So Annie and I are having a little debate I'd like your help settling. We both think that the music of the 90's was pretty awesome. I think we feel this way because that's when we were coming into our own so it's in our marrow. Annie thinks the music was just empirically better (her very thoughtful argument: most of the best music was available on the radio. Then crappy crappy late-90's pop came into play [sorry to those of you who came into your own a couple of years later than me, so said pop abides deep in your heart], good music had to hide in underground enclaves to be dug out by music lovers and so the indie boom of the early oughts which continues sort of today. So 90's music was both great and popular=better. [Not sure I did that justice, but you get the idea.]
What do you guys think: was 90's music empirically more awesome? Was it just us? For to jog your memory:
(A note on the playlist: I know. These are songs I loved mostly. :) )
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Your opinion please:
Posted by Kjerstin Evans Ballard at 2:58 PM
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23 comments:
oh, agreed wholeheartedly times ten million. '90s music is the blood that runs through my veins.
I don't know about the arguement either way, but that is a darn good play list
I'm freaking out over this playlist. Champagne Supernova by Oasis is one of my top five songs of all time, so I'm pleased by the Oasis shout out. And the Cranberries?! Counting Crows?! Satellite and Hand in my Pocket?! Don't get me started.
(I don't know about the 90s argument, necessarily. I think some incredible things are happening in mainstream [even pop] music these days. But these songs are magically nostalgically great.)
I agree with Annie. The 90s just had rock awesome music. And I love that you mentioned how there was actually good music on the radio. I remember waiting with a cassett tape ready to press record when songs came on I that I loved. There is nothing worthy of that kind of vigilance now. I love your play list but I'm surprised that Green Day and Radiohead were left out. Can't list them all I guess . . .just more evidence that there was so much good music!
90s versus the 80s is easy: 90s hands down. But 90s versus the past five years is harder. I'm really sucked into Sufjan, Sigur Ros, Fleet Foxes, Avett Brothers, and the like.
But Counting Crows and Morrissette and BNL . . .
Plus "Waterfalls" by TLC . . .
Plus the best album since 1910, Rhythm of the Saints. . .
Harder.
As to the radio argument, you're totally right about hearing garbage on contemporary airwaves. I'm glad other people second that. "Good Girls Go Bad" or "Kiss of an Angel"?
But then again, the radio itself became much more unpopular in the aughts.
Elisa-- here here on the pop music front. Pop is the new indie. Or indie is the new pop. Lovely things regardless.
Lindsey--total fail on Radiohead, sorry. I maybe only got into them my freshman year so think of the in another time period altogether, but they definitely belong.
Jon--I'm with you on recent artists (your list even) but they're not radio players. Yes, but music right now is great great great. (And I definitely have Waterfalls memorized. Including Lefty's solo.)
Hey Jim-- that was kind of a jerky thing to say. Particularly considering that part about my loving my playlis. I love having my musical tastes torn down, thanks for the feedback. :)
(I mean, you're welcome to disagree with my list, but come on...)
And "Satellite" isn't average DMB. That opening riff with the violin is still one of the best.
(I meant "*Lips* of an Angel")
ben and i are all over this. man, when asked about my blog, you really went and found it! FLATTERING. glad i now have the link to your online.
ok, but here's our debate: we were talking of the evans' (you and melissa, being the ones we know) and ben SWEARS you were in his AP art class which he took senior year, and i SWEAR you were a senior officer when i was in freshman student gov't.
please prove me right.
and about your debate, i think we side with you. 90's is great because we grew up with it. i am such a spokesperson for music-you-like-having-lots-to-do-with-what-you-grew-up-with-ness. that's why i like sting's weird stuff and ben likes paul simon's weird stuff.
Olivia--I hope you get this? Maybe I'll try and find your email address (and of course I looked it up: people who like beautiful things always have great blogs, and yours is no exception. :) )
To answer your question: I was an SBO when you were a sophomore. I'm two years older than the two of you, and Melissa, who was probably in Ben's AP art history his senior year (and who looks a lot like me).
Point to Olivia.
ke,
I think I need to side with Jim a little bit in this debate. There are quite a few bands that I'll always think fondly of from the 90's that history is going to remember as being mediocre at best. Even of the playlist you've made, most of those bands only have one or two songs that are still listenable. Granted, you've picked a number of songs that I can still enjoy, but I dare you to pick a random song from dmb or Smashing Pumpkins's oeuvre and enjoy it.
Radiohead is probably the single best argument for the music of the aughts being better than the 90's. OK Computer was fabulous, but is canceled out by Pablo Honey. The Bends suffers from the same trend that I mentioned earlier, still a few great songs, but generally not that great overall. Compare that to Kid A or In Rainbows, either of which might be better than anything that the 90's gave us at all.
There is a ton of great pop that's come out since 2000 which I think stacks up quite well to all 90's pop (even without the nostalgia factor): Sufjan, Guster, Decemberists, Regina Spektor, Lily Allen, and St. Vincent. If I had to choose between these bands or 90's music, I'd choose the newer stuff without hesitation.
Out or curiosity, what do you think about music that was popular in the 90's but still, in my mind, was crap even then? Do you care to defend Blues Traveler, Sister Hazel, Alice in Chains, or TLC?
So I do think I've overlooked the nostalgia factor--there was a lot of crap on the radio in the 90's, we've just forgotten about it.
I'm interested, too, I think in the way that songs start to sound characteristic of their period. What makes Pablo Honey feel so solidly 90's? And the Cranberries. And is there something timeless feeling about, like, 1979 or am I imagining it?
Wow. You led such a great discussion. I'm sure you're a fabulous teacher.
Um . . . I would like to argue that the majority of 90s music sucked a butt.
Were there some great bands that surfaced in the 90s? Absolutely. But so much of it was just so boring and lame.
To me, the 90s was when a few of the interesting and important underground music movements of the 80s were appropriated, Disney-fied and mass marketed to the main stream but rebranded as "alternative". And from there music just became increasingly diluted like a copy of a copy of a copy until we have what we have today on the radio.
The most important musical movements of the 90s in my opinion were the ones that were never really appropriated. Movements like the riot grrl movement.
That is not to say that I don't enjoy any popular 90s music. But on that front, I have to agree with Jim.
Is that the way it always goes, though? Copies of copies of copies? For me, the stuff on the radio seemed fresh and real in the 90's, and maybe because I wasn't so aware, then, that I should be seeking out the original stuff I could like radio pop unabashedly...
Huh. So I came back to this and was a little stumped by Jim's comment. Maybe I've been reading too many poorly argued student papers and am just feeling sensitive. Dave Matthews Band is not influential? Says who? And are we talking musically influential or influential in one of the other million ways that a band (or anyone/thing can be influential)? I know people who have devoted one weekend a year to getting stoned at a DMB concert for the past decade. Two summers ago, Dave Matthews was invited to play at a ceremony for the Dalai Lama in Seattle. Thousands of people loyally buy his music and attend his concerts. That's influence. I'm not saying this because I'm some die hard DMB fan, it just seems like kind of a broad judgement. And then to say that Pearl Jam has at least entered the history books as "important." What history books are those? Who is making these musical judgments? Sorry, but it sort of pissed me off. (I think I'm feeling solidarity with you, Kjerstin. I fully support your love for whichever bands you like, whether or not someone somewhere thinks they're important.)
'mr jones and me' will always love the cranberries and counting crows and maybe even a little third eye blind.
as for the discussion...i don't think anyone would say that the music of the last 5ish years isn't fabulous. ke and i were, i think, only comparing the 90s to the main chunk of the 2000s. the 90s being when mainstream pop had a lot of quality stuff (counting crows, radiohead, etc)...the 2000s being when mainstream pop sucked so indie took over in a big way (with groups that were previously listening to mainstream stuff). i think we've come full circle...the mainstream stuff is getting better and better, which i agree is because of the access the internet gives us to more good music.
sorry. I misread the tone of the original post and I would never have expressed opinions that I thought would be offensive. my apologies.
KE, you're absolutely right. That is always how it goes. But I think it's an point to bring up when discussing any music but especially when the question is, "Do you think 90s music is empirically more awesome?"
I don't think there's anything wrong with unabashedly enjoying the pop music of the day.
I hope I didn't make your feel bad. I certainly didn't mean to imply that my approach to 90s music is superior.
Here, I'll prove it.
I think my disgust for popular 90s music has several explanations.
1. I never had cable. No MTv. And, the only music I really listened to up until the age of 13 was Opera and Cindy Lauper.
I may have had a Pointer Sisters tape too. Oh, and a DeBarge record.
2. I'm a few years older than you and I'm the youngest of five so I always had older siblings and older friends influencing my music tastes.
3. Like most people of my generation in Provo (nothing against Provo), I was very much stuck in the 80s.
Throughout the 90s I was listening to The Smiths, early Cure, early U2, early Depeche Mode, Peter Murphy, The Pixies, early Cocteau Twins, etc. You get the idea. Now, I'm not saying that any of the 80s music I was listening to is superior to any other era or genre, I'm just saying, imagine what Lisa Loeb, Oasis, Weezer and Pearl Jam sounded like to my ears at that time. (Btw, I have since learned to adore Weezer).
By the time I had thoroughly digested the music collections of my friends and family, the 90s
were nearly over. And the only 90s music I did get into in real time was Sonic Youth and a handful of riot grrl bands.
Anyhoo, just thought I'd throw some explaination behind my previous snooty response.
I take a very wholistic view to music, especially rock history. I find it somewhat problematic to take the maturing and progress of an enduring band as a microcosm for an era/decade. For example, just because Dave Grohl learned a lot about music over the decades he worked in the industry doesn't mean that this progress holds true for music in general across those decades. (Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Them Crooked Vultures--very different bands, very different sounds, but I'm not sure album analysis of each band and Grohl's influence therein indicate the inherent value of each time period.) (This is in response to the Radiohead claims.)
My favorite 90s bands: Nirvana, Bush, No Doubt, Garbage, Foo Fighters (many of which grew directly out of The Pixies, etc., which were influenced by New Wave bands, which . . . Joy Division, which . . . punk, which . . . Velvet Underground, which . . . experimentation+drugs+early rock, which . . . Blues, etc.) That's how I view rock and roll. Links, connections, history, influence, innovation, awesomeness.
So, I guess my argument is . . . I love nineties music. It is foundational for me ("millions of peaches . . ."), and there is definitely an air of nostalgia (which I also have for Joni Mitchell and Marty Robbins)for me. However, I think it's problematic to take things out of their contexts in rock history. I like to think about the connections overtime and not celebrate one genre over another.
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