The Nineties Revival

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It was late '92 when I first saw an 80s revival CD in high street shops. There have already been several Best 90s Ever comps though they've not really caught on.

So -

When will it happen? Or is it happening now?
What will be the 'big tunes' (eg "Rio", "Gold", "Dont You Want Me" vis a vis the 80s School Disco thing)?
What will the underground pick up on?
What will remain completely untouchable?
What non-music aspects will return?

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Friday, 12 December 2003 09:42 (twenty-two years ago)

they have to go away to come back!

― cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 12 December 2003 09:47 (twenty-two years ago)

The shoegazing revival has obviously already started... ;-)

― HRH Queen Kate (kate), Friday, 12 December 2003 09:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I definitely see an europop revival coming soon: 2 Unlimited, Leila K, Culture Beat, Urban Cookie Collective, Maxx, etc. etc. The signs are already in the air, at least here in Finland: Haddaway's "What Is Love" was a small revivalist hit a couple of years ago, Snap's remixes are hitting the charts, someone has started a monthly "Back to the Nineties" europop night, Dr. Alban released a new single last year...

What will remain untouchable: Take That, I presume.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 12 December 2003 09:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Um, there is a HUGE age factor here. As early as 2002 I read about young teens glamorizing the early 90s in this HAHAHA CLove interview...

But now i believe it. One of my friend's 16 year old sis, she is in a totally fetishing-the-early-90s rock phase, and listens to all this Pear Jam and Soundgarden. Tries to dress half fashionably-of-today and half with an eye to what "early 90s" would look like (but nothing as extreme as flannel..c'mon, in which of the 80s revivals did anything as extreme as spandex return? I put them on the same level).

And writes about what she sees or experiences in her high school that seems "early 90s" in her very-Generation-Y Live Journal along with all her friends. I wish I could give you the URL, actually no i don't, but you know what i mean..

What will never return: the kriss kross wearing your pants backwards thing..but god it needs to. Actually, I'm just really glad that this entire horrid strokes/early 80s/indie returnof-tite-pants-on-all-males thing has NOT been entirely successful and baggy is still HERE TO STAY. THE 90S MOST INDELIBLE MARK..TESTICLE ROOMAGE = MALE EMANCIPATION

― Vic (Vic), Friday, 12 December 2003 10:20 (twenty-two years ago)

The shoegazing revival has started, Kate. Have you seen the "Feedback to the future" compilation?

I think the 90s are too close for people to feel nostalgic for yet. When the Beeb had their "I love..." series running a year or so ago, when it got to "I love 1999" it just felt weird and wrong because I wasn't really nostalgic for 1999, it was only a year or so ago (at the time) so I remembered it too clearly. If someone really wants to hear the music of the early 90s, they can either download it or pop into any charity shop and pick up an old copy of "Now 28" (or whatever). The 90s are too available for instant consumption - you have to have forgotten something to be able to feel nostalgic for it.

― Rob M (Rob M), Friday, 12 December 2003 10:29 (twenty-two years ago)

I think if you were too young to have experienced a part of them though in the first place, you can start fetishizing them alredy, especially if you have older siblings who did experience them. Like the girl in my story, and others who were born in her time bracket ('87-'90)

― Vic (Vic), Friday, 12 December 2003 10:32 (twenty-two years ago)

80s revivals seem to occur every few years anyway in some form or another. 'back 2 the old skool' club nights focussing on 80s house and acid tunes seemed to start happening from the mid 90s onwards. as Tuomas says there are similar things for the 90s emerging but i don't expect they will really come into force for another couple of years yet for things like house music. then again there are a lot of 'old skool jungle' and 'early 90s ardkore' nights going on (a consequence partly of contemporary drum n' bass's lack of/inability to make real progress in recent years?). every genre could be represented via a '90s night' i guess, and i suppose they already exist for Britpop too.

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 12 December 2003 10:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Interesting.. On the other hand, I remember that as early as, say, 1992, the 80s had already been categorized/labelled (aesthetically, ideologically, culturally), whereas I still haven't seen that happen with the 90s.

― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Friday, 12 December 2003 10:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I haven't seen the Feedback to the Future comp (sounds wonderful!) but I did point out that the shoegazing revival had already started - see bands like Seachange, Ret Jetson, etc.

― HRH Queen Kate (kate), Friday, 12 December 2003 10:49 (twenty-two years ago)

It's all Titnies fault. Her career didn't shrivel up and die on September 12th. Or maybe its the Neptunes fault. Or Irony's...

...it was supposed to be DEAD, hey!!!!

[also see how 80s pop kind of faded off w/ rise of Kurdt, etc, but if 90s pop = hip-hop then there was no shift, it just went global and a white whiner started getting more press]

― Vic (Vic), Friday, 12 December 2003 10:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Also, it hasn't been twenty years yet - x-post, but um, yeah, wait til 2011, won'tcha?

― Vic (Vic), Friday, 12 December 2003 10:55 (twenty-two years ago)

are the 90s more difficuly to pigeonhole? 'thanks' to films like 'Live Forever' they tend to be typified by the peak of Britpop (Liam/Patsy Vanity Fair cover, the 'Bittersweet Symphony' video and Jarvis Cocker waggling his arse on stage at the Brit Awards) which is quite annoying. the 80s always seem to be more defined by what went on between 1981 and 1984 rather than the latter half of the decade - i'm just talking musically here i guess but then also with films and TV perhaps. if people had to pick ONE year that best represented the decade then i think with the 80s most people would say 1984 (obv. literary reference perhaps clouding judgement tho) and with the 90s i think they'd go for 1996 (combination of Oasis peak and the football) - at least in the UK. is it reasonable for decades to be defined by just one year ever for critical purposes? If so why can't a decade by defined by it's very first or final years? Perhaps there is too much nostalgia going on at those times but in the middle of the decade is where you get the real 'action'?

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 12 December 2003 10:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Um, I think yeah there's a bit of an oceanic divide here. The most 90ish year as far as the US goes either seems like '91 or '94 for the early angst-ridden 90s, and '97 for the high-tech, super-gloss late 90s. Almost like 2 different decades.

Puffy hold me back baby...

― Vic (Vic), Friday, 12 December 2003 10:59 (twenty-two years ago)

X with Vic.

Cultural history is much less reliant on what happened than on what people think happened. Hence it's much easier to make them remember one specific moment (Southgate misses penalty, Culture Club on TOTP) and related events from that chronological frame (about 18 months, at a guess) then it is to encourage them to get an idea of a whole decade. I was talking about this the other day with a mate of mine who's not at all a culture junkie, and his perception of "the 60s" he defined as "the swinging sixties", but he included the flower-power and free-love 67-68 paradigm in there too, which is weird, cos "swinging 60s" to me denotes a specific time and place (that spanned maybe three roads just off Regent Street and 18 months!) and the hippy-era is a different thing again (San Francisco 67-68), yet for Ben they were one and the same.

How might people look at the 90s, 80s, 70s in the same way; which two separate cultural paradigms from each decade might the non-culture junkie use as their basis for historical/cultural understanding?

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Friday, 12 December 2003 11:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes, but how (ie. content-wise) would you define them? The 80s were very quickly defined as the greedy neo-liberal hangover of the Woodstock generation (ie. Jefferson Airplane --> Starship), the triumph of mindless consumerism, etc.
Whereas for now, apart from the rise of the global village, Internet, post-modern BLABLABLA stuff, the 90s haven't yet been easily summarized.

― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Friday, 12 December 2003 11:03 (twenty-two years ago)

90s as postmodern = incredulity to metanarratives = non-linear perceptions of decades as metanarratives = the 90s will not be defined?

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Friday, 12 December 2003 11:06 (twenty-two years ago)

[I picked those years since '94 = Kurt was bigger in death than life of course/Beck to rep the "postmodernism" rampant, alternamusic's pop moment/my so called life AND 90210 AND real world were all on/peaking/Snoop was ubiquitous and Warren G broke, making the Chronic's takeover complete.....'97 = the hanson/spice girls/puffy mania leading the change for the rest of the decade and AOL really taking off in suburbia and that Lilith fair garbage...'96 just seems like a listless transitional period aside from the Fugees and Alanis everywhere, and the olympics gettin that "scare" hahaha - the exception being those one-striped sweaters and "no diggity" but that lasted well into
'97, as did fuggees/alanis so it wasnt that special]

― Vic (Vic), Friday, 12 December 2003 11:09 (twenty-two years ago)

of course Snoop is also ubiquitous now, so thats all the proof u need there that the 90s never really ended

― Vic (Vic), Friday, 12 December 2003 11:12 (twenty-two years ago)

yes, Nick, that's probably the key to the whole thing. As such, and with the whole pick-and-mix ethos of that period, the 90s seem more difficult to revive than previous decades.

xpost

― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Friday, 12 December 2003 11:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I can imagine all these people saying "Well, actually, the defining moment of the 90s was only noticed by seven people on a farm on Wiltshire on October 12th 1995 when two cows farted in unison and it sounded just like the intro to 'Common People'..."

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Friday, 12 December 2003 11:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Haha. Oh and i forgot pulp fiction w/ '94, thats also a big thing

― Vic (Vic), Friday, 12 December 2003 11:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Edwyn Collins Grill Lie Queue, oof

― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Friday, 12 December 2003 11:49 (twenty-two years ago)

It seems strange that this is not a thread I started in, say, February 2001.

Tico, are you a fan of Carter's song of the same name?

― the ninefox, Friday, 12 December 2003 13:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Not especially PF, it's OK though, I admit it was ringing in my mind when I started the thread.

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Friday, 12 December 2003 13:37 (twenty-two years ago)

big beat.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 12 December 2003 13:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Many of my friends are still nostalgic for the early 90's, but that's because they aren't aware people (or music) have moved on. They're the grunge equivalent of hippies.

― Francis Watlington (Francis Watlington), Friday, 12 December 2003 14:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Winona Ryder..

― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Friday, 12 December 2003 14:29 (twenty-two years ago)

BINGO

― ModJ (ModJ), Friday, 12 December 2003 18:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Bingo the dog?

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Friday, 12 December 2003 18:34 (twenty-two years ago)

one month passes...

My 18 year old sister asked for 90s No Doubt CDs and "The Score" this Christmas. And maybe Aqua's "Aquarium" as well. She's totally riding what me and my generation built. Actually, I remember everyone intensely and irrationally hating that stuff at the time, but at least our hatred was authentic.

― Chris H. (chrisherbert), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 15:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I can only imagine Nick's "October 12th 1995" reference was a deliberately absurd exaggeration of my writing style - not even I would go quite that far ... :).

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:08 (twenty-two years ago)

I just made a 6 disc 90's mix.

― Chris V (Chris V), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:10 (twenty-two years ago)

haha, the thing is robin, you would!

(im not exempt from this, i have 2 dates for this)

* february 1993 (ive lost the thing with the exact date on)
31 march 1996

but can you guess what these 2 dates signify?

― gareth (gareth), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:30 (twenty-two years ago)

What will remain completely untouchable?

Lloyd Cole?

Though rumour is that PAUL MORLEY has started playing LC ON THE RADIO!!

― the ninefox, Wednesday, 14 January 2004 20:11 (twenty-two years ago)

was it the 16th Feb gareth? is this the exact day that the rave scene fragmented, thrown into spasm by the release of 'Nino's Dream'?

what's the 1996 one? release date of 'Emperor Tomato Ketchup'?

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 20:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Are you going to post it ala the CD700 lists, Chris V.?

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 21:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I am already well nostalgic for the mid nineties. For me, 94-7 was an unrivalled era in music. I thought it was just me who thought that, but I met a bloke down the pub the other night who said exactly the same thing. I can't believe the shit that's out now, but I do think we're in a mega-good dance music era that hasn't played itself fully out yet.

― R t V (Jake Proudlock), Thursday, 15 January 2004 03:39 (twenty-two years ago)

1998 Forever!

― Momus (Momus), Thursday, 15 January 2004 04:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Its kind of craptacular. I like it, i don't know if anyone else would.

― Chris V (Chris V), Thursday, 15 January 2004 12:12 (twenty-two years ago)

six years pass...

Right let's get this done then...

― dog latin, Tuesday, 26 January 2010 21:20 (sixteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgWm8o_lE7M

― dog latin, Tuesday, 26 January 2010 21:20 (sixteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpugp6DIb3I&feature=related

― dog latin, Tuesday, 26 January 2010 21:27 (sixteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=777kGx7-qLw

― dog latin, Tuesday, 26 January 2010 21:29 (sixteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__PU5CVSegg

― dog latin, Tuesday, 26 January 2010 21:31 (sixteen years ago)

i watched some Shamen videos on YT last night

― mdskltr (blueski), Tuesday, 26 January 2010 21:32 (sixteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUqZY805aDc

― dog latin, Tuesday, 26 January 2010 21:32 (sixteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu3eaTDRnTo

there go steve.

― dog latin, Tuesday, 26 January 2010 21:33 (sixteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLmA935MRgc

― dog latin, Tuesday, 26 January 2010 21:34 (sixteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmpEC7_6Ixw
(sorry about the shit video)

― dog latin, Tuesday, 26 January 2010 21:36 (sixteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJvnD6RC74c

― dog latin, Tuesday, 26 January 2010 22:07 (sixteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoIaDkJfBRY

― dog latin, Tuesday, 26 January 2010 22:07 (sixteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z_dNHwlBzM&feature=related

― dog latin, Tuesday, 26 January 2010 22:08 (sixteen years ago)

Actually, that last one may have been 89.

― dog latin, Tuesday, 26 January 2010 22:09 (sixteen years ago)

Who teh fuck cares, AWESOME

― Nathalie (stevienixed), Tuesday, 26 January 2010 22:19 (sixteen years ago)

"no diggity" still sounds so fresh

― guammls (QE II), Tuesday, 26 January 2010 23:08 (sixteen years ago)

It really does doesn't it? I remember even as a super-rockist teenager thinking it sounded like nothing else at the time.

― dog latin, Wednesday, 27 January 2010 12:29 (sixteen years ago)

what 20 year old genre of dance music will be the main hip sonic signifier of the '10s? playing the same role as disco in the 90s and electro in the 00s? i reckon garage, but trance has a shot too, i think.

― max arrrrrgh, Wednesday, 27 January 2010 23:46 (sixteen years ago)

Wait where was disco in the 90's?

― 26 Mixes Focaccia (Stevie D), Thursday, 28 January 2010 00:52 (sixteen years ago)

also ACID. FUCKING. HOUSE.

― 26 Mixes Focaccia (Stevie D), Thursday, 28 January 2010 00:52 (sixteen years ago)

Wait where was disco in the 90's?

quite a lot of filter-y stuff in the late 90s. wouldn't say it was partic dominant, certainly not the main hip sonic signifier. (idk what that was... old italian soundtracks?)

― free the charmless but occasionally brilliant Dom Passantino (history mayne), Thursday, 28 January 2010 00:54 (sixteen years ago)

maybe 90's house will come back.

― 26 Mixes Focaccia (Stevie D), Thursday, 28 January 2010 01:16 (sixteen years ago)

ummm....The Box, anyone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjJwMZJjsxA

― Spinspin Sugah, Thursday, 28 January 2010 01:46 (sixteen years ago)

two months pass...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/apr/05/black-grape-review

just sad

― yella card THIS, yatches (history mayne), Thursday, 8 April 2010 10:11 (sixteen years ago)

What will remain untouchable: Take That, I presume.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), 12. joulukuuta 2003 11:51 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Hmm, I guess I wasn't that good at predicting things. Though I assume the people who listen to the reformed Take That are their old fans, not some young hipsters?

Also, the folks who go to these Eurodance revival gigs/clubs (they're still going on, in Finland at least) are mostly people in their thirties for whom it's nostalgia music of their youth. So it's still a revival, but not in the sense that it would inspire the new trends of today.

― Tuomas, Thursday, 8 April 2010 12:13 (sixteen years ago)

one year passes...

So for these last few weeks I've been wondering why ILX has become so Dog Latin-friendly, what with polls and threads about Pavement, Blur, Aphex etc... And then it dawned on me that it's happening - it's really happening. Finally we can talk openly about the Boo Radleys without people going all "LOL Wake Up Boo". People are even taking the Manic Street Preachers poll seriously... It's coming you guys, and I think it's hit ILX.. All non-believers will be left to toil on this Earth for all eternity. See you in cloudland.

― Bus to Yoker (dog latin), Wednesday, 15 June 2011 10:42 (fourteen years ago)

one year passes...

Here we are in 2012 and it seems like everything has had it's day in the sun. R&B (How to Dress Well, everyone liking Boys 2 Men), HOUSE got huge from 2008-2011, techno started getting cool again in 2011 -- just go to Dis mag -- most mixes have cool trance and techno stuff. Nirvana cover bands were cool in an overly-ironic way in some colleges across the country. Let's see, what else...

R&B and Jordans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18ew9nwn1HY

Boy Bands!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C5YAc6L_KQ&playnext=1&list=PL4C2D93D66BD390B9&feature=results_main

Windows 95 / CD-ROM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIvR9rqae7Q

Let us not forget 90s Internet. Netartist have been on that since the 90s nonstop.

― heavymeddle, Sunday, 30 September 2012 06:04 (thirteen years ago)

That recently unearthed unreleased MC Hammer Sega CD game was probably the pinnacle of 90's nostalgia.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Sunday, 30 September 2012 08:05 (thirteen years ago)

three years pass...

ahem

https://www.danmurphys.com.au/product/DM_841197/amen-break-chardonnay.jsp;jsessionid=7006DCFB4F0239C43E472F87F8A249F9.ncdlmorasp1306?bmUID=lhUak.y

― the tune was space, Monday, 9 May 2016 17:45 (ten years ago)

three years pass...

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/higher-power-27-miles-underwater/

As with many of their peers, Higher Power’s idea of psychedelia is sourced from the woozier moments of Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, and Hum, and they’re maybe the only one that remembers those bands could groove, too.

― j., Sunday, 9 February 2020 03:11 (six years ago)

due a 2000s revival thread now, no doubt eh? that CFCF album that made the poll is a case in point

― doorstep jetski (dog latin), Monday, 10 February 2020 11:01 (six years ago)

sure they could groove... but should they have?

― turn the jawhatthefuckever on (One Eye Open), Monday, 10 February 2020 15:21 (six years ago)

a fair question

― beelzebubbly (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 10 February 2020 15:26 (six years ago)

WHAN YAR DAN AH MEHK YA DOOV EET ALL AGEEYN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9qMC5VIJGA

― doorstep jetski (dog latin), Monday, 10 February 2020 15:28 (six years ago)

wrong thread

― doorstep jetski (dog latin), Monday, 10 February 2020 15:30 (six years ago)

i was working hard to try and read that as a parody of vedder/weiland vocal syndrome and going like "mannn I don't recognize these lyrics"

― Doctor Casino, Monday, 10 February 2020 15:50 (six years ago)

i guess it is (late) 90s comedy

― doorstep jetski (dog latin), Monday, 10 February 2020 16:55 (six years ago)

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