"Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)"

Green Day
(Reprise, 1997)

Day-glo punk papa Billie Joe Armstrong would've been on the short list of folks least likely to write the best prom ballad since Tesla's "Love Song," and "Good Riddance" wasn't nearly so treacly as the sentiments it was subsequently called upon to signify as the tearjerker du jour on all manner of "very special episode"-type prime-time events. Everyone deserves a balm for the rash of freeze-dried, instant nostalgia that erupts like emotional acne in late-teenagers (and late-twentysomething rock critics, too), and this, kids, is it.

-- Carly Carioli