90s music and the journey toward the light
While many are preparing for a look back at the 00s and a reflection on what it has brought to the music world (and culture in general), it is best to begin that journey with an examination of the soil out of which 00s music and culture grew. The 90s, a decade despised by some and heralded by others, is the progenitor of all things in the 00s whether people like or dislike it. And what were the 90s? This post will examine (in a very truncated format, but mostly through the medium of popular music) the 90s as a struggle toward and ultimate failure to reach light. And what that might mean.
The 90s' inchoate years are actually run-off (as the beginning of any decade is) from the previous decade. It was an accumulation of the bipolar nature of the 80s: big spending, high highs...followed by big deficits and low lows. MC Hammer was part of the remaining tendrils of that era. His flashy suits, parachute pants and curious choreography are considered tacky elements of an ignorant era in popular music. Yet, he was actually a portent of the change that would take place in hip hop mid-decade (with Puff Daddy and his Bad Boy empire). He was also a frivolous spender, a supernova whose shows were bigger than life and quite expensive. His final tour was so expensive it ran out of money half way through. Two years into the decade his flashy, imperative style of music was quickly washed out, literally and figuratively.
It wasn't just MC Hammer, though. New Kids On The Block were the precursors to the boy band phenomenon. Their crisp, clean vocals (as well as nice, new suits) enveloped everything that the 90s nostalgically wished to carry over from the hey-day of the previous decade. They were newness incarnate. They were all white as well, a white-washed harmonious sound and crisp choreography (similar to MC Hammer's production) which engulfed tweens. Meanwhile, soaring stadium rock still had its foot in the door, and let's not forget that the early 90s were the short-lived era of Vanilla Ice.
Yet, cultural change was on the horizon. The Persian Gulf War and the rise in taxes during the first Bush administration brought domestic and international turmoil to America's doorstep. To add to this, the 1992 LA Race Riots slammed Americans in the face with the undulating racial problem still unresolved and stoked by the Rodney King verdict. These things may have been the catalyst for the rise of alternative music, an antithesis to a music world a growing minority of musicians felt wasn't representing the rough underlining of American culture.
And so came the darkness: grunge music which retaliated against the plasticity of modern rock/glam rock carry-overs from the 80s, with Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Sonic Youth being the major names. It was a revolt similar to Bob Dylan's rise as an antithetical pop star in the 60s. These bands were DIY and in some cases there wasn't much D to IY. Yet, this was the point. A melancholic punk philosophy that anguished over the macabre fabric which (as they saw it) was the reality of the world revealed when the veil of the 80s was torn away. There also came gangsta rap. While the 80s had groups and individuals with lyrical bite, the early 90s witnessed the rise of N.W.A. which popularized a style pioneered in the early 80s; yet, it reached widespread popularity only in the early 90s. This exactly correlated with the Race Riots.
Suppressed anger and rage emerging finally? Freud would have a field day with it.
It would get much darker. Other groups which passed under the radar in the 80s such as Soundgarden and Schooly D reached a greater audience. They produced a plethora of imitators and the early 90s were suddenly covered in a cynical world view which postmodernism had already been working at for years dismantling the idea of truth and structure. Music/culture was just reflecting this and it all was an aspect of quantum theory: the world is a collection of small packs of energy where all things are possible, all things are true and untrue. It is a chaotic universe and music should reflect this, should tell the truth that there was no truth. By 1994, the decade further delved into the dark with the suicide of Kurt Cobain, the baseball strike and the OJ Simpson trial (which rubbed salt in the wounds created by the race riot two years earlier). Bill Clinton's Monica Lewinsky scandal and the assassinations of Tupac Shakur and Christopher Smalls further darkened the horizon for those hoping for a Great Society to emerge out of the clutter of the first half of the decade. For the majority, the 90s seemed driven to plunge America into cynicism, but there would come a light.
It would be boy bands that pointed us back on track. Hanson, Backstreet Boys, NSync, BBMak and so on and so on. Their rise begins in 1996 and leads to widespread popularity by the end of 1997. Why were these groups so special? They weren't exactly new. The early to mid
90s had seen R&B groups such as Boyz II Men and All 4 One reach high pop status. But how did these differ?The defining element is the identification of a structure. This was a direct refutation of the chaotic universe many alternative rock and rap musicians sought to discuss. This said that pop music had an order: the shy one, the bad one, the cute one, the big brother and the nice one. Early R&B groups had harmony and catchy hooks, but it was the holistic nature of their group which they missed. Five different types of boy. At one end was the nice one and the other end was the bad one. White and black. In the middle were the primary colors: big brother, cute and shy. Groups leading up to the boy band explosion came nowhere near this symmetry. Yet, gangsta rap and grunge reacted against it heavily. Not the boy band movement itself, but the idea that this was how the "real" world was. In a sense, boy bands were not real light, but a fluorescent bulb created in a factory. Try as they might, light was breaking through and this rise of faux light explains the fervor which occurred simultaneously in the hip-hop community.
Shiny suits, flashy colors, colorful cars - this was the era introduced by Puff Daddy, Mase and the Bad Boy crew in the wake of Notorious B.I.G's death. In fact, it can be argued that it still lives. Bad Boy initiated hip-hop to the masses, but as a far more materialistic product than medium of social awareness. It was shiny; videos were filled with spotlights and sparkling medallions. It was a trend which influenced the Cash Money Millionaires (Juvenile, Lil' Wayne) and sundry. Instead of rapping about the darkness of poverty, people were beginning at the top to get to the top. It mirrored a phrase C.S. Lewis used to describe the act of prayer as something one fakes at first until it becomes real. Popular hip-hop was faking the dream in a realm of light until it became tangible.
Yet, the center could not hold. The 90s, despite boy bands' and flashy hip-hop's best efforts longed to delve into darkness. The rise of soft metal/rap crossovers such as Limp Bizkit and Korn, the dark lyrics of Eminem and the sudden popularity of Marilyn Manson's gothic images in the late 90s were clear indicators the 90s was still a sick decade. Further indications of this were the Woodstock 1999 fiasco which (unlike the 1969 event) resulted in chaos: military groups were called in, MTV broadcasted the burning of staging, reported multiple rapes and vendors charged absurd prices for basic necessities which many consider the impetus for this.
Thus the 90s was a struggle for light. There are good moments in it. Happy music was recorded, but the 90s is a poetic decade. The outlandish opulence of MC Hammer's performances reach shaved down to their lowest common denominator in the greed which fueled the fire at Woodstock 1999. Yet, this is not to say the 90s were a depressing decade. The shortlived (widespread) popularity of grunge should not stand for an entire decade. Rather, the 90s were struggle to attain illumination, to reach a positive foundation despite rough conditions.
Society is mirrored in this struggle. The 90s were an inchoate period of birthing and growing. The internet was born at the beginning of the 90s, but its full realization was not reached until after the 90s were over. It is no surprise the majority of 00s has seen a societal movement almost entirely intangible in nature. People communicate without communicating (Facebook, MySpace) and people sing without really being able to sing (auto-tune). After a delve into the darkness, one longs for the light. Yet, Dante did not immediately rise into Paradise after a staunch through the Inferno. No, he needed to travel through Purgatory.
The 00s seem like this sort of zone. Traces of the 90s needed to be burned off and faced. In some senses they were, but in most cases people sunk into denial or distraction through technology. The challenge still remains to reach Paradise. Whether the 10s will see this happen and society emerge from Purgatory into artistic, cultural and musical renew or continue to fall back into denial and distraction through fruitless inversion via technology, it remains to be seen.
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