A decade is a long time

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Grunge? Saying Grunge is 90's is like saying legwarmers is 2000's. Just because something is rehashed in a decade does not make it the culture of that decade.

And I think I picked the most defining element of what most consider 90's culture. But so-called "grunge" music is pretty indistinguishable from generic rock, and plaid shirts are hardly a defining fashion statement.

Wow. I think this speaks for itself.

I can see how this works. It's like how I look at the 80's inspired sounds of today's music and think "it's just the 80's again". Mostly because I was there, in the 80's. But for someone born in 1991 (now of voting age) this music is it's own thing.

More in line with what I think the OP had in mind, I'm reminded of the phrase, "The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same."

Agreed, but this observation gives me the ability to understand why kids today will value these years as much as I valued mine and you valued yours. Because I'm old enough to understand that grunge was highly inspired by 70's rock (Kurt Cobain always called his music punk), I'm MORE accepting of the new generation holding bands like the Killers up as representative of 80's inspired, yet distinctively 00's music.....not LESS.

If I went into a coffee house where people were wearing plaid and speaking poetry into an open mic, I would think about 4 decades earlier.

Yup, you're right, you're way too old to appreciate it. When you don't get your invite to my 90's party (probably another 10 years from now, when it's sufficiently old enough to be awesome), you'll understand, right?

I think post-child-raising years tend to become same-like. CP is precisely on the opposite end of that equation ... and, I daresay, about to find out what a difference 10 years can REALLY make. OMG, KIDS!!!! They grow so fast, you can practically watch it happen!

I dig this as well, and can't wait to see the world through my kid's eyes.

[mousepod]

I remember having a conversation with Heather a while back about "millennial fashion". She explained to me (in a more articulate way than I'm about to say) that while every new fashion movement draws from the past, the trends that occur around the turn of the century are invariably more of a "borrow" from very recent past as well as other times in recent memory. I guess this doesn't surprise me - whenever there's a "landmark" date, we tend to spend a lot of time looking backwards.

This "instant replay" makes it easier for people like iSm to argue that there's not much to distinguish the past couple of decades, and for CP to associate Pop Tarts with the 80s. You're both right, of course.

For someone who's spent more than 20 years around the music business, I can honestly say that most "new music" in any decade is retro crap, and that the cream sometimes takes a long time to rise to the top, or at least for the masses to recognize it. Sure, to some ears, the Grunge scene sounds like generic 70s rock, but I'll bet that 46 years ago, there was an iSm complaining that Dylan was totally indistinguishable from the folk that came before him and that The Beatles were just ripping off American R&B. And he would have been right.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

I'm sure I'm the worst possible person to suggest this, but CP I think you're being a little hard on iSm. I don't understand why you think he's attacking/insulting anyone. I just re-read all his posts in this thread and I didn't see him attack anyone. Curmudgeonly, sure, but not offensively so IMO.

[flippyshark]

As I take a quick break from working on music that probably rips off Leonard Cohen, Frank Zappa and The Residents, among many others, I admit that I long ago gave up trying to figure out how to make sure my own tunes sounded new or now. I just hope something like my own voice emerges somewhere along the line.

[BarTopDancer]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

MousePlanet was around long before, but MousePad started the same time DCA did, I believe - February 2001. I joined in August of that year.

I think I joined around the same time and met people at a pot luck in 2002. I was just talking about that with MickeyD - pretty sure it was early 2002.

a 1990's party would be very easy to throw.

that 80s party was easy, I'm sure a 90s one would be easy as well. It's fresh in the brainz.

Grunge, MC Hammer and LL Cool J and C&C Music Factory, Pop Tarts and Bagel Bites, a "coffeehouse and bagel shop" with open mic poetry...throw in a little Bush Sr/Clinton White House and you're set.

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Anyway - anyone else have anything they want to say about the last decade, the changes, the time gone by?

The beginning of the "casual culture" where jeans are dressy and dresses aren't.

A slightly tighter reign on running around until the lights came on as crime became more prominent (not necessarily more crime, but with cable news it was easier to hear more crime more often).

[Ghoulish Delight]

My favorite NPR music program, All Songs Considered, is doing a series of decade retrospective episodes. The first one is here. Mind you, it's majorly skewed to the NPR perspective, which means a lot of indie-pop, out of the mainstream stuff, so it's not the most complete picture. But the do spend a lot of time on general cultural trends and trends in the industry vs. specific music, at least in this first episode. Plus, it's worth it just for the last 20 seconds or so where they start spewing all the things they didn't get a chance to talk about. A lot of, "Oh yeah, THAT!" moments

The host, Bob Boilen, decided to pick an artist that exemplified music that could only have come from this decade. He went with Animal Collective and I couldn't agree more with that choice. While no music can claim complete independence from their predecessors and influences (surely they owe a huge dept to Radiohead, just to name one off the top of my head), Animal Collective I think synthesized all of it into something uniquely Millenial. YMMV, but the track is on the page linked above if you'd like a listen (7th track down).

I definitely feel more connected to this decade over any other. Surely the next decade is going to be a radical change for me as a person, but that's independent of the cultural environment. As a matter of fact, in all likelihood, despite the increased importance in my personal narrative the next decade will undoubtedly represent, I imagine I'll find myself more removed from the cultural narrative than in any other decade as my focus will be largely inward.

Beardy bands, social networks, an explosion of partisanship, a complete sea change in how the public consumes media, a complete sea change in how the public produces media, the seeds of an important civil rights movement, the death (or at least the beginning of the long convalescence) of the printed newspaper. Just to name a few. Whether I can think of witty party decorations to represent what I feel about the last 10 years couldn't be any more irrelevant to me. I find it far more relevant that I can have an real time conversation with someone from just about any part of the world than whether I can guess what year's design of jeans someone is wearing.

[innerSpaceman]

You may have a culturally-removed decade, but that will be followed by a culturally-immersed decade - as your child begins to really be influenced by and explore the then-current cultural milleau.

It all balances out.

[Alex]

Is being able to be easily summed up as a caricature for a theme party a sign of depth or shallowness?

But, in a point I believe I may have made in the other recent thread where we had this exact same discussion (apparently in deference to the fading memories of the elderly among us, we are putting conversations on a shorter repeat cycle), one essential component of the last 15 years that defines it while making it hard to define is that technological changes allowed for the complete fracturing of popular culture, which is what we all tend to use when it comes to the attaching shallow labels to an era (for example, to immediately set a movie in the late sixties a movie is going to play one of maybe a dozen songs).

Yes, everybody was different on the fringes but there were still only 3 TV networks so 100 million people watched the MASH conclusion and it was the same Top 40 nation wide so even if you were into something a little different you still couldn't help but consume it. Today's youth, though, I think will be way more fractured in the past without so many broad pop cultural reference points and that is itself very much a defining element of a new era. But it makes for an impossible theme party.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Beardy bands

As in facial hair? Was that a trend in the aughts? (I don't follow popular music, so I honestly have no idea.)

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by Alex

Yes, everybody was different on the fringes but there were still only 3 TV networks so 100 million people watched the MASH conclusion ... Today's youth, though, I think will be way more fractured in the past without so many broad pop cultural reference points and that is itself very much a defining element of a new era.

Could that be why (perhaps) the defining moment of the Millenio's is Nine Eleven (apart from, ya know, the way the political, wartime, and constitutional worlds were radically affected for years afterwards)?



And fractured or not, doesn't something in pop culture have to achieve some measure of big success for most people to catch on to it? It think there will always be those things that stand out via catching on. Lady Gaga comes to mind currently. Sarah Palin. Some things break through the clutter.

Originally Posted by Alex

But it makes for an impossible theme party.

I happen to think Nine Eleven has the makings of a wonderful theme party. But I'm notorious for offensively bad taste. (Not to be confused with me being a terrorist.)