Just how magnificent were the 1990s?

Take That mania immediately followed by Spice Girls mania was a level of mania that I doubt we'll ever see again.
 
I definitely subscribe to the idea that 2000 - 2020 just felt like ONE LONG DECADE. Age plays its part of course but - for example - it's very easy to turn a TV show, movie or song on and recognise that it's from the 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s. Since then it's a blur. Technology, fashion, music, everything has since slowed down. I couldn't tell you what year an episode of CSI was from. Put on Cagney and Lacey and you can SMELL the early 80s.
 
Nancy said:
But did they?

It still feels the same as 2007 or 2008 were. But 1990 feels like a complete new beginning from the 80s.
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I was watching a YouTube video of the top song every month throughout the 90s - it’s INSANE how much things advanced in a ten year stretch, while still finding time for specific and iconic eras throughout the decade. When I watch something from 2014 it just doesn’t feel like it was ten years ago - even 2004 doesn’t seem that dim and distant except everyone has mega straight hair and white cargo pants.
 
Indie said:
Musically, the 90's started in about 1992. Maybe 1991.

1990 was still as 80s as fuck.
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Maybe with your music. But in dance and R&B, 1989 to 1991 was a PIVOTAL moment. The "90s" started exactly when they were meant to.
 
The 90s aesthetic was pink, yellow and blue with shadows, triangles and squiggly lines.
 
Also on the alternative and rock side, you had Stone Roses and Nirvana emerging in 1989 and Pearl Jam forming in 1990, which basically formed the 90s sound in the UK and US. Throw in Primal Scream, RHCP and a few others, who emerged in late 80s but broke out early 90s, and I think there is a stark difference between the hair metal and soft rock of the 80s and the alternative, grunge and britpop of the 90s.
 
I saw this Foreigner album cover the other day - could it be any more 80s?

Foreigner_-_Agent_Provocateur.JPG
 
funky said:
Also on the alternative and rock side, you had Stone Roses and Nirvana emerging in 1989 and Pearl Jam forming in 1990, which basically formed the 90s sound in the UK and US. Throw in Primal Scream, RHCP and a few others, who emerged in late 80s but broke out early 90s, and I think there is a stark difference between the hair metal and soft rock of the 80s and the alternative, grunge and britpop of the 90s.
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If were talking rock (and i wasn't) then Nirvana, RHCP & Pearl Jam's breakthrough albums were released in 1991, which kind of proves the point.
 
Well to a point earlier made, whether you look at first albums or breakout albums, The Beatles didn't start until 1962 but they still basically owned the 60s. I'd say 1991 still is a good starting point for a "90s sound".
 
I used to love Edd the Duck and that floating computer cat head. What his name Katz?
 
funky said:
Well to a point earlier made, whether you look at first albums or breakout albums, The Beatles didn't start until 1962 but they still basically owned the 60s. I'd say 1991 still is a good starting point for a "90s sound".
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I don't disagree with that.
 
octophone said:
This nails it. "Eras" are now so much shorter because of technology - "Brat Summer" was declared over by Pitchfork last week less than 2 months after the album was released. Trends last a few weeks before becoming old and tired. If we call Britpop from Suede arriving to Oasis playing Knebworth, it was 4 years. Have we had any musical trend or movement lasting a good 4 years since then? Emo, maybe? Even then, it seemed to rise up, peak and drop down to an underground within 2 years. Information flows in such a way now that a 'slow' rise is 3 months rather than 3 years.
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Bingo. Nothing builds anymore, everything is just instant and then disposed of. Kids today etc.
 
Of course decades don't fit exactly into tidy narratives. Years are of course entirely arbitrary

1979 managed to look like 1975 and 1982 all at once. A musical decade begins at whatever point your genre of choice begins. It's easy to pop 80s Ride on Time or early grunge/ Madchester into the 90s. 80s power ballads/ hair rock were still in full force in the early 90s.

I always think 1995-2005 looks like a tidier decades. Even more interesting is dividing time into chunks of 3 years, for a better breakdown of trends.
 
I think we can all be objective enough to recognise that no decade shifted culturally as fast as the 60s though. I mean in 1960 they were listening to Elvis Presley and Perry Como and Frank Sinatra. In 1970 they were listening to The Doors, Jimi Hendrix and James Brown.

And the Beatles went from "She Loves You" to "I Want You" in SIX YEARS.
 
The 90s also gave us Come In Out Of The Rain by Wendy Moten. One of the greatest songs of all time.
 
AGinAg (39) said:
Of course decades don't fit exactly into tidy narratives. Years are of course entirely arbitrary

1979 managed to look like 1975 and 1982 all at once. A musical decade begins at whatever point your genre of choice begins. It's easy to pop 80s Ride on Time or early grunge/ Madchester into the 90s. 80s power ballads/ hair rock were still in full force in the early 90s.

I always think 1995-2005 looks like a tidier decades. Even more interesting is dividing time into chunks of 3 years, for a better breakdown of trends.
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I agree that eras are arbitrary and personal, but for me at least that's what makes the 90s so fascinating - the music very much seems to land right when it needs to. I can't really speak for fashion and other cultural shifts. But by 1990, most of the defining sounds of the 80s were dead. So many interesting new directions emerged in 1988 and 1989 that formed the next few years.

The exception might be that 1998 and 1999 in pop terms were far more similar to early 00s than the 90s. By that point the 90s sounds of alternative, dance and R&B that had informed pop music had tired and been overexposed. 1998 to early 00s felt very bloated and manufactured. Some great pop music yes, but nothing exciting was really happening underground.
 
funky said:
I think we can all be objective enough to recognise that no decade shifted culturally as fast as the 60s though. I mean in 1960 they were listening to Elvis Presley and Perry Como and Frank Sinatra. In 1970 they were listening to The Doors, Jimi Hendrix and James Brown.

And the Beatles went from "She Loves You" to "I Want You" in SIX YEARS.
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I don't know I Want You, but I LOVE Octopus's Garden.
 
The Beatles went from A Hard Day's Night to Tomorrow never Knows in THREE years.
 
For me, the millennium was synonymous with nostalgia and, in the first few years of the 00s, this was an epidemic. This was when bands started touring their old album, playing them end to end routinely. The All Tomorrows Parties festival was as good as predicated on one-off reunions and "Nifty Shitwagon play "Downhill On A Hospital Bed in full!!" type stuff. By now, the internet and more tv channels that you could shake a stick at were causing cultures to dissipate and, yes, I didn't feel that the 00s had any clear 'identity' culturally. It was almost as if no-one had thought beyond the year 2000 and, come the day, floundered.
 
And the 90s treated us to Eldorado, which was amazing TV for initially all the wrong reasons. And then was cruelly taken from us just as it started to make it work.

LOVE IT
 
And the 90s were when we stopped calling this 🥑 an avocado pear and it became simply an avocado.
 
Nancy said:
And the 90s treated us to Eldorado, which was amazing TV for initially all the wrong reasons. And then was cruelly taken from us just as it started to make it work.

LOVE IT
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That made me think of Howard’s Way, which I feel was massive for about 5 minutes and then it disappeared never to be heard from again.
 
In the UK, Mario ended the 80s being a blocky thing and it was in the 90s that he truly became an icon.
 
So far this topic has taught me that the 90s was great, if you ignore all the shit and focus on tiny bits of rubbish.
 
I've been listening to Heart 90s for much of today and everything just sounds so 90s.
 
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