Playlist: ’90s Slumber Party
“You never know what will happen at a sleepover!”
The slumber parties of my youth were the best of times and the worst of times. I was the kid who cried a lot when my friends played pranks on me. I also stressed the fuck out about being the last to fall asleep. I kissed my first girl at a slumber party, secretly, in a closet. My friends and I watched the Devon Sawa scene on my Casper VHS until it stopped working. We also watched Poltergeist (I didn’t sleep for days!) and Clueless. We looked through issues of Teen Beat and Bop and planned our weddings to JTT. We traded Goosebumps books and played M.A.S.H. and that board game where boys call you on dates or something. That game was a huge hit among my friends and became the quintessential sleepover game for us. I thought it was dumb. I just wanted girls to call me at the end, but I didn’t know what that meant or how to tell my friends.
Why are there girls on the cover if girls aren’t calling you? Even at nine years old, I knew this was bullshit.
But really, I can’t remember anything about slumber parties better than the music we listened to, usually on a scratched CD. Sometimes we’d call the radio and request a song and wait for an hour until it played. We’d dance around the coffee table, jump on beds, sing into our fists. We were fucking rock stars.
Playlist: ’90s Slumber Party
Dream Phone!
Ice Ice Baby – Vanilla Ice
Barbie Girl – Aqua
Freedom! ’90 – George Michael
Torn – Natalie Imbruglia
Waterfalls – TLC
Water Runs Dry – Boyz II Men
Say You’ll Be There – Spice Girls
What A Girl Wants – Christina Aquilera
I Swear – All-4-One
Because You Loved Me – Celine Dion
Quit Playing Games (With My Heart) – Backstreet Boys
Lovefool – The Cardigans
Where’s The Love – Hanson
Don’t Speak – No Doubt
I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) – Whitney Houston
Because Of You – 98°
All That She Wants – Ace of Base
Always Be My Baby – Mariah Carey
C’est La Vie – B*Witched
It’s Tearing Up My Heart – *NSYNC
He Loves U Not – Dream
Kiss Me – Sixpence None The Richer
Truly Madly Deeply – Savage Garden
Say My Name – Destiny’s Child
Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It – Will Smith
That Don’t Impress Me Much – Shania Twain
Straight Up – Paula Abdul
The Boy Is Mine – Brandy and Monica
Baby One More Time – Britney Spears
What songs were you rocking out to at slumber parties?
Want to suggest a playlist theme? Hit Crystal up on Formspring and someone from the team will make it for you, if you’re lucky.