This is the second of 10 posts. One post for every year of the decade that was the 1990s. For an introduction into this series and why I felt like doing these blog posts, read this first.
As 1991 came along, my interest in music grew. So did my favourable appreciation of rap music. As you’ll read below in my conclusion, the following songs were favourites of mine at the time — not necessarily the best in popular music 1991 had to offer.
L-R Clockwise: Naughty by Nature, Fresh Prince & DJ Jazzy Jeff, Marky Mark, Heavy D & Wet Wet Wet
EMF – “Unbelievable”
This was one of the most memorable hits from the 1990s. A number 1 song in the US and top 3 hit in their home country UK, EMF are largely known as a ‘one-hit wonder’. Still, given how often this song is still played and used on soundtracks, the band members are probably still living off of royalties from this song.
Naughty by Nature – “O.P.P.”
Sampling the hook from the Jackson 5’s “ABC,” this song was first big hit for Naughty by Nature. Of course, back then as a 9-year old, I assumed “O.P.P” was an abbreviation for “Other People’s Party”… until Wikipedia told me otherwise. With this song, Naughty by Nature was officially on my ever-expanding rap radar.
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince – “Summertime”
Fresh Prince a.k.a Will Smith was one of my favourite people in entertainment during the 1990s. Not just for his music with his friend DJ Jazzy Jeff, but he was also popular at the time for his sitcom “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air“. I even memorized the lyrics to the opening intro song. “Summertime” is still a fresh ‘Good Morning’ song!
Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch – “Good vibrations”
Before Mark Wahlberg became the badass actor he is now, Mark Wahlberg was a Calvin Klein underwear model, and before that, Mark Wahlberg was rapper Marky Mark. Funny, I know. Back then, he was famous for being the brother of Donnie Wahlberg (of NKOTB) and was one of the few white rappers on the pop scene.
Heavy D & The Boyz – “Now That We Found Love”
I used to love the chorus for this song! Heavy D was one of the biggest rappers back then — both literally and otherwise.
Wet Wet Wet – “Goodnight Girl”
Though rap ruled my world back then, I wasn’t incapable of appreciating melodious songs from Scottish bands like Wet Wet Wet. “Goodnight Girl” was a UK number one hit back in 1991 and one of the many good songs from the group that were hugely popular in Europe, but never made it in the US.
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It’s funny, when I look up some of the biggest hits that came out in 1991, I found so many songs that ended up becoming favourites as I matured into the 1990s. Songs like:
So yeah, mostly rock. I guess I was still into easy pop and rap at the time. Many of these songs still rank as some of my favourite songs ever, but looking at the above list of songs, 1991 surely was one heck of a year for music!
After two wonderful days in beautiful Langkawi, it was now time for the last leg of our journey. We reached Langkawi airport for our morning flight to Kuala Lumpur. After having our breakfast at Kenny Rogers Roasters (not a whole lot of options at the airport), we checked in and waited for our 11:45am flight.
Our flight was on time (Above photos taken on Nokia E72)
We all sat together but Ramesh chose the window seat. The following are his photographs.
That’s a wavebreaker
We landed at Kuala Lumpur Low Cost Terminal nearing 1pm and was out in 30 minutes. There were plenty of buses from KL LCCT to KL Sentral, which is the main transportation hub in Kuala Lumpur city.
We got a ManU fan for a driverThe bus ride costs RM8 (Rs. 117/$2.7)Soon after, it began to rain heavilyBut halfway through the journey, the rain stopped
Malaysia’s landmark in the distanceAfter nearly an hour, we arrived at KL Sentral
After reaching KL Sentral, we then hired a taxi to where were staying.
It cost us RM35 from KL Sentral to Berjaya Times Square
(Above photos taken on Nokia E72)
After a 15 minute journey, we reached Berjaya Times Square. There is a metro service from KL Sentral to Berjaya Times Square, but with our luggage, we decided to just take a cab.
We chose Irsia after much deliberation and researching on the location. We made our booking for a triple room.
Which by the way, looks like this
After freshening up and making our payments, we headed to Berjaya Times Square for lunch.
Berjaya Times Square is relatively old but still remains one of Malaysia’s biggest and popular shopping destinations. It’s pretty huge, with 7 floors of shopping — high ends brands in the lower floors and more affordable stuff in the higher up floors. There’s also a 5-star hotel, Berjaya Hotel — among other things.
(Photograph by Loiyumba)
We headed all the way up to the 10th floor to the food court. We chose our meals from a place selling ‘mock non-veg’ food.
Pick and choose
By that I mean, stuff that looks like chicken and fish but are actually vegetarian because they are essentially soya-filled made to look like non-veg items.
The view from up here
When I mentioned “among other things” earlier…
… there’s also an indoor theme park with a rollercoaster inside the building
I tried to the get the whole theme park section of the building in one frameWe stepped outAnd decided to check out the area we were in
We chose to stay at Irsia because it was close to a lot of places we wanted to go. One among them being Low Yat Plaza, Kuala Lumpur’s famous IT mall.
After crossing the road, it was a short walk to Low Yat
This isn’t the main entrance6 floors of gadgets
I couldn’t get to spend much time in Singapore’s IT malls to pick up the things I wanted, so I consoled myself assuming I could get them at Low Yat.
Sadly, the selection of camera tripods weren’t very exhaustive and I couldn’t really find everything I wanted. Also, more importantly, the prices we found for some items were far more than what we saw in Singapore. There isn’t an incentive for tourists either via a tax refund scheme like Singapore has with its GST refund and Thailand has with its VAT refund scheme.
I checked out pretty much every floor
After lingering around for nearly 30 minutes, we left.
We were soon on Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur’s popular shopping district.
A short walk from here is Jalan Alor, also nicknamed ‘Food Street’.
Not buzzing just quite yet
Quite a lot of malls in Bukit Bintang
KL’s monorail service (Photograph by Loiyumba)We were walking towards Malaysia’s world famous landmarkIt’s tall, but it isn’t KL TowerThat’s where we were headed — Petronas Twin TowersI had plans to go to Menara KL too
Menara KL (or KL Tower) is in fact taller than Petronas towers, but that’s because it’s perched atop a hillEven half of one tower is impressive to look at
Suria KLCC is the shopping mall (KLCC is the convention centre I believe)Plenty of bank headquarters in and around Petronas TowersStunning
We walked into Suria but there was a sign saying at certain sections of the mall, photography is prohibited. So we just kept our cameras in and walked through the mall and out the main entrance of Petronas Towers.
Petronas is the Malaysia’s national oil company — and one of Asia’s largest companies. Petronas Towers is the company’s headquarters, thought I’m not sure if all 88 floors are Petronas’ offices.
But what an office to work in!The lobby is quite niceThat’s the Skybridge observation deck. We planned to go check it out in the morning.
The reason why we we didn’t want to go up to the skybridge is because, one, we were already late as the skybridge closes at 5pm and two, there is a particular method to which you need to get the tickets to visit the observation deck — which I’ll get to in a later post.
I had to step back a bit to get the whole building in my wide angle
We attempted a portrait shot of all three of us in front of the Petronas Towes, but because we didn’t have a tripod with us, Ramesh fit the tripod on his camera and used his Kata bag to stand the camera.
Me donating some money to some Chinese school girlAfter a few attempts, we managed to get the shot
The Malaysian MotoGP was happening the following week, and they had some competing superbikes on display.
After nearly an hour just staring at this beautiful building, we finally left the base of Petronas Towers.
The Petronas Towers are a symbol of modern day Malaysia. Just like Burj-Al-Arab signifies Dubai, and now Burj Khalifa, the Petronas Towers are an architectural icon. Inaugurated in 1998, even to this day, the Petronas Towers design stands as ‘modern’ – and yet, truly Asian in its influence as it can be. No visit to Malaysia is complete without having seen what was once the tallest building(s) in the world.
Even though Taipei 101 took over the throne of “Tallest building in the world” in 2004 (until Burj Khalifa did the same in 2010), the Petronas Towers are still one of the best looking skyscrapers in the world in my opinion. It shows how important good architecture is in creating a true global landmark. You can play the game of attempting to build the tallest structure in the world, but unless it looks good, the investment is futile.
If you disagree, just go around and ask people if they are aware of ‘Taipei 101’.
TANGS is a department store
We walked back and through some of the malls in Bukit Bintang district.
Musicians performing in front of Pavilion MallPavilion Crystal Fountain, the Tallest Liuli Crystal Fountain in MalaysiaJapan’s UNIQLO is now in Kuala Lumpur’s Fahrenheit 88 mallThis Ferrari F430 was parked in front of Fahrenheit 88 mall
There are a few street performers at Bukit BintangThese guys were trying to perform street dancing but looked nervous when the crowd grew bigBukit Bintang monorail station
It was time for us to now figure out what to eatSo we headed to Jalan Alor a.k.a ‘Food Street’Quite a change of scene from earlier isn’t it?
These restaurants even sprinkle water in the air to cool off its guests
While myself and Loiyumba found enough options for dinner, as was the norm on this trip, Ramesh didn’t. So I ordered what I wanted to eat, so that we could head to some place Ramesh could get his dinner.
I ordered some duck dish, forgot what it was calledWas tempted to order some seafood tooA lot of the restaurants on Jalan Alor are Chinese
It maybe a bustling place by night, but if you feel like staying amidst all the food, here are some hotels on Jalan Alor:
Apple Inn (http://www.appleinn.com.my/)
Once I got my takeaway, we headed back to our rooms only to stop at the 24-hour Subway store on Bukit Bintang where Ramesh picked up his dinner. (There’s also a 24-hour KFC on the same road)
We also pick up a few drinks from a convenience store on the way and had our dinner outside our hotel, where Irsia had put up a few tables for its guests.
My dinnerWhen I say we stayed right behind Berjaya Times Square, I’m not kidding
Dinner over, we hit the bed early. Our plans were to go see the famous Batu Caves tomorrow, which we knew were on the outskirts of KL… which meant getting up a bit early.
So what was our first impression of KL? Not so good, to be honest. In fact, after a whirlwind 3 days in Singapore during a buzzing F1 weekend, it’s understandable we were a bit disappointed with Kuala Lumpur. But the fact is, things are a lot cheaper in KL, so it’s no surprise Malaysia’s capital city isn’t as glamourous as glitzy Singapore. Unfair comparison I’d say.
Oh well, we still had two more days in the city to change our minds about the place.
Dick Clark once said: “Music is the soundtrack to your life”
That statement, for sure, holds true for my life.
I was born in 1982, but growing up in Bahrain in the 1980s, me and my older brother were more interested in cartoons about transforming robots, transforming automobiles and transforming jets. Not Michael Jackson or 80’s hair metal. It wasn’t until I grew into the next decade that my interest in music slowly started to grow.
I remember my brother getting a tiny Black & Decker radio which my dad won at some company party, and that pretty much became our introduction to the music broadcast over Bahrain’s airwaves (mostly Radio Bahrain 96.5fm). Since the radio, we moved up to a Sony hi-fi system, got cable, and then as the internet became a part of my adult life, I ended up listening to so much music that I link moments of my life to the songs from that period.
For the past few months on my Facebook profile, I’ve been sharing songs I grew up listening to under the ‘Re-living the 90s’ headline. It was pretty well received by my friends who, like me, reminisced about the music and went: “Man, I haven’t heard this ages!”.
So, this is the first of 10 posts. One post for every year of the decade that was the 1990s.
Now, these songs weren’t necessarily the top songs of the 90s, best, or even the greatest songs of the 90s — but yeah, they surely were big hits from the 1990s. I’m including them in my selection because I remember them as “favourites”.
So here we go:
All of these guys (yes, even those pants) were cool... back in 1990
New Kids on the Block – “Step by Step”
In 1990, I was 8 years old. NKOTB was my favourite group at the time. Why? I don’t know, maybe it was because their songs were simple, catchy pop songs — or I thought their dancing was “SO AWESOME” at the time. They even had their own cartoon I used to watch. Whatever it was, I had their cassette tapes… and I loved songs like “Right Stuff” and “Hangin’ Tough” as a kid.
The last NKOTB song I heard was “Dirty Dawg (1993-94),” their attempt to break away from the cheesy pop that made them famous. It wasn’t a huge hit and NKOTB eventually broke up after that. Jordan Kinght and Joey McIntyre came back to the music scene in the late 90s and in 2008, NKOTB re-emerged with a new album and tour. But as I grew up in the 1990s with the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync, I now realize how much more vocally talented those two boy bands were compared to NKOTB.
DNA feat. Suzanne Vega – “Tom’s Diner”
Do you know that song that goes: “D0-do-doodeh, do-dodeh-do, do-de-do-do, do-dedo-do…” Yeah, that’s how I used to remember this song 🙂
The 1990s saw rap hit the mainstream. Unfortunately, it was through rap hits like this:
I was among the millions back then who loved this song! I have a fond memory of when we first got our Sony hi-fi stereo (with karaoke mic!) and my older brother rapped the lines while I was snuggled in excitement on our living room sofa. Oh the things that excited me back then.
Now I’m among the millions who laugh at the guy whose real name is Robert Van Winkle 🙂
MC Hammer – “U Can’t Touch This”
Besides Vanilla Ice, the other laughing stock of early 90s pop rap was MC Hammer. Once again, everybody loved him when he was a chart-topping success. He too had a cartoon, Hammer Man. He lived the high life, bought a multi-million dollar home, a Ferrari — and then his career fizzled out after his second album, ‘Too Legit to Quit’. Then he went bankrupt. He’s still around though.
Cathy Dennis – “Too Many Walls”
Her biggest hit — and probably the only song of hers I remember. She didn’t last too long in the public eye as a pop star. Most of you may have never heard of Cathy Dennis, but if you heard songs by S Club 7, or number 1 hits like Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” “Toxic” by Britney Spears, or Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl,” that’s all Cathy Dennis. She wrote those hits.
So that’s all for the inaugural post in this series. I know it’s not a lot of songs, but I was only going on 8 then.
