| — |  ▶ | Come As You AreNirvana, 1991. A chorus-pedal riff Cobain worried was too close to another band's | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | WonderwallOasis, 1995. The song every guitar shop had to ban | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | ...Baby One More TimeBritney Spears, 1998. A Swedish demo written for TLC, who passed | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | No ScrubsTLC, 1999. A word entered the language and never left | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | WaterfallsTLC, 1995. A pop single about HIV and drug money, at number one | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | WannabeSpice Girls, 1996. One continuous take through a London hotel | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | CreepRadiohead, 1992. The band grew to hate it and still had to play it | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Bitter Sweet SymphonyThe Verve, 1997. A four-bar string sample cost them every penny of royalties | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Losing My ReligionR.E.M., 1991. A mandolin line that Stipe assumed would never be a single | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Under the BridgeRed Hot Chili Peppers, 1991. A poem about being alone in Los Angeles, set to guitar | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Black Hole SunSoundgarden, 1994. Cornell wrote it in fifteen minutes, mishearing a news anchor | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Even FlowPearl Jam, 1991. Recorded fifty-plus times before the band accepted a take | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | EverlongFoo Fighters, 1997. Grohl calls it the one he never gets tired of | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Basket CaseGreen Day, 1994. A panic disorder, played at two hundred beats per minute | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Song 2Blur, 1997. Two minutes written as a joke about American rock | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | ZombieThe Cranberries, 1994. A protest song a label begged them not to release | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | I Want It That WayBackstreet Boys, 1999. Nobody, including the band, knows what the lyrics mean | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | I Will Always Love YouWhitney Houston, 1992. Dolly Parton's song, opened a cappella on Kevin Costner's idea | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | My Heart Will Go OnCeline Dion, 1997. James Cameron did not want a song in the film | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | IronicAlanis Morissette, 1996. Thirty years of arguments about what irony means | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Killing Me SoftlyFugees, 1996. A 1973 ballad rebuilt on a Tribe Called Quest beat | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Gangsta's ParadiseCoolio, 1995. Stevie Wonder allowed the sample only if the swearing came out | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | California Love2Pac ft. Dr. Dre, 1995. Recorded weeks after Tupac left prison | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | JuicyThe Notorious B.I.G., 1994. A rags-to-riches story with the receipts included | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | No DiggityBlackstreet, 1996. Teddy Riley's beat, plus a Bill Withers piano loop | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | SabotageBeastie Boys, 1994. Bass fuzz and a fake seventies cop show | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Bulls on ParadeRage Against the Machine, 1996. Tom Morello's guitar imitating a scratch DJ | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Enter SandmanMetallica, 1991. The riff that moved thrash onto daytime radio | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | November RainGuns N' Roses, 1991. Nine minutes, an orchestra, and a wedding that goes badly | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | LoserBeck, 1993. Recorded in a friend's kitchen, then sold two million copies | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Semi-Charmed LifeThird Eye Blind, 1997. The sunniest song about crystal meth ever put on radio | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | What's Up?4 Non Blondes, 1992. One question, screamed, for four and a half minutes | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | TornNatalie Imbruglia, 1997. A cover of a cover, which nobody realized for years | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Truly Madly DeeplySavage Garden, 1997. Australia's contribution to every school slow dance | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | MMMBopHanson, 1997. Three brothers, one nonsense chorus, a genuinely sad lyric | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Genie in a BottleChristina Aguilera, 1999. Released three months after Britney, by design | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | BelieveCher, 1998. The first hit built around Auto-Tune, used deliberately | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Barbie GirlAqua, 1997. Mattel sued. Mattel lost | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Ice Ice BabyVanilla Ice, 1990. The first rap single to top the Billboard chart | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | U Can't Touch ThisMC Hammer, 1990. Rick James got a writing credit and a fortune | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Nothing Compares 2 USinéad O'Connor, 1990. One unbroken close-up, one real tear | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | TubthumpingChumbawamba, 1997. An anarchist collective accidentally writing a stadium chant | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Karma PoliceRadiohead, 1997. A car, a rear seat, and a man who should not have followed | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | All StarSmash Mouth, 1999. A modest hit in 1999, immortal on the internet after | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Say My NameDestiny's Child, 1999. Two members were replaced mid-video shoot | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Livin' la Vida LocaRicky Martin, 1999. One of the first entirely digital number one records | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | SmoothSantana, 1999. A comeback single that spent twelve weeks at number one | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | FirestarterThe Prodigy, 1996. A rave act that got itself banned from daytime television | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Around the WorldDaft Punk, 1997. Three words, one hundred and forty-four repetitions | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Kiss from a RoseSeal, 1994. Written years earlier, shelved, then rescued by a Batman film | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | Buddy HollyWeezer, 1994. Spike Jonze spliced the band into a fifties sitcom | — win | — match wins |
| — |  ▶ | FantasyMariah Carey, 1995. Tom Tom Club on the bottom, whistle register on top | — win | — match wins |