Hello, Esquire.com! I am thrilled to be with you, but let's get out of here. Katy Perry's Super Bowl performance is still echoing in my head, and I long for a simpler, funkier, Toad the Wet Sprocketsier time. So let's hop into my virtual time machine and set a course for the distant past, where, as befits a new Esquire.com column entitled "Somewhere in Time," we'll survey the hit songs of the day. First up: February 1993, circa the release of the Bill Murray classic Groundhog Day. Let's relive this shining pop moment, over and over again.

40. "Bed of Roses" — Bon Jovi

In the immediate aftermath of "November Rain," the guitar-solo helicopter shot was de rigueur for the big-ticket rock band. It was an arms race, really: Slash gets a dusty desert playa/churchyard, Sambora gets a mountaintop (and a cold one, apparently; look how bundled up ol' Richie is. He's an aging Ralphie in a Southwestern A Christmas Story). Luckily "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" doesn't have a proper guitar solo, or poor Joe Perry would have been on an actual asteroid.

39. "Walking on Broken Glass" — Annie Lennox

A video from the peak of Hugh Laurie's "hapless fop" era, long before his "unrepentant genius asshole" period began. Speaking of which, has anyone seen Backstrom? Was the pitch for that show really He's a brilliant detective, and he's deeply unpleasant in every way? Are we getting to the point where you pitch a show and then your big twist at the end is the lead character is a person with whom you would voluntarily spend your time?

38. "Never a Time" — Genesis

This is a decent song, but the video for previous single "I Can't Dance",with its obligatory-for-'93 Bugle Boy Jeans commercial parody and Phil Collins single-eyebrow-raise at 0:44, is where I officially hopped off the Genesis train. (Though "Turn It On Again" remains unimpeachable.)

37. "Stand Up (Kick Love Into Motion)" — Def Leppard

The guitar solo here is shot in moody, dim lighting in front of billowing silk curtains by a camera on solid ground. "NO THANK YOU," said America. "This is 1993; it's a precipice or it's nothing." The flagrant Tony Scott–ness of it all even cancelled out the naked couple, offering up their bare asses in Times Square a full five years before "Thank U," when Alanis Morrissette was still biting Tiffany.

36. "Love Can Move Mountains" — Celine Dion

If Richie Sambora was reaching for that Slash cheddar, Celine Dion was clearly moving in on Amy Grant's spot here. "I know that I am seen as, how you say, queen of ice?" Celine told her people over a cup of hot water and a lemon salad. "Perhaps now I let down the hair, mm? I wear the skirt with the bike short underneath. I throw the ball to the black man. I look close at a no shirt person and I celebrate the stomach muscle, yes?" The hair got figuratively pinned all the hell back up immediately afterwards. (For the record, this is the only Celine Dion cassingle I own.)

35. "I Got a Man" — Postive K

There's a lot to get into here, but I will focus on this song's eternal question: "Are you a chef, 'cuz you keep feeding me soup." Was "feeding me soup" ever a thing people said? We can infer from the context that it means "bearing false witness," but this is the only time I've ever heard the expression. I will be honest—for I am here to feed you…fresh greens? Hearty stews? What food group signifies truth—I did try to add it to my rotation of hot slangs in 1993, and it never felt natural. Can someone swing by whatever H&R Block Positive K works in now and get the scoop?

34. "End of the Road" — Boyz II Men

Like Celine Dion, Boyz II Men had one early uptempo hit, then did nothing but deliver sodden, overwrought ballads in pastels thereafter. Let us turn our attention then to the Boomerang soundtrack from which it is drawn, a collection of songs that immediately and permanently overshadowed the movie it was designed to promote. (Boomerang grossed over $100 million, and all I can remember about it is Halle Berry's hair, the most significant pixie cut of 1993.) PM Dawn! A Tribe Called Quest! The first recordings from Toni Braxton (the fourth-most significant pixie cut of 1993)! It was the rare early-'90s megasoundtrack with some thematic consistency, produced as it was by Babyface, and it deserves revisiting. Put on some denim overalls—one strap undone, please—and track it down.

33. "To Love Somebody" — Michael Bolton

Michael Bolton is what middle-aged women had before Fifty Shades of Grey. There will always be a baffling subsegment of the population that longs to be yelled at by a guy in a sportcoat.

32. "Steam" — Peter Gabriel

After "Sledgehammer," the videos for Peter Gabriel's big singles were expected to feature the absolute latest and best in computer animation. "Steam" represented the latest and best in 1993 computer animation. This shit was Avatar in 1993. (Has anyone checked on all the people who got Avatar tattoos in 2009? This would be the basis for a hot Medium post on 21st century regret.)

31. "No Ordinary Love" — Sade

Though it's not on the soundtrack, "No Ordinary Love" was featured prominently in the 1993 Demi Moore/Woody Harrelson/Robert Redford movie Indecent Proposal. Man, with Indecent Proposal, Sliver, and Body of Evidence, the terrible sex movie was hot hot hot in 1993. And with Fifty Shades of Grey, what's old and shitty is new again (and shitty). (I'm kind of pumped about Fifty Shades of Grey, you guys.)

30. "I Love You Period" — Dan Baird

Dan Baird, former lead singer of the Georgia Satellites, is an early recipient of the Wes Borland Prize for Getting on My Nerves in More Than One Band.

29. "Informer" Snow

If you search for "Snow" on Wikipedia, which I had to do because how else are you going to discuss Snow in 2015, this Snow is the 72nd entry that comes up, behind Jon Snow, the 1987 Golan/Globus film version of Snow White, and cocaine. A licky boom boom ouch.

28. "Hip Hop Hooray" — Naughty By Nature

I have a visceral reaction to this song. At this time in 1993, I was a junior in college, and this song was a crucial part of any keg party. Once my friend Brad made the discovery that my name fit perfectly into the chorus—DAAAAVE! HOOOOOLMES! DAAAAVE! HOOOOOLMES!—it was all over. The song and the chant followed me to every bar and party, and the hardest part was pretending not to love it.

27. "I Got a Thang 4 Ya" — Lo Key?

From the album Where Dey At? No word on what became of Lo-Key?, or why they were so emphatic/inquisitive, but one of them rocks a sportcoat/baggy short/boot-and-dark sock combo that fills me with question marks and exclamation points all my own.

26. "What About Your Friends" — TLC

The first few seconds of this video are on the fashion show glam tip, and then a super fills the screen: NOT! Saying or doing something that you didn't mean and then saying NOT! was huge at the time; think of it as the "bae" of 1993. This whole video is a 1993 time capsule, come to think of it: baggy high-waisted jeans with suspenders, a seamless white background covered in dayglo graffiti, Jiffy-Pop hats, an "Increase The Peace" t-shirt, "What About Your Friends" has it all, and I want to climb into my computer screen and live inside it. (Incidentally, T-Boz's is the second-most significant pixie cut of 1993. Josie Bissett and Winona Ryder round out the top five.)

25. "Get Away" — Bobby Brown

Like Def Leppard before him, Bobby Brown showed up to 1993 doing pretty much what we expected and appreciated from him, and together as a nation we said "No thanks." Was it the designer camo? Or did we resent him for leading our poor Whitney astray?

24. "Do You Believe in Us" — Jon Secada

Just as it took a good decade for The Real World to beget Survivor and for reality television to become inescapable, there is a curious five-year gap between Jon Secada and Ricky Martin.

23. "Ditty" — Paperboy

In the early '80s, MTV tommy-gunned a generation of beautiful, underdeveloped British bands directly into our living rooms and a golden age of one-hit wonders was born. The early '90s brought us a second heyday of one-and-doners, with hip-hop labels supplying a good chunk of them. (There are four on this chart alone—collect them all!) There is not much to say about Paperboy or "Ditty," so let us focus instead on the issue of Billboard from which this chart comes. On its cover, a headline announces: "TIME WARNER BREAKS NEW CABLE GROUND: On-Demand Video Set For Late '93 Test." It is early 2015, and … they are still testing.

22. "Real Love" — Mary J. Blige

A crucial track from Mary's pre-self-esteem years. Number one on the "Heatseekers" chart in this issue of Billboard is the self-titled debut album by Jackyl, which non-memorably featured a chainsaw solo and a track called "She Loves My Cock." 1993 was a time before the think-piece.

21. "Don't Walk Away" — Jade

From the album Jade to the Max. Did Jade ever play The Max on Saved by the Bell? That would seem to be a marketing no-brainer. Also, how did it come to be that The Max was so utterly overrun by children? At least The Peach Pit made the pretense of a partially adult clientele. But obviously the crucial 1993 television hangout was Shooters Pool! Music whose volume helpfully rises and falls to accommodate your conversation! Neon signs for Beer brand beer! I live in Los Angeles, and I am sorry to say this place is long gone.

20. "Rebirth of Slick" — Digable Planets

There was a moment when it seemed like hip-hop would go entirely in this direction. Quest and De La were at their peaks, Us3, Dream Warriors and these guys had classic singles, even that first Nas album has some jazzy moments. But no—the G Funk era began, and now all we get is a Guru Jazzmatazz installment every few years. I blame Digable Planets; if you seek longevity, you do not name yourselves Ladybug, Doodlebug and Butterfly. I will console myself with 1991's "Wash Your Face In My Sink."

19. "Faithful" — Go West

Go West didn't really break in America until MOR radio staple "King of Wishful Thinking," so you can't really blame them for going further in that direction. But I do blame them for going further in that direction. I do not want "Faithful" Peter Cox, in his Michael Bolton jacket on the set of The Arsenio Hall Show. Give me "We Close Our Eyes" Peter Cox, performing calisthenics with an oversized wrench, soaked and filthy from a long day at the world's daintiest garage.

18. "Walk on The Ocean" — Toad The Wet Sprocket

Jesus, speaking of dainty. I repped hard for Toad the Wet Sprocket in these years, as every feeble and overly emotional man of college age was required to do. If you have ever wondered whether I ever smoked an entire pack of cigarettes and roamed through a college town, despondent in tweed, with "One Wind Blows" on repeat on my Discman, I can assure you that I did. Many times.

17. "Give It Up, Turn It Loose" — En Vogue

Just a couple of months from this week in 1993, Beverly Hills 90210's Donna Martin, who famously neither gave it up nor turned it loose to David Silver until the end of season 7, showed up at the prom drunk (She hadn't eaten! Mel Silver gave the kids champagne!) and was therefore forbidden from participating in commencement exercises, until all the students yelled "DONNA MARTIN GRADUATES" and then everything was fine. This was a big deal in 1993. Fox on Wednesdays was our Shondaland.

16. "I'd Die Without You" — PM Dawn

PM Dawn's The Bliss Album: worthy of revisiting. PM Dawn's 1995 follow-up Jesus Wept: worthy of visiting. These guys are literally criminally under-respected, by which I mean we should each complete one hundred hours of community service for not giving them a better career.

15. "Here We Go Again!" — Portrait

In each one of these charts, there is a stone classic that has been totally forgotten, even by me, and stone classics are all I ever think about. This is this week's.

14. "I'm Every Woman" — Whitney Houston

Back to Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston for a moment: Did you see Lifetime's Whitney movie? It actually wasn't half bad. Yay DaCosta managed to make a consistent character out of Whitney Houston, which Whitney Houston herself wasn't able to do through most of her career. One thing, though: the movie claims that it was Whitney who introduced Bobby to cocaine, and not the other way around. Is this remotely plausible?

13. "Good Enough" — Bobby Brown

A similar narrative is currently being spun about Patrick Schwarzenegger and Miley Cyrus, the suggestion being that he is the real partier in the relationship and has supplied her with whatever cocktail of narcotics causes her to make that face where it looks like her inner monologue is just the word "BOING," and similarly, I am not buying it for a second. Is this classism? (And does Esquire.com have the kind of comments section where I will immediately found out that it is classism?)

12. "When She Cries" — Restless Heart

1993 was a time when a country band could have a nice little crossover hit without enlisting the help of Nelly. And as Restless Heart gently stormed the pop charts, the first shot in the mall grunge movement was quietly fired, as Stone Temple Pilots' "Sex Type Thing" was added to MTV's playlist. Please enjoy what is essentially a parody of a grunge video, with the most carefully lit pectoral muscles in moving image history.

11. "Rhythm Is a Dancer" — Snap

I am not nostalgic for this song, because I have recently been to a boring gay club, and this song (like Robin S.'s "Show Me Love" and CeCe Peniston's "Finally") is still at "Blank Space"-level rotation at all of the world's boring gay clubs. We are rewriting marriage laws from sea to shining sea, but our playlists are etched in stone. (I was there to be "celebrity caller" at "Drag Queen Bingo," and you won't believe what the drag queen says when O-69 comes up oh wait yes you will because your dullest friend in 8th grade already said it.)

10. "Mr. Wendal" — Arrested Development

Conversely, 1993 was a time when a rap single didn't need an R&B singer on the hook; hip-hop was in the last precious moments before Method Man & Mary J. Blige's "You're All I Need To Get By." Let us turn our attention to the Hot Rap Singles chart in this Billboard, where it's all going down. EPMD, Showbiz & A.G., Brand Nubian, and two delicious oddities: at #10, "Tap The Bottle", by Young Black Teenagers (including a young white DJ Skribble)and way down at #29, the single from Real World Season 1's Heather B., "I Get Wreck" which we can agree would have benefitted from a Chante Moore on the chorus.

9. "Deeper and Deeper" — Madonna

Hey, remember six weeks ago when Madonna dropped half her new album on iTunes with no fanfare and then we sort of talked about it for 45 minutes?

8. "7" — Prince

Prince has scrubbed everything Prince-related from YouTube, so I can't show you this video. Instead, can we discuss his afro? I support his choice of hairdo, and I do not mean to step to Prince, but if he's going for a perfect circle, he is not quite there yet. It looked like the logo for a small, regional record label: the bottom half perfectly round, and the top like a skyline. It did whet my appetite for Old Man Prince, which is definitely coming; we are only a few years away from Prince in full grey-bearded Leon Russell sex wizard mode, and it's going to be delicious.

7. "Ordinary World" — Duran Duran

Do you remember how excited we were to have Duran Duran back in our lives? Do you remember what a triumphant and unlikely comeback it seemed? How many years of trend and progress they had to fight against to work their way back into our consciousness? "Ordinary World" happened in 1993. Their previous top-5 single was "I Don't Want Your Love," in 1988. That's five years. Five years ago today was "California Gurls," Taio Cruz's "Dynomite" and 3OH!3. It would be like us today getting excited for a new Mike Posner single, which, now that I mention it, would be a pretty surprising.

6. "Rump Shaker" — Wreckx-n-Effect

If you could play saxophone and you looked like that in a bikini, even if you just knew these five notes, you would have a long career playing saxophone in a bikini. We'd put a Candy Dulfer smooth jazz track on the charts only three years before this, don't forget. What I'm saying is that I think they used a stand-in for this video.

5. "Saving Forever For You"Shanice

From the Official Beverly Hills 90210 soundtrack. Everything was nine-oh in the nine-three. And now that the dust has settled: props to Shannen Doherty for working her brand, decades before we had the language to describe such a strategy. That Shannen Doherty's brand was "unpleasant person" makes her brief window of success all the more noteworthy. She was a real-life Backstrom, and we lapped it up.

4. "In the Still of the Nite"Boyz II Men

If in 1993, you would have told me that Boyz II Men would have a residency in Las Vegas, I would have said "Yeah, that sounds about right." I will remind you that in 1993, Las Vegas was still Wayne Newton, Doug Henning, and like three guys who dressed up like Joan Rivers.

3. "A Whole New World" — Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle

The "Let It Go" of its time. Let us mourn for the delicious hash John Travolta could have made of "Peabo Bryson" if he'd had to introduce this at the Oscars. (Against all odds, "Adele Dazeem" is still funny, one whole year later.)

2. "If I Ever Fell in Love" — Shai

A close second for this week's stone classic, though the key track for this week is on the Modern Rock charts. Right there, nestled between Stereo MCs' "Connected" and King Missile's "Detachable Penis," is the most slept-on power-pop jam of 1993: Starclub's "Hard to Get".

1. "I Will Always Love You" — Whitney Houston

I know this: if Whitney Houston had lived long enough to do a Super Bowl Halftime Show, her sharks would have been on point.