It's not a generation thing at all. Go back even further than that to when the rock and roll era began. Old folks hated rock and roll because it was fast and rhythmic. They considered that fast music as "devil's music". It's the opposite these days. These youngsters have gone back to the days of nothing but slow music. That's not progress, that's moving backwards. And what makes it worse, is they put a trashy thug on top of their Lawrence Welk tempoed music.

I was born during the Motown era. I lived through the soul era of the early 70s. I first got into disco in the late 70s and had no problem listening to early 80s funk when disco died. Then I had no problem listening to house and dance music when funk died. But when you take away all uptempo dance music, that's when I have a problem. I'm not the one getting older. The problem is, the younger generation has the taste of an 80 year old in a nursing home. I'm the one that wants to keep it live and party while they are the ones that are listening to rocking chair on the front porch music.

vainandy said:

That just gave me a fantastic mental picture!

exenn said:

I thought of this:
http://www.dailymotion.co...live_music

Cinnie said:

Jill, Erykah, Maxwell, D'angelo and the entire neo soul movement is definately a highlight of 90's music.

Actually for me, there's a lot of 90's music that I like quite a bit; however, a lot of acts have not aged well simply because of the times they were in. Obviously, I loved Mariah Carey , I really liked Boyz II Men, Toni Braxton, and a lot of the R&B acts up until about 1997, I still was a huge fan of U2 and R.E.M., I was really into the grunge acts like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, etc., and I was really into most of the hip-hop acts up until 1997. I was also into the early to mid-1990's house music scene as well.

But sometime around 1997, the music began going downhill. Grunge was all but dead; the murders of 2Pac and Biggie thankfully brought an end to the ridiculous bi-coastal hip-hop feud, but it brought a new era based on flashiness and bling, and the beginnings of cookie-cutter teen pop began to sprout. Worse yet, it appeared that R&B became inseparable from hip-hop, and it forced a lot of R&B artists to adopt sounds that they were not suited for. It wasn't long before all mainstream music, whether pop, R&B, or hip-hop, all began to sound repetitive. All of the pop groups began to sound exactly like each other, the R&B songs all had hip-hop beats and rappers doing rhymes in the middle of the songs, and all of hip-hop was about bling bling, going to the clubs, and misogynistic rhymes about bitches and hos. Not to mention what VainAndy said about the beats being really slow.

totaldiva said:

He's actually rapping in front of a string quartet

90s pop is what sucked. The invasion of the boyband.

Cinnie said:

Nice!

I do love Lupe, but this definitely serves to further the image I conjured up.

Timmy84 said:

Me too. Much better than what we have now.

TheBlackCat said:

I have to admit. I love Britney, X-tina, and Justin (without N Sync)

TheBlackCat said:

That's a bit of a lame argument, since a lot of those boybands really didn't hit BIG until 1997 or 1998. It was grunge that made the 90's a load of shit. NSync formed in 1995, but through 1996/7 they were bigger overseas. No one here really knew them. It wasn't until 1998 that they were signed to RCA in the US.

Same with BSB. Their break through success in the states wasn't until 1997.

Frankly, I'm glad some of these boy bands popped up in the late 90's. Music was so dreary and moody. The boybands and Britney's of the very late 90's was the same to the 90's as disco was to the 60'. It was a rebellion against all the darker music of the times. It brought some fun and lightness back to music, in that it gave way to something brighter again. Disco was the same rebellion against all the anti-war, anti-establishment stuff from the 60's and the war. The time was just right for NSync, BSB, etc to come out. It was bound to happen. It just happened to be those boy bands who did it. That's not in defense of boy bands, but they did have a major push in music overall. No, they weren't innovative, they were just a relief, in a way. Music goes in waves, and that was just one of them.

So to argue the 90's sucked because of boybands it stretching it a bit.

ernestsewell said:

Hell naw! Grunge was the best thing that happened in the 90s.

I don't

TheBlackCat said:

The LATE '90s.

Harlepolis said:

We're '90s kids anyway (and '80s babies). We grew up in the era of hip-hop, grunge, hip-hop soul, etc. Of course we would say "no it didn't suck all the time". Besides I hear some tracks back then, and it takes me back to the good old days where I would watch "Ren & Stimpy" and "Beavis & Butthead".

Timmy84 said:

Nice. Nostalgia does make a person a bit biased, though I will say that I knew the music of the forties-seventies didn't always connect with the new music I heard on the radio/saw on MTV in the eighties and early nineties, but I didn't hate it just 'cos I wasn't there for WWII, the great strides of the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, McCarthyism, the baby boom, etc...

If anything, learning about the music from generations before me made me appreciate what I had even more. Maybe it's a musician thing.
[Edited 8/13/09 19:55pm]

exenn said:

I don't think it's just a musician thing. Listening to music from back then makes me appreciates my parents and grandparents' upbringing. They grew up with great music too.

90's always seem a little dark to me. I guess what I don't like about the 90's is it started the I'm trying to be down era. It was the era that truly began the stop acting white thing (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air comes to mind) because of all those Gansta Rappers.

To me it's the era where the female artist lost there feminine mystique. Where Prince and Michael started acting a bit butch

The Prince video Get off has always annoy me for whatever reason. The same with Janet's You want this.

I hated brandy I Wanna Be Down. This era was the cool to be down era such a corny turn-off.

Timmy84 said:

Human beings are unpredictable.

You don't know what will resonate with them,,,,,last week I found my 13 years old niece listening to Blondie while studying, and you know what else? She only found out about them last month and it took her a finger snap to download their whole discography Now she can't get enough of 'em.

Point is, we could analyze it all we want,,,,but we don't really know what makes people tick as far as certain music is concerned, whether its good or so-called louzy.
[Edited 8/13/09 20:13pm]

Harlepolis said:

Right!
And I've noticed 15-year-old kids talk about having a favorite Marvin Gaye track or a favorite Diana Ross song. Once people find out about these artists, that "generation gap" thing is just two words.

Hip-hop was undeniable in the late eighties/early nineties. Pop absorbed a good chunk of it and spat out a lot of crap in the name of being hip, for sure.

But it's no greater offense than rock bands recording disco hits in the late seventies. Just a bit of bandwagon jumping.

Some artists pulled off the genre hopping better than others. Remember the Bee-Gees before disco? Or what punk music was like before ska and new wave trimmed it's claws a bit? Or all the 2,700 subgenres of 'metal'?

Flowerpower said:

OMG, thats the MAIN reason why I love it

Aggressive, rebellious, melancholy but most of all sincere,,,,,WORLDS of difference from the fluff we get nowadays.

Harlepolis said:

Agreed. There was some seriously theatrical darkness that was so commonplace even in mainstream artists' work, never mind some of the INCREDIBLY exciting things happening in the underground even up until 1999. Some of the drum n bass, metal, hip hop and dance acts had an incredible grasp on conveying evil in their recordings.

Yeah the '90s definitely was dark and aggressive. I'm glad I'm so diverse tho. There's something about every decade of modern popular music that has a charm about it. So I'm not one of those generational nuts.

I always thought a really nice summation of all that was right with music in 1996, for instance, was the first soundtrack to Romeo and Juliet. A lot of variety and amazingly strong songs everywhere, even if some of them were only in the film for a few seconds. The second soundtrack has that POWERFUL version of "When Doves Cry" too.

hmm.....time for a new topic.
[Edited 8/13/09 20:28pm]

exenn said:

I credit that soundtrack for introducing me to the fabulous Candi Staton,,,,covered by Kym Mazelle.

Exactly. After years of listening to mainly R&B radio exclusively since 1979, when the 90s rolled around, I just had it on mainly in the car or at work simply as background noise and all that shit hop was really depressing the hell out of me every day.

In 1997, I finally took all the R&B stations off my dial and replaced them with pop stations. Actually, it was when Prince came to my city in 1997 that made me make the switch. A co-worker of mine called me one morning and said she heard on the radio (a pop station) that Prince was coming to town. I didn't believe her so naturally I switched to the station and listened for myself. She was right and that station promoted the hell out of the concert and even had contests and all type of promotional ideas for free tickets. Those sorry ass R&B stations barely made any mention of the concert at all and were too busy continuing business as usual with all that dull ass shit hop as if this wasn't even a major event.

Anyway, when I was listening to the pop station, they were playing much better stuff than the R&B stations. I remember enjoying one of N Sync's first singles (I can't remember the name of it). I also enjoyed a song that went...."I get knocked down, but I get up again....I ain't never gonna get me down" by Chumbawumba or something. And "Are you Jimmy Ray" and "I Just Wanna Fly", and "Legend Of A Cowgirl", and "Semi Charmed Kinda Life"....stuff like that. I totally flipped my stations over to pop for a while and a few years later was enjoying the hell out of stuff like Cher's "Believe". But there was downers on pop radio also like folks like Jewel sounding all folksy and depressing. And Alanis Morrisette who's voice sounds like a damned leprecan. Her voice just reminds me of a pissy tampon for some reason.

It didn't last long though because shit hop had done made it over to pop radio also and they were starting to play more and more of it and less and less of anything else. Finally, I just took all current stations off my dial altogether.

I'm shocked to hear that coming from you of all people.

Man, the 90's was, like, so fly. We had so many classics that had immense cultural impact, like "The Macarena", "MmmBop", "Barbie Girl" and "Livin' La Vida Loca". Sure, kids today have their Lows and their Lollipops ,but nothing compares, y'know. Nothing compares...2 u.

I liked all those songs you listed. They were the best thing (mainstream) to come from that decade other than the underground house music.