Mainly, I am talking about the music and culture. I definitely know that '90-'96 were about death, depression, dark, and gloominess and '97-'01 were about happiness, goofiness, being bubbly and thinking nothing's wrong, etc.

Biggie and 2pac's deaths.

The economy was the best it arguably ever was, from around 1997-2000.

The Dot Com boom was from 1995 to 2000. By 1996 it was clear the economy was going to be good for at least a few years.

Teen pop took off in 1997, with Spice Girls and Hanson making their debut, also the rock music became more upbeat and less grungy (Third Eye Blind is a good example). Also fashion began to look less grungy, guys began to cut their hair shorter (in style of the boy bands) and wear more preppy looking clothes, as did girls. Girls also wore more cutesy fashions, also inspired by the teen pop singers.

I think the real dour years were 1991-1994. 1990 was still sort of 80's tacky and colorful.

91-94, plaid, earth tones, beat up jeans, tattered cardigans. That was the zenith of the grunge era. It carried over into everything. Even runway models were wearing stylized versions of that stuff

I think the seedy underbelly of grunge...the heavy drug use, death, depression...turned people off from it and there was a slow turn in 95-96 to sunny, more colorful, upbeat stuff. Plus the technological revolution was underway and the economy booming. So why wallow in misery?

There was grunge and gangsta rap, but there was also a lot of fun and cheesy music in the 90's. Especially the early and late 90's.

Some dark pop culture in the early and mid-90's.

The clothes in the first half of the 90's were mixture of earth tones and colorful stuff.

By the late 90's, mainstram music was getting lighter/cheesier, but the clothes were getting pretty toned down/bland.