The 90s...who knew?

Points awarded to whoever gets the reference in the title of this post.

I was a dopey kid in the 90s. In 1990, I was six. 90% of the music I was exposed to up to that point came from my pops, who has a pretty eclectic taste as it were. I remember getting my first stereo in '95 or so, which was a huge deal to me. It was finally possible to try out stuff on my own, make mixtapes, and most importantly, to do so at high volumes. The first two albums I owned were Mellow Gold by Beck (which is still pretty killer, if you ask me) and Superunknown, which might have been Soundgarden's high point.

That stereo lasted me through most of high school, and was a pretty crucial element in my progress as a musician. If I could count how many hours I put into learning all my favorite songs and albums note for note, well, it'd be a ridiculous amount. While most of the dudes my age were listening to radio rap and getting busy with chicks, I was hunkered down in front of my stereo, learning from Cliff Burton, Geezer Butler, Steve Harris, and so on and so forth.

I didn't appreciate the pop music of the age, and while I'm not nostalgic for the 90s like some pansies seem to be, I certainly appreciate it a lot more now. Here's some choice cuts courtesy of screwtube. Without further ado:

Chick vocalists didn't used to do anything for me. Most still don't. This song stood out to me because it may have been the first time I'd heard a girl scream in a musical context. Prior to that, it was all domestic violence charges and footie pajamas.



The pedigree of this band was lost on me until way later. This album was a lot of weird fun, from what I remember (which is, admittedly, spotty at best).



dedicated to my nigga Grimmdale:



The big single from this cat's breakthrough album; I'm pretty sure it was nominated for some big award but under the rap category. I still get an itch every once in a while to play this album (and record a cover of 'Mutherfucker').



one for my dude T-Diddy:



Punk, as a genre and lifestyle, hadn't really entered my scope until a few years later, when it was of the utmost importance to be a dyed in the wool 'trve' punk, complete with stupid hair, eyeliner, pre-fab weirdo suit, the whole nine yards. What a stupid little prick I was then. Me now would stomp the shit out of me then, provided time travel were possible.



One of my step-sisters got this album on tape, and we used to hang out and talk about stupid people at school and listen to it. She was/may still be a pathological liar. It's cool, though, God kicked her right in the baby-maker.



I don't give a fuck, I still dig on the album this came from. Also, there seems to have been a pretty distinct shift around '94 and shit just got angsty. I mean, the whole point of mainstream music is to move the product and who's more gullible than dumbass teenagers? Still, I followed trends and bought embarrassing albums because this was pre-internet, so it was a lot harder to buy into a sub-culture. I was a stupid teenage consumer in gigantic fucking clown pants:



I had a major boner for goofy mainstream industrial pop shit. Part of it had to do with my absolute love of Ministry, as Psalm 69
was downright frightening to listen to when you're entirely too high to deal with life or your parents. The other part, I guess, was the correlation I drew between shit like this and the Cars. It had something to do with embracing technology and expanding one's sound with the aid of new programs and synths and whatnot. Thinking about it now, there isn't much that separates 80s New Wave from 90s mainstream industrial swill, except for a little macho posturing. Shit.



So while I'd love to dedicate more space to it, this seems like the proper place to close:

Most 90s nostalgia confounds me to no end, as it seems those who worship at it's altar are kids who were born then and fail to recognize how much different the world was (not to sound like an oldfag); Rolling Stone and MTV were the biggest sources I could think of to cull music from, and not being able to drive really put a damper on expanding beyond that. Still, I was inspired enough to start a band that lasted a while and got some recognition and got laid for the first time back then, so it wasn't all bad. Considering how retro-trends tend to cycle, aren't about due for a JNCO revival?

Speaking of which, I leave you with what may have been the heaviest thing I'd ever heard up to that point. First time I heard it was on this late night radio show on 106.5 THE BUZZ (or some other such stupid extreme 90s nomenclature, ask Tron, he might remember...):