I just took the late '90s mix for a test drive today at the gym. Incredibly, it's not so bad.

Granted, the sequence of "One Week" (Barenaked Ladies), "Battle of Who Could Care Less" (Ben Folds Five), "Dammit" (Blink 182) and then "My Own Worst Enemy" (Lit) with only "What I Am" (Edie Brickell) in the middle adds up to a lot of silliness. Fine. It's mostly good music, and it's upbeat and kind of funny.

Now that I've heard "You Wanted More" (Tonic) one more time, I have two specific problems with the arrangement. They should have forgotten about the useless guitar riff blasted below. Instead, they should have opened the song with an instrumental statement of the chorus. The song lives on the contrast between the dissonant tension in the verses and the release and the definitive sweetness of the chorus. Starting the song with an instrumental statement of the chorus would set up the first verse nicely.

Second, idiotically, the song ends with the useless guitar riff. It leaves an otherwise strong melody in shambles. This song (specifically, with its chorus) screams for a fade-out ending. Generally, if you're going to end a pop song with something other than a fade-out, it most likely will be a hard ending on the chord whose key the song is in. Anything else is risky and it had better sound good or else it's going to sound dreadful. Not only does this song elect not to end on "I" (that's a Roman numeral one); it takes an impeccable hook and throws it into mush, ending the song hanging in the air. Precisely because the rest of the song is good, this ending is frustrating.