Fall 1991, best period in music?

[Julius Seeker]

My argument are the albums: 2Pacalypse Now, Loveless, Nevermind, Ten, Blood Sugar, and Use Your Illusion I and 2. Simply put, almost every song across all of these albums was worth listening to again and again (GNR and Chilli Peppers had some filler, but not that much when compared to 99% of the other albums out there). There are a lot of revolutionary qualities to these albums that heavily altered the course of music and pop-culture to this very day. Huge numbers of big acts of the past two decades have tried to emulate these albums, and have even found huge commercial success in failing to hit the bullseye. All of these releases came from a short period of time in 1991. It was a defining period of time for MTV, Much Music, and the generation which followed it.

I chose these six because they were probably among the first 10 albums I ever owned on CD, and I listened to the shit out of them. How often does an album of this caliber even come out? When other time did 6 of them come out in a 2 and a half month period?

2Pacalypse Now

Loveless

Use Your Illusion I and II

Nevermind

Blood Sugar Sex Magic

TEN

[SineSwiper]

I can only go by years:

1991:
Nirvana's Nevermind
Pearl Jam's Ten
Metallica's Black album (which is debatable by some, including me, as being a good album)
Sting's The Soul Cages (one of his best)
Enya's Shepard Moons (one of her best)
Yes's Union (one of the biggest Yes albums made; combined any artist that ever played in Yes)

1993:
Type O Negative's Bloody Kisses
Curve's Cuckoo
Bjork's Debut
Tears for Fears' Elemental
The Cranberries' Everybody Else is Doing It, So Why Can't We?
Boredoms' Pop Tarari (maybe not in a style I liked, but critically acclaimed by others)
Primus' Pork Soda
Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream
Sting's Ten Summoner's Tales (Sting's other really good album; probably the best)
Tool's Undertow

1994:
Pink Floyd's Division Bell
Underworld's dubnobasswithmyheadman
Soul Coughing's Ruby Vroom
Orbital's Snivilsation
KoRn's first (Are you ready?)
Alice in Chain's Jar of Flies
Beasties Boy's Ill Communication
Marilyn Manson's Portrait of an American Family
Massive Attack's Protection
NIN's Downward Spiral

Ugh...I could do this all day. I think what I'll conclude is that the 1990's in general were a pretty damn good period for music. Sure, the 2000's is pretty good (certainly better than the 80's), but there was just more good albums and breakout artists putting out their best albums (bands that we know very well now) during the 1990's. Chemical Brothers, NIN, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Underworld, Marilyn Manson, Soul Coughing, KoRn, Beck, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, Prodigy, Fluke, Aphex Twin, etc., etc., etc. Even the bands from the 70's and 80's seem to have hibernated during the 80's and then came back strong with awesome music: Yes, Pink Floyd, Dream Theater, Metallica (again, arguably), The Cure. New genres were forming or gaining popularity quick, like Rap, Electronica, Grudge, and a lot of mixtures of various genres. (I know there was a period between 1997 and 1999 where a lot of people were experimenting with electronica elements.)

Maybe it's just us and it being "our decade" of music, but I'd like to think it's something more. Certain decades simply has a better atmosphere for music. The 50's wasn't really great for music, but the 60's and 70's were. The 20's and 30's had a great jazz and blues period.

[Julius Seeker]

I wasn't much of a fan of the 60's except the Beatles and the Doors, and some songs by Neil Young and a handful of other bands. Now personally, I loved the 80's. There was LOTS of good stuff, including a lot of those 70's and 90's bands you listed. One of my favourite periods of music is about 76 to the mid 80's; one of the most diverse and unique sounding periods of music that ever existed. By the end of the 80's the problem was everything stagnated and was actually becoming more uniform; you had a top 30 where half of them sounded like Madonna - kind of like today where half the stuff sounds like Beyonce. Rock was WAY over-produced along with most everything else.

It's really cool how everything just sort of shifted in the music culture in 91; we haven't had anything close to that kind of upheaval since.

As for Metallica, honestly, aside from covers, the only songs I ever liked from them were from that album... Although I can't stand to listen to Enter Sandman anymore: It goes back to High School dances when the song would come on, and then all the smelly Dungeons of Dragons people would rush onto the dance floor, scaring almost all the girls away. They would move around in the most absurd manner which I assume was an attempt at dancing or moshing; and growling out incoherent angry sounding vocalizations which I believe were supposed to be the lyrics to the song. On the otherhand, I really liked Nothing Else Matters and The Unforgiven. Actually, this album was August 1991, which is close enough to September... It was a month and a week before Nevermind.


Bottom line about today's music. It is like the late 80's. Everything sounds the same, everything is produced the same. There's nothing that is really surprising anymore; there's only really one singer (Lady Gaga) that people even seem to about lot about anymore that didn't come from the Britain's Vot Talent/Idol/American Idol crapfactory where they all sound like Celine Dion clones (the guys too). Listening to rock today, I always have to ask myself "Did Nickelback get a new lead singer?".

[SineSwiper]

I wouldn't consider the 2000's as bad as the 80's. And frankly, I don't really see what was good about the 80's. Everybody was playing around with bad keyboards and first-generation styles without a care as to how good it was, and just fucking embarrassing music all around. I mean this is what I see when I think of the 80's music:



Sure, you had some standouts like Depeche Mode, Peter Gabriel, Dire Straits, Talking Heads, Thomas Dolby, Duran Duran, Tears for Fears, The Police. But many of the songs from those guys sound so dated right now. I think bands like The Cars and The Tubes encapsulated that idea of potentially good bands that can only exist in the 80's and can only be played during the 80's.

Compared to the stuff from the 70's like Led Zeppelin, The Who, King Crimson, Yes, Pink Floyd, which all sound awesome even 30-40 years later. Even those bands that survived just kinda limped along the 80's and finally came back strong in the 90's.

Oddly enough, though, I think the 80's might have been a good decade for metal, however...once you got rid of all of the glam bullshit that came out of it.

[Zeus]

The reason so many people look fondly back on the 80s is 'cause it was a period where it was all about having a good time. Fashion was over-the-top and media was never taken too seriously. Look how many pop songs you still here that are just about fun. There's no deep meaning or any BS like that. The big hair bands, how the hell could you take them seriously, even back then? You had big action stars with cheesy one-liners, pieced-together action scenes with talentless actors, far-too-impossible situations, and even over-weight, tough bad guys (think Commando).

We are talking about entertainment after all, isn't being fun what it's really about?

[Julius Seeker]

Well, I think you're view is going to be a little bit biased if you take the worst pop-songs of the 80's; ignoring the entire New Wave and Punk scene (Blondie, Siouxie and the Banshees, the Wipers, The Pixies, Psychedelic Furs, etc...). That's like saying that you think of S-Club 7, Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, Toni Braxton, 98 degrees, and Jessica Simpson, when you think of the 90's.

I like the Cars a lot, but they're 70's rather than 80's. As I was saying, the end of the 70's is the the same era as the beginning of the 80's, it's when the fusion of rock/punk/disco occurred.


Probably not your cup of tea, but this is one of my favourite songs of all time, coincidently the #1 song when I was born, connection? =)



For Mid 80's stuff, I say this is probably the most defining song of the sound, a move to a more over-produced sound which continued until the early 90's:




And in early 1991 music had barely changed from the mid-80's


(PS. Those guys didn't actually contribute anything at all to the song, but still won Grammies for it =P)

[Kupek]

Maybe it's just us and it being "our decade" of music, but I'd like to think it's something more. Certain decades simply has a better atmosphere for music. The 50's wasn't really great for music, but the 60's and 70's were. The 20's and 30's had a great jazz and blues period.

Someone thinks the decade they were a teenager had the best music? Shocking.

[SineSwiper]

Maybe it's just us and it being "our decade" of music, but I'd like to think it's something more. Certain decades simply has a better atmosphere for music. The 50's wasn't really great for music, but the 60's and 70's were. The 20's and 30's had a great jazz and blues period.

Someone thinks the decade they were a teenager had the best music? Shocking.

See, that was my point. It would be easy to dismiss the whole thing as that sort of argument, but again, I think as a whole the music scene was just a lot better during the 90's. After all, there's always patterns of genres waxing and waning during certain periods, so why can't the music scene as a whole do the same thing?

[Zeus]

You were a teenager during the 90s, no?

[SineSwiper]

Yes, but I also like plenty of music during the 60's and 70's, and I'm an avid of collector of music now, during the 2000's. So, that's already spanning 5 decades.

[Zeus]

Yes, but I also like plenty of music during the 60's and 70's, and I'm an avid of collector of music now, during the 2000's. So, that's already spanning 5 decades.

So there's no decent music of note in the 80s?

[SineSwiper]

Yes, but I also like plenty of music during the 60's and 70's, and I'm an avid of collector of music now, during the 2000's. So, that's already spanning 5 decades.

So there's no decent music of note in the 80s?

No, I'm not saying that. I'm not dealing in absolutes here. But, I do believe that the 80's was a waning period for music, and the 90's was more of a "golden age".

[Zeus]

I would agree to a degree. The early to mid 90s was good, but I personally wasn't fond of the late 90s. But that's personal opinion

[SineSwiper]

Might have to do with the differences in emerging styles. Electronica was starting to have some good synergy during the late 90's, whereas rap and grudge had their revivals during the early 90's. Alternative was in the middle.

[Zeus]

Oh, it certainly was the change in styles. I actually was never a fan of the grunge-alternative style, I actually despised it back then. Nowadays I wish for bands of the quality of Nirvana or The Tragically Hip when growing up I'd curse their names.

[SineSwiper]

Oh, alternative is alive and well, but it's branched into so many different directions that you almost need to know what kind of alternative you're looking for. After all, Nirvana is more technically grudge, but grudge was part of that alternative movement.

[Julius Seeker]

I think the major thing about the 90's are that none of its mythological icons survived it. The people who were at the forefront of their respective movements; since Smells Like Teen Spirit, Kurt Cobain was grunge; Tupac and Biggie were the new flavour of rap. These guys are all deified legends. Similar things happened to defining acts of the 60's, although John Lennon lived a decade longer, and Mich Jager is still alive. You could probably argue that Alanis Morrisette and Celine Dion were also defining acts in the early 90's, and they live.

The late 90's was a decline in my opinion. It just didn't feel as big.

[SineSwiper]

Again, it depended on which styles you were into. Chemical Brothers came out with their first album in 1995, and Dig Your Own Hole came out in 1997, which really started the whole big beat movement, followed by Crystal Method, Fatboy Slim, Daft Punk, Prodigy. An intense interest into electronica in America came from that during the late 90's, including some hybrids categories forming (rock/electronica, folktronica, increased use of mixers in bands), and critical albums like NIN's Downward Spiral and Radiohead's OK Computer. OK Computer practically defined modern alternative rock, and Radiohead started drifting towards a more electronic feel in later albums. Likewise, Chemical Brothers invented and popularized big beat, but moved towards acid house, breakbeat, and other styles in later albums.

[kali o.]

I wouldn't consider the 2000's as bad as the 80's. And frankly, I don't really see what was good about the 80's. Everybody was playing around with bad keyboards and first-generation styles without a care as to how good it was, and just fucking embarrassing music all around. I mean this is what I see when I think of the 80's music:

Bon Jovi rocks. For that matter, so does wham. As for the 80's, here are some [slightly] less gay picks:

[SineSwiper]

Violator isn't bad, but dated. I consider Ultra to be Depeche Mode's best album to date.

[kali o.]

Its funny that you changed my vids to horizontal (im assuming), since I briefly considered stacking yours vertically. Not sure how putting them side-by-side (off screen for most of us) is better...

[SineSwiper]

Its funny that you changed my vids to horizontal (im assuming), since I briefly considered stacking yours vertically. Not sure how putting them side-by-side (off screen for most of us) is better...

Really? It doesn't auto-adjust? I can resize my window and it auto-adjusts for me.

I was just trying to save on vertical space and have more content on the screen at once. For fun, you can click on all nine of them at once.