Lance Bass replaced him). They made only one album (self-titled) with Lou Pearlman before becoming embroiled in multi-year legal battles with him to break ties. They succeeded, and their second album 'No Strings Attached' (2000) sold over 2.4 million copies in one week, a record that remained unbroken for fifteen years. NSYNC went on hiatus in 2002, though they performed together occasionally after that.

Their name has been variously styled as *NSYNC, NSYNC, and 'N Sync (the one this writer remembers most from the 1990s!)

Answer: Destiny's Child

Formed in Houston, Texas, the vocal group started in 1990 as a quartet called Girl's Thyme before reducing to a trio in 1997 called Destiny's Child, with the best-known lineup being Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland, and Michelle Williams. With hits like their debut single "No, No, No" (1997), along with number one hits "Bills, Bills, Bills" and "Say My Name" from their second album, 'Writing's on the Wall' (1999), they became one of the biggest R&B girl groups to emerge from the 1990s, and Billboard ranked them as one of most successful musical trios in history. Destiny's Child continued to work in the next century, releasing 'Survivor' (2001) and 'Destiny Fulfilled' (2004), although there was a lot of internal conflict and some changes in membership.

They formally disbanded in 2006, allowing the members to pursue solo careers in entertainment.

Answer: Hanson

The American group Hanson -- made up of the brothers Isaac, Taylor, and Zac Hanson -- first recorded the song "MMMBop" at a slower tempo in the 1996 indie album 'MMMBop', but producers known as the Dust Brothers re-recorded a more upbeat version. That's the version that appeared on the album 'Middle of Nowhere', and it's one of the few pop hits in a major key (A major, to be precise). It was ranked number 20 on music TV channel VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the 90s". Larry Flick in 'Billboard' magazine called the song "what the Jackson 5 might sound like with the accompaniment of a skittling funk beat and scratchy faux-grunge guitars". He called it "the making of a runaway smash", and he was right, as the song hit number one in several countries, including the USA, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Germany.

Hanson formed in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and all the Hanson brothers wrote their own music and play multiple instruments, and they continued to perform into the 21st century. The Dust Brothers are Michael Simpson and John King, who also go by the professional names E.Z. Mike and King Gizmo.

Answer: Nirvana

The alternative rock band Nirvana was formed in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987 and soon established itself in the Seattle grunge scene. Their second album 'Nevermind' (1991) brought them unexpected mainstream success with the singles "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Come as You Are". They fused the pop, post-punk, and noise genres and sang abject lyrics of alienation and despair, and they were wildly popular. Their third album, 'In Utero' (1993) featured the in-demand moody track "Heart-Shaped Box", which for fear of hurting album sales was not released as a single (physically as a 45-rpm record) in the United States but received ample airplay on radio stations.

Nirvana was hitting its stride as they redefined popular music and voiced Generation-X angst, when sadly in 1994, frontman Kurt Cobain took his own life.
The group disbanded at that point, although they did play reunion performances and make reissues of their songs in the 2000s-2010s.