The '90s Appreciation Thread

[EricABQ]

The '90s were a pretty interesting decade for pop music. It started with rock "meaning something" again, went through a boy band and pop-tart phase, saw hip-hop reach new levels, and ended with the meaning of "alternative" changing forever.

So, post your favorites from the decade and provide any thoughts you might have.

I'll get things started with one of my absolute favorite rock songs from the decade. I was in college when this album came out, and me and my roommates wore it out. I particularly like the drum and bass work in this song:

[EricABQ]

[KenOC]

A couple of those plus "Black Hole Sun" is worth the entire Second Viennese School. Thumbs up.

[Sonata]

The '90s were a pretty interesting decade for pop music. It started with rock "meaning something" again, went through a boy band and pop-tart phase, saw hip-hop reach new levels, and ended with the meaning of "alternative" changing forever.

So, post your favorites from the decade and provide any thoughts you might have.

I'll get things started with one of my absolute favorite rock songs from the decade. I was in college when this album came out, and me and my roommates wore it out. I particularly like the drum and bass work in this song:

Good call! When I saw the title of this thread, the very first band that came to mind was Alice In Chains. Great band. Their Unplugged album is really something special.

[neoshredder]

Alice in Chains rocks. Stone Temple Pilots as well. At least their early stuff.

[neoshredder]

[mud]

[regressivetransphobe]

Arrghh... There was some good hip-hop back then, sure, but this is when everything with guitars started sucking. All the post-punk alternative threads had homogenized into watered down grunge and maudlin indie rock, oldschool metal bands got dementia and were replaced by horrible nu-metal and pseudo-thuggish "groove metal", Nick Cave turned into a goth version of Tom Waits, and every other band out there abused the same "soft/LOUD" dynamic. Even The Fall sucked in the 90s. Dark times.

Not all was foul, though. 90s noise rock was absolutely great. Arguably the last vital, uncompromising thing with punk roots.







Death & black metal were also still going strong, giving us a few more classic albums before turning into the hopeless self-parodies they are today.

[Sonata]

Screaming Tree was an underrated but very good grunge band.

Rusted Root was another great one, I love their album "When I Woke" So many great songs: On my Way, Cruel Sun, Ecstasy. The whole album was good. So was their self-titled album.

[Arsakes]

Dr. Alban's music was the most fun music from 90s!

Ace of Base, Mariah Carrey, Martina McBride and few others are my favorites from 90s.

80s just had Stevie Wonder and Modern Talking for me (ignoring old singers of 50s and 60s) ...
Finally I found the pearls of the 50s, 60s and 70s which were much better than all of the music 80s, 90s and later music combined.

[EricABQ]

One of my favorite albums from the '90s was the Blind Melon debut. I get the impression they are thought of mainly as one hit wonders because of No Rain and the silly video, but this album was excellent.

[quack]

Alice in Chains, STP, Blind Melon? that's 70's music isn't it, just kept sprouting in the 90's like a weed ;~)

Regress knows where it's at, listen up, although OOIOO is better than the boredoms.









http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNoo_rNZQ84

[MacLeod]

I must say that much of the 90s passed me by while I was raising children, so I've had to go back and find out what was going on then while I was changing nappies!

Not a lot, actually. My favourite bands (Muse, Radiohead, Massive Attack) didn't produce their best work until after the century turned and there was not much Britpop that I've since discovered I like - the odd Blur or Pulp.

So, that leaves such as this...

[Art Rock]

Here's what I wrote when I posted this in my blog (May 2009):

The progression of Radiohead over their first three albums (Pablo Honey, The bends, OK Computer) is probably unparalleled in musical history. The highly experimental OK Computer is quite rightly widely seen as one of the best albums of all time. However, more and more, I am inclined to think that The bends is even better. One of the songs that is causing this shift in preference is the awesome powerful Street spirit (Fade out), which made a belated entry in my list in 2007. One of the bleakest songs this side of Mahler's Kindertotenlieder. Thom Yorke said it was about "fighting with the devil and losing every time." He reputedly has trouble playing it at concerts, because it's so draining to look into the eyes of a cheering audience when singing of total despair. Just now when I sat down to read in the garden, this song came up on the MP3 player - and I got tears in my eyes. It is such an amazingly powerful emotional song.
Art Rock score: 10/10 (brilliant masterpiece, one of 200 best songs of all time)

[MacLeod]

One of the songs that is causing this shift in preference is the awesome powerful Street spirit (Fade out), which made a belated entry in my list in 2007. One of the bleakest songs this side of Mahler's Kindertotenlieder. Thom Yorke said it was about "fighting with the devil and losing every time." He reputedly has trouble playing it at concerts, because it's so draining to look into the eyes of a cheering audience when singing of total despair. Just now when I sat down to read in the garden, this song came up on the MP3 player - and I got tears in my eyes. It is such an amazingly powerful emotional song.
Art Rock score: 10/10 (brilliant masterpiece, one of 200 best songs of all time)

Funny how a whole decade can have such a dominant feel that it is easy to overlook things, and I was only thinking in albums (Kid A, Hail to the Thief and In Rainbows are my favourites). You're right - Street Spirit is excellent.

You also prompted me to recall Depeche Mode's Violator, but again, though a fan back in 1981, I lost track of them, and only picked them up again much later, and had to go back in time to Enjoy The Silence, Blue Dress and Halo.