millenial nostalgia songs (aren't what they used to be) *NO PHONE ALERT*

"2002" is a banger.

it wasn't released in the UK til Feb 99 and that seems particularly late for a song to define a decade

i think it's common for songs/culture from 1959, 1969 & 1979 to define or symbolize their respective decades in retro media. and i get what you mean because i actually got to live through 1999 and consume its culture firsthand whereas i did not with those 3 other years.

for whatever reason i definitely think of 1999-2001 as its own separate block of pop culture that does not feel aligned with the '90s or the '00s.

I agree with that - 99-01 in Britain at least definitely feels like its own unique era. Not least because its the garage era and for years that's been the equivalent of the heyday of disco, the bit that producers reach back into when they want a handy dose of nostalgia. It's been happening for years and is probably on the way out now.

More generally there's a song on the new Little Mix album that quotes from Livin La Vida Loca, the Thong Song and Mis-Teeq's Scandalous. It's shamelessness is offset by the fact that it works.

I'd never heard that Smashing Pumpkins cover of "Destination Unknown," it's awful

there's probably a proper thread for the transition period or interzone of the late 90s and early 00s, which i associate mainly with saturated, sunny, big-budget videos in pop, hip-hop, and rock alike - and yet also with the nu-metal peak and all its visual and sonic angst. lot of stars whose careers or cultural impact didn't really get escape velocity from that era. whether you wind it up with 9/11 or the iraq war as non-musical landmarks seems to be an open question.

this thread is where i first bumped into this notion (framed as a "mini-decade"): The song that represents the END of the 90s as silly as "decade" stuff is, i think if you're gonna play that game you do need this mini-decade cause otherwise neither the "90s" or the "00s" add up to a coherent and unitary whole.