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Post by jk on Jul 31, 2021 21:20:50 GMT
Very well put, Kapitan. My beef with rap is the same as my beef with protest songs, traditional ballads, etc., namely that the words are more important than the music. Once that line has been crossed, I'm out of there. That said, the music in rap can be interesting. MF Doom is a case in point -- I just love his use of samples! I'll have more to say about '90s rock/pop/whatever music in due course.
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Post by kds on Aug 1, 2021 1:14:15 GMT
I made this point in another thread, but I think it's worth adding here.
I always wonder how the 90s might have been different if two of rock's top groups didn't vanish.
In 1991, Metallica and Guns N Roses released monster albums. They even toured together in 1992. Metallica toured through 1994 before taking some time off. GNR milked Use Your Illusion well into 1993, and released a covers album to lukewarm response, but basically vanished for the rest of the decade.
Metallica did finally follow up the Black Album in 1996, but by then, alternative really had a stranglehold on mainstream rock. And, as much as I like Load, it's not quite the follow up one would expect from the metal giants.
Perhaps had GNR and Metallica followed up their albums around 1993, guitar based rock might not have been shoved into the "irrelevant" bin by the merchants of cool.
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Post by jk on Aug 1, 2021 10:59:34 GMT
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Post by Kapitan on Aug 2, 2021 11:44:36 GMT
Spiritualized are a great example of the sort of music I missed entirely, especially in the latter half of the '90s. In fact, their whole "shoegaze" movement passed me by, as did most of the Britpop of that era. Having been frustrated by the new music in the early to middle years of the '90s, I just checked out and didn't hear much that happened in the latter part of the decade.
It's only in the past five or so years that I think I ever heard Spiritualized. I've gotten an album or two and enjoyed them, though honestly I get bored of them in relatively short order. I don't think I can listen to an album straight through.
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Post by Kapitan on Aug 2, 2021 15:41:46 GMT
Something else notable about the '90s--again off the beaten path of grunge--is the explosion of popular country.
Garth Brooks basically ushered in that change along with the decade itself, with his massively successful album No Fences, and in particular, its hit "Friends in Low Places." I remember going to school dances and suddenly seeing all the girls singing and dancing along to this almost sacrilegious music: we're modern teens, we don't like country! Bon Jovi Cinderella, Def Leppard dominated school dances, along with Madonna, Janet Jackson, etc. Country!? Unprecedented. But as usual, once the girls liked it, many guys fell into line (dancing ... no pun intended).
Brooks & Dunn had another big hit, "Boot Scoot Boogie," and Billy Ray Cyrus was probably next with "Achy Breaky Heart" in 1992 in terms of massive popular success on my radar, anyway. All of these (and many others I wasn't and am still not up on) brought mainstream pop production to country music and had a lot of success on the charts and among my peers at the time.
In the mid-90s, producer Mutt Lange (Def Leppard!) worked with Shania Twain, more than doubling down on the pop production side. She spent the remainder of the '90s and early '00s releasing massively successful albums, each charting in the Top 5 of Billboard's mainstream charts and all topping Billboard's country charts.
Of course the Beach Boys tried to get in on the act with their Stars & Stripes album, the one that took precedence over the much-lauded Paley material/sessions.
Personally I didn't relate to that kind of pop-country music at all. I think I probably would more now than I did then, but regardless of the music, the image, the vocabulary, the style, all of that just never related to me. In 1995, I was far more interested in Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and Jimmy Page than I was Garth Brooks or Shania Twain.
It seems possible, however, that this was yet another avenue for people seeking "fun" music as an alternative to grunge/alternative.
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Post by kds on Aug 2, 2021 15:57:42 GMT
The rise of country, at least in terms of mainstream music, was a pretty significant movement in the 1990s. Before Garth Brooks, it was unthinkable that country music would really have any mass appeal outside of the midwest or the south. Country music was thought of as music for older shit kickers, kind of like what you see in The Blues Brothers movie.
But, the 1990s completely changed the perception of the genre. I'll admit, in the late 90s, it had me scratching my head. I've come across on some of it, like some of Garth Brooks' material, and some of the Buffett inspired tropi-country done by the likes of Kenny Chesney or the Zac Brown Band.
Throughout this whole thread, I've lamented the demise of guitar driven rock in the second half of the 1990s. But, there was a funny thing that happened during the Christmas season of 1996. The Paul O Neill produced, Savatage off shoot Trans Siberian Orchestra had a massive hit with Christmas Eve Sarajevo 12/24 of the TSO debut album Christmas Eve and Other Stories. That mash up of heavy metal, classical, and Christmas standards (which originally appeared on Savatage's 1995 Dead Winter Dead album) came out at a time when the very idea of a guitar solo was about as cool as blue and white stripped shirts were in 1967. But, that song became a Christmas standard instantly. The album was huge, and the band plays to big audiences every Christmas season (save for 2020 obviously).
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Post by jk on Aug 3, 2021 21:27:52 GMT
Pondering 1990s "rock", I eventually checked my CD collection and discovered eight favourites from that decade (there may be more): The Chemical Brothers ~ Dig Your Own Hole & SurrenderAphex Twin ~ Selected Ambient Works Volume TwoRed Hot Chili Peppers ~ Blood Sugar Sex MagikPrimal Scream ~ ScreamadelicaUnderworld ~ Beaucoup Fish Jeff Buckley ~ GraceGary Numan ~ Exile
As for Britpop, I was initiated not so long ago into the music of Supergrass and liked every album I heard.
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Post by Kapitan on Aug 3, 2021 22:34:15 GMT
Your list inspired me to think about my favorite albums of the '90s, and I've been doing it from a few different perspectives: - My current perspective - What I would've said on December 31, 1999 - What I would've said at the midpoint of the decade, as my taste changed pretty drastically in the latter half of the decade
However, I also can't help but think my list as judged in, say, 2003, would have been totally different yet again! There was a lot I discovered in those first years of the '00s that dated back to the (mostly late) '90s.
I need to think about how I want to present these thoughts.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2021 23:13:20 GMT
Up until about '93 or '94 I was buying "new" albums as they were released by what I call the "80s holdover groups". In other words, groups like Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Scorpions, Van Hagar, etc. Groups I had been listening to throughout the 80s. (As kds mentioned earlier, many of these CDs were way too long in running time). About mid 90s I got bored of that whole thing and started paying closer attention to singles. Eventually--oh I'd say early part of the 00s decade--I started jettisoning those early 1990s CDs and kept some of the singles on mix CDRs.
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Post by Kapitan on Aug 4, 2021 0:37:41 GMT
Up until about '93 or '94 I was buying "new" albums as they were released by what I call the "80s holdover groups". In other words, groups like Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Scorpions, Van Hagar, etc. Groups I had been listening to throughout the 80s. (As kds mentioned earlier, many of these CDs were way too long in running time). About mid 90s I got bored of that whole thing and started paying closer attention to singles. Eventually--oh I'd say early part of the 00s decade--I started jettisoning those early 1990s CDs and kept some of the singles on mix CDRs. Very similar here, on that first part. Guns n Roses, Van Halen, Whitesnake, Poison, etc. That's a big part of what would make my mid-decade Top 10 so, so different from my end-of-decade at the time, and then again after all these years. My taste has changed several times over already since then.
Funny about singles, that took me quite a while longer. Honestly I never bought a single until iTunes. (Wait, that's a lie. Prince's 1999 remake of "1999." I bought that as a CD single.) I kept on with full albums right through the '90s and into the '00s, thinking somehow they were (and so I was) superior somehow. In the end I spent a ton of money unnecessarily as I was going back to check out old groups, getting these albums from the '60s and '70s that might have two songs I liked...
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Post by kds on Aug 4, 2021 12:25:29 GMT
Up until about '93 or '94 I was buying "new" albums as they were released by what I call the "80s holdover groups". In other words, groups like Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Scorpions, Van Hagar, etc. Groups I had been listening to throughout the 80s. (As kds mentioned earlier, many of these CDs were way too long in running time). About mid 90s I got bored of that whole thing and started paying closer attention to singles. Eventually--oh I'd say early part of the 00s decade--I started jettisoning those early 1990s CDs and kept some of the singles on mix CDRs. Very similar here, on that first part. Guns n Roses, Van Halen, Whitesnake, Poison, etc. That's a big part of what would make my mid-decade Top 10 so, so different from my end-of-decade at the time, and then again after all these years. My taste has changed several times over already since then.
Funny about singles, that took me quite a while longer. Honestly I never bought a single until iTunes. (Wait, that's a lie. Prince's 1999 remake of "1999." I bought that as a CD single.) I kept on with full albums right through the '90s and into the '00s, thinking somehow they were (and so I was) superior somehow. In the end I spent a ton of money unnecessarily as I was going back to check out old groups, getting these albums from the '60s and '70s that might have two songs I liked...
I'm pretty confident if I were to list my Top Ten albums of the 1990s, all ten would likely be from 1994 or prior. Aerosmith's Get a Grip (1993), Def Leppard's Adrenalize (1992), Scorpions' Crazy World (1990), and Van Hagar's FUCK (1991), are all solid releases. But, the plague of the 1990s got all of these groups. Aerosmith's Nine Lives (1997) was pretty weak. Def Leppard's Slang (1995) is crap. Scorpions completely lost the plot with Eye to Eye (1999), and Van Hagar did the muddy Balance (1995).
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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2021 22:03:07 GMT
Very similar here, on that first part. Guns n Roses, Van Halen, Whitesnake, Poison, etc. That's a big part of what would make my mid-decade Top 10 so, so different from my end-of-decade at the time, and then again after all these years. My taste has changed several times over already since then.
Funny about singles, that took me quite a while longer. Honestly I never bought a single until iTunes. (Wait, that's a lie. Prince's 1999 remake of "1999." I bought that as a CD single.) I kept on with full albums right through the '90s and into the '00s, thinking somehow they were (and so I was) superior somehow. In the end I spent a ton of money unnecessarily as I was going back to check out old groups, getting these albums from the '60s and '70s that might have two songs I liked...
I'm pretty confident if I were to list my Top Ten albums of the 1990s, all ten would likely be from 1994 or prior. Aerosmith's Get a Grip (1993), Def Leppard's Adrenalize (1992), Scorpions' Crazy World (1990), and Van Hagar's FUCK (1991), are all solid releases. But, the plague of the 1990s got all of these groups. Aerosmith's Nine Lives (1997) was pretty weak. Def Leppard's Slang (1995) is crap. Scorpions completely lost the plot with Eye to Eye (1999), and Van Hagar did the muddy Balance (1995). kds, I agree 100% on about 97% of what you said! My top ten album picks would be within the same era you cited. Get a Grip was clearly Aerosmith's last "classic" (using the term loosely) album. Anything they did after that was cheezy, derivative, and of absolutely no interest to me. I also agree with you on Scorps and VH. Now Def Leppard is where I have to disagree slightly (me and the ex actually saw them on their Adrenalize tour). I'll agree the album was solidly put together and sequenced. The problem is that I never liked their sound on that one. Too poppy for me (the ex loved it!). Slang was just a WTF album. I gave them one more chance after that with Euphoria (1999), which felt like they were back to their harder sound, but I wouldn't call it a solid album by any means. At the turn of the decade, century, millennium....I think the changing of the guard was pretty much complete. And then we were into a whole nuther ballgame.
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Post by Kapitan on Aug 4, 2021 22:40:34 GMT
Here is a Top 10 of the '90s from me, as of now. It won't look anything like what it would've looked like at the time, I don't think (though I do plan to try to put myself back into that perspective later and do the same thing again).
1. Cotton Mather, Kontiki (1997) 2. Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998) 3. Tom Waits, Bone Machine (1992) 4. Tom Waits, Mule Variations (1998) 5. The Flaming Lips, The Soft Bulletin (1999) 6. Radiohead, OK Computer (1997) 7. Steve Vai, Passion & Warfare (1990) 8. Belle & Sebastian, If You're Feeling Sinister (1997) 9. Beck, Mutations (1998) 10. Queen, Innuendo (1991)
I think four of these 10 would have been on my list as of Dec. 31, 1999.
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Post by kds on Aug 5, 2021 12:47:01 GMT
I'm pretty confident if I were to list my Top Ten albums of the 1990s, all ten would likely be from 1994 or prior. Aerosmith's Get a Grip (1993), Def Leppard's Adrenalize (1992), Scorpions' Crazy World (1990), and Van Hagar's FUCK (1991), are all solid releases. But, the plague of the 1990s got all of these groups. Aerosmith's Nine Lives (1997) was pretty weak. Def Leppard's Slang (1995) is crap. Scorpions completely lost the plot with Eye to Eye (1999), and Van Hagar did the muddy Balance (1995). kds , I agree 100% on about 97% of what you said! My top ten album picks would be within the same era you cited. Get a Grip was clearly Aerosmith's last "classic" (using the term loosely) album. Anything they did after that was cheezy, derivative, and of absolutely no interest to me. I also agree with you on Scorps and VH. Now Def Leppard is where I have to disagree slightly (me and the ex actually saw them on their Adrenalize tour). I'll agree the album was solidly put together and sequenced. The problem is that I never liked their sound on that one. Too poppy for me (the ex loved it!). Slang was just a WTF album. I gave them one more chance after that with Euphoria (1999), which felt like they were back to their harder sound, but I wouldn't call it a solid album by any means. At the turn of the decade, century, millennium....I think the changing of the guard was pretty much complete. And then we were into a whole nuther ballgame. I feel like Adrenalize was really just a continuation of their sound from Hysteria, although with far less great songs. They actually released a self titled album in 2015 that's quite good. Perhaps the old guard saw that they just couldn't compete for relevancy any longer, and just went back to doing their thing. That explains the slew of "return to form albums" from the likes of Scorpions, Maiden, Priest, Dio, Whitesnake, etc in the 2000s and beyond.
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Post by kds on Aug 5, 2021 12:54:47 GMT
For S&Gs, here's my top ten albums from the 1990s, off the top of my head.
1. Pink Floyd - The Division Bell (1994) 2. Queen - Innuendo (1991) 3. Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears (1991) 4. Queensryche - Empire (1990) 5. Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark (1992) 6. Van Halen - F.U.C.K. (1991) 7. Rainbow - Stranger in Us All (1995) 8. Roger Waters - Amused to Death (1992) 9. Judas Priest - Painkiller (1990) 10. Damn Yankees - Self Titled (1990)
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