Just thought I'd do a flipside of TheBlackGuy's topic and ask '80s people if, as time has gone on, have they changed their views on the '90s? In 1993, they might have hated stuff like Beavis and Butthead, and didn't get this Kurt Cobain dude and his noisy grunge. They were probably sad about John Hughes movies and hair bands going away, or things like AIDS coming along and making the gritty '90s a reality.

I'm guessing this made early Generation Xers feel on the other side of the generational fence for the first time in their lives (and why some '80s teens detested the '90s at the time).

However, do some of them now see the decade as not so bad, since they're part of the "old school" world too (i.e. slightly older things like Arcades, VHS, cassettes were pretty commonplace. Up till 1997, it was basically preInternet and terrorism, at least on a household level)?

Just thought I'd do a flipside of TheBlackGuy's topic and ask '80s people if, as time has gone on, have they softened on the '90s now that they're gone too?

Around 1993 as this was all happening, maybe they wondered who the heck were these destructive Beavis and Butthead idiots on MTV, and didn't get this Kurt Cobain dude and his noisy grunge music. They were probably sad about John Hughes movies and hair bands going away, or AIDS awareness slamming the door shut on the "sex and party" atmosphere of the '80s.

Basically, for the first time in their lives probably, it made the early Generation Xers feel "older" or on the other side of the fence. I'm guessing that's why so many people born around the late '60s seem to hate the '90s.

However, do some of them now see the '90s as not so bad, since they're part of the "old school" world as well (i.e. slightly older things like Arcades, VHS, cassettes were pretty commonplace. Up till 1997, it was basically preInternet and before terrorism became so household)?



Well, it's hard for me to say, but I can speak for my parent's who were both born in the '60s. They both hate the '90s for the most part(or at least the pop culture aspect). Even though my mom(born in '69) is alot more tolerent of '90s music and pop culture than my dad(born in '64)is. In my dad's case I would guess that in 1993 at age 29 he just felt like he was too old for the newer stuff that your average 1975er would've been into. It's about like how your average '75er might feel about what an average '88er likes now.

Well, it's hard for me to say, but I can speak for my parent's who were both born in the '60s. They both hate the '90s for the most part(or at least the pop culture aspect). Even though my mom(born in '69) is alot more tolerent of '90s music and pop culture than my dad(born in '64)is. In my dad's case I would guess that in 1993 at age 29 he just felt like he was too old for the newer stuff that your average 1975er would've been into. It's about like how your average '75er might feel about what an average '88er likes now.


Yeah, that makes sense. Although it's interesting you say your dad was born in '64 and doesn't care for the '90s, since my mom was born in 1954 and likes the '80s.

There's some sense to that, though. I've gotten the impression that '90s fans were younger than '80s fans. Even if they didn't like it the way teens did, older people as late as their 40s in the '80s seemed able to enjoy a few aspects of pop culture (I'm sure they weren't watching MTV or playing Pac Man at the arcade, but they may have liked a few TV shows and songs).

However, the "cooler" parts of the '90s were more young centered. There weren't alot of over 27 fans of grunge (and many even younger didn't dig it). Kinda weird, but I think someone my age (1981 born) is about the average age for a fan of every part of the '90s, whereas an all inclusive '80s fan is probably the early Xers born in the mid '60s.

Yeah, that makes sense. Although it's interesting you say your dad was born in '64 and doesn't care for the '90s, since my mom was born in 1954 and likes the '80s.

There's some sense to that, though. I've gotten the impression that '90s fans were younger than '80s fans. Even if they didn't like it the way teens did, older people as late as their 40s in the '80s seemed able to enjoy a few aspects of pop culture (I'm sure they weren't watching MTV or playing Pac Man at the arcade, but they may have liked a few TV shows and songs).

However, the "cooler" parts of the '90s were more young centered. There weren't alot of over 27 fans of grunge (and many even younger didn't dig it). Kinda weird, but I think someone my age (1981 born) is about the average age for a fan of every part of the '90s, whereas an all inclusive '80s fan is probably the early Xers born in the mid '60s.



Yeah, that's even weirder considering that alot of grunge artists were actually born in the '60s, and Eddie Vedder was born in 1964 :o

And yeah, I see what you mean about the '80s, that alot of older people seemed to enjoy it. Hell, my grandparents were both almost 50 and they liked some '80s pop culture.

You know 1990-1993 was a mix of 80's and 90's stuff musically anyway. Billy Joel, Expose, Taylor Dayne, and New Order all had hit hits in 1993. Of course 90's stuff like grunge and gangsta rap was popular too around 1993 but the 90's culture really didn't take off completely until 1994. Artists like PM Dawn and Color Me Badd can be grouped in the 1991-1993 musical period.

Well, I was born in 1972. I loved the 1970's that I remember (1976 to 1979) and really enjoyed the 1980's up to 1988 when I found myself getting really fed up with the Stock Aiken and Waterman mentallity of X amount of beats per minute and the blandness of most music of that time. I found myself getting more into the rock of the time Guns N Roses, Poison, Bon Jovi, even 1970's rockers Cheap Trick.

In the early 1990's I hated most of the dance music that was around. Guru Josh and his '1990 Time For The Guru' and most other dance music really annoyed me. I did, however, enjoy Michael Jackson's Dangerous and Janet Jackson's Rythm Nation (technically 1989, but still had some hits from it in 1990). For the most part, music for me was in a rutt. It was manufactured and while I did like some manufactured tunes, I prefered 'real' music with real instruments played by real musicians. When Nirvana came along I LOVED it.

For me, if a tune is catchy, then I dont care who sings it, Ill buy it. Smells Like Teen Spirit was a very catchy tune, even if I still dont know a lot of the words.

Through the 90's I found that I liked a lot less of the top 40 content than I did back in the late 1970's and throughout the 1980's, but what I liked I really liked.

Today, I will buy a song if it interests me. The recent songs Ive bought range from Madonna's Hung Up to Sandi Thom's With I Was A Punk Rocker and Nickleback's Photograph.

Personally, I like all styles of music so long as i has a catchy tune and sung well, no matter when it is from. I love my Led Zeppelin and The Who mixed in with some early Prince and a smattering of Nickleback and Michael Jackson with a little bit of Beatles and The Stones in there for good measure.

As for pop culture...The 1980's was so thick with pop culture that anything that came after it would seem dull, however the movie industry was in a slump in the 80's and it took brilliant films like Jurassic Park, Schindlers List as well as films such as Waynes World, Encino Man, and other teen flicks to bring the industry out of its slump.

TV was pretty good in te 1990's, but many of the bigger shows were still running from the 1980's like Rosanne, Sinefeld, Full House and others. Personally, I think the biggest TV revolution in the 1990's was X-Files. That show was HUGE and brought back the merchandising that had been lost to TV during the 1970's. Buffy The Vampire (the TV show) was another excellent addition to 1990's TV.

While I prefer the 1970's, the 1980's and 1990's were still excellent decades. Even the 00's are cool too. Each decade has its good and bad parts, fun and serious parts, and each decade has something to offer future generations I just happen to be stuck in the 1970's, maybe because I remember the 1980's and 1990's a little too well to have a big 'nostalgic' feeling for them, though the very early 1980's (to 1983) hold nostalgia for me as well.










AN

  Nostalgia is a funny thing.  I have selective nostalgia.  Any pop cultural retrospective is going to be tempered by personal experiences and circumstances (h-m-m, what did I just say..?)

  The early nineties were, ugh, difficult for no specific reason.  They just were.  Don't know why.  I really wasn't getting-by too bad.  I was in my early 20s (turned 20 in 1989) and just came out of four years in the service (discharged in 1991).  Met a woman two years younger than myself with whom I'd find myself in a turbulent, decade-long relationship.  Those awkward early nineties years are not a period of warm, fluffy, bittersweet memories and I've used that brush to paint the entire decade.  Well, most of it, anyway...

  I've heard it said that "Grunge", (music, lifestyle) with all it's trappings, and all it entails is some of the first important music made by  my generation for my generation.  I've read that Kurt Cobain was the anointed prophet of my generation.  The John Lennon of my generation, with Beck being our Bob Dylan.  Eh, I suppose so...  Sort of reflected my mood (dark cloud over my head with furrowed brow for no apparent reason...)

  But nostalgia..?  Not yet.  Still gives me knot in my stomach and feeling of dread, LOL groove ;) on...

I've started reminiscing the early 90s (90-92) and I love my clubbing years (96-01) but those middle 90s still do nothing for me. I suppose I like a few sitcoms around that time but never to the point where I'd buy the dvds for "memories" sake. The music too was dire, no matter the genre. Pop was bad, grunge was bad, hiphop was bad and dance was bad.

I respect the 90s nostalgists but I can't help but feel annoyed when people reminisce a decade which to me was almost (I'm stressing the almost) yesterday.

I've started reminiscing the early 90s (90-92) and I love my clubbing years (96-01) but those middle 90s still do nothing for me. I suppose I like a few sitcoms around that time but never to the point where I'd buy the dvds for "memories" sake. The music too was dire, no matter the genre. Pop was bad, grunge was bad, hiphop was bad and dance was bad.

I respect the 90s nostalgists but I can't help but feel annoyed when people reminisce a decade which to me was almost (I'm stressing the almost) yesterday.
The 90's was culture not yesterday. It was almost 7-8 years ago not yesterday. The 90's really didn't feel old musically until late 2005 though. I liked the 90's because they were my High School years(94-98.)  remember all the dance music and the 1st wave of post grunge with bands like Silverchair and Bush and how good the music was. Bands like Stone Temple Pilots, Oasis, and Nine Inch Nails were good too. I have respect for the 80's music too but the 90's are like home for me.

I don;t like the 00's as much as the 90's its just when you were a teenager is the time you look back on.

Hop-Hop was not bad in the 90's. We had stuff like 2Pac, Arrested Development, PM Dawn, Nas, Busta Ryhmes, LL Cool J(He could be both an 80's and 90's artist though),and A Tribe Called Quest.

I'm more of a '70s nostalgist...but the 80's were pretty good...

As for the '90s, I don't think I'll ever develop a fondness for that decade... :P

The 90's was culture not yesterday. It was almost 7-8 years ago not yesterday. The 90's really didn't feel old musically until late 2005 though. I liked the 90's because they were my High School years(94-98.)  remember all the dance music and the 1st wave of post grunge with bands like Silverchair and Bush and how good the music was. Bands like Stone Temple Pilots, Oasis, and Nine Inch Nails were good too. I have respect for the 80's music too but the 90's are like home for me.

I don;t like the 00's as much as the 90's its just when you were a teenager is the time you look back on.

Hop-Hop was not bad in the 90's. We had stuff like 2Pac, Arrested Development, PM Dawn, Nas, Busta Ryhmes, LL Cool J(He could be both an 80's and 90's artist though),and A Tribe Called Quest.


While people who pay enough attention can tell them apart, the '90s and '00s have similar surface genres (some forms of alternative, teen pop, hip hop/rap, R&B and, since the late '90s, pop/punk), which is why I think they've often perceived as so recent. That's comforting and sad at the same time.

This idea that everyone's favorite time is their high school years is overgeneralized, though it is the case for some people, so I don't entirely dispute it.

I miss my high school days more for personal reasons than pop culture 'cause I was younger. They were also simply more "in the past". In some ways, even 1999 is pretty darned old-school compared to now (the 'Net didn't dominte everything, despite getting there; a much higher presence of VHS, audio tapes and other older things; pre-9/11, Bush and terrorism).

I miss the '90's, though valso being on an Ashley Tisdale makes me feel old since most members were born in that decade and only a few are in their  early 20's...

While people who pay enough attention can tell them apart, the '90s and '00s have similar surface genres (some forms of alternative, teen pop, hip hop/rap, R&B and, since the late '90s, pop/punk), which is why I think they've often perceived as so recent. That's comforting and sad at the same time.

This idea that everyone's favorite time is their high school years is overgeneralized, though it is the case for some people, so I don't entirely dispute it.

Yeah  but R&B I mean you don't have stuff like Brian McKinight, Faith Evans, Babyface and Montell Jordan  like you did in the 90's. There aren't too many R&B ballad songs in the 00's. The 90's had a boatload of them. Alternative: there is alternative rock in the 03+ era? There was no EMO in the 90's either. Hip/Hop/Rap existed in the late 80's too. As for teen-pop it dissapeaered for a little while in the mid 90's but than came back with avegence in 1997 up till 2000. The Pussycatt Dolls and JoJo are the only current teen-pop artists now I think. Even the 80's had its teen-pop stars though.

As for everybody;s favorite time being their High School years well mine was musically. My dad loves 80's music and he was in his 30's when the 80's were going on so I understand what you are saying there.

^Oh yeah, I definitely miss the more "ballad oriented" music of the '90s. I think rap and other kinds of cr*ppier music was easier to avoid then because there was still alot more to pick from. Even AC stuff like Michael Bolton was still around and popular (even if it wasn't really cool).

P.S. That's quite a coincidence about your dad, because mine was born in 1938 and considers the late '60s to be "his time" in many ways, probably more than the '50s.

I liked both decades, though I think my spiritual home is the 80s.  The transition into the 90s was fairly painless because for the first half of the decade it just felt like an extension of the 80s.  Spot the join.

I liked both decades, though I think my spiritual home is the 80s.  The transition into the 90s was fairly painless because for the first half of the decade it just felt like an extension of the 80s.  Spot the join.


Since this thread was bumped, let me ask, Grunge wasn't as big over in the UK in the '90s as it was in the US, right?

Over here, the line between "Eighties/Nineties" music was around the end of 1991 when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came out. Gangsta rap got big around then, too. For you guys, the '80s probably seemed like it went on longer since that stuff wasn't as prevalent, from what I've heard.

About most people having nostalgia for their high school years...This is true for me to a small extent. I do miss my teenage years....But not because of the music or pop cilture, but because I was old enough to party and young enough to enjoy it...

For me, however, I have strong nostalgic feelings for the late 1970's (1977 onwards) to the early to mid 1980's (1980 to 1984)...But I lean more to the 1970's than I do the 1980's. I was 8 in 1980, and dont really remember all the pop culture from the 1970's, but I DO remember the music, the TV, some movies, shopping and playing in the street til the street lights came on.






AN

Since this thread was bumped, let me ask, Grunge wasn't as big over in the UK in the '90s as it was in the US, right?

Over here, the line between "Eighties/Nineties" music was around the end of 1991 when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came out. Gangsta rap got big around then, too. For you guys, the '80s probably seemed like it went on longer since that stuff wasn't as prevalent, from what I've heard.


It did make an impact - Nirvana were huge, as were Pearl Jam and the like.  Plenty of kids starting following the grunge trend and dressing that way, but I think it probably is fair to say that it wasn't as big here as it was in the US.  Until Kurt died that is...now my thirteen year old wears Kurt badges and listens to Nirvana all the time, but he's an emo (which I think is a sort of watered-down grunge!)

It did make an impact - Nirvana were huge, as were Pearl Jam and the like.  Plenty of kids starting following the grunge trend and dressing that way, but I think it probably is fair to say that it wasn't as big here as it was in the US.  Until Kurt died that is...now my thirteen year old wears Kurt badges and listens to Nirvana all the time, but he's an emo (which I think is a sort of watered-down grunge!)
EMO is not watered down grunge. I think EMO is a cross between 2 90's musical genres: "pop-punk" that Green Day made famous in 1994 and the teen-pop genre(think Britney and N'Sync)of the late 90's/early 00's.

EMO is not watered down grunge. I think EMO is a cross between 2 90's musical genres: "pop-punk" that Green Day made famous in 1994 and the teen-pop genre(think Britney and N'Sync)of the late 90's/early 00's.


OOH!! My son would just curl up and die if he knew that Britney had been linked with emo.... :o

I haven't said anything about this here yet, as I've been sort of afraid to rise the ire of all of the 80s aficionados here, but I've been secretly... writing a pop culture book about the 90s!  :o Okay, so my heart will always truly belong to the 80s, but the 90s weren't so bad, especially in retrospect. To tell you the truth, I've been having a blast writing the book, which I have titled Are You the Master of Your Domain? A 1990s Pop Culture Trivia Book, and I am putting the finishing touches on my little tome as we speak. The title comes from an infamous episode of the quintessential 90s sitcom Seinfeld. I haven't said anything here at the forum for fear of alienating my fellow 80s enthusiasts, so I hope the book is a success and I am not branded a traitor...  ;D

I haven't said anything about this here yet, as I've been sort of afraid to rise the ire of all of the 80s aficionados here, but I've been secretly... writing a pop culture book about the 90s!  :o Okay, so my heart will always truly belong to the 80s, but the 90s weren't so bad, especially in retrospect. To tell you the truth, I've been having a blast writing the book, which I have titled Are You the Master of Your Domain? A 1990s Pop Culture Trivia Book, and I am putting the finishing touches on my little tome as we speak. The title comes from an infamous episode of the quintessential 90s sitcom Seinfeld. I haven't said anything here at the forum for fear of alienating my fellow 80s enthusiasts, so I hope the book is a success and I am not branded a traitor...  ;D


Good for you!  I for one look forward to seeing it in print!