Where are my 80s kids at? It’s hard to believe that the all-time best year for music was 20 years ago.

What did 1997 look like to you? For me, it was the tail end of 5th grade and the beginning of 6th grade. I turned 11 in 1997, which sounds so young.

But you know what 11 looked like? Boys and body glitter and hair mascara and tiger beat and the mall and puberty and summer camp and mixtapes and burned CDs and my first e-mail address (tommygirl_200@yahoo.com).

It was a formative time.

1997 was the year that I truly discovered music. I would go to the mall with friends and buy singles on tape and CD. My friends and I would listen to the radio after school and wait for our songs to come on. We would make mixtapes by recording songs off the radio.

At first, I wondered– was 1997 fantastic because I discovered music, or did I discover music because 1997 was fantastic?

Perhaps it was a little bit of both, but there’s no denying that a ridiculous density of amazing songs came out of 1997.

My heart swells with nostalgia, and I invite you to enjoy the original songs of the summer! Feel free to follow me on Spotify!

pin this list for later, then scroll down to listen to your favorites!

did I leave out your favorite song of 1997? let me know below!

or, if you’d like to argue that another year was better than 1997, feel free…and good luck! 😉