The nineties weren’t all bad. The alternative rock scene that peaked at the end of the decade has arguably yielded some of the best sounds of our generation.
Here, take a listen to this:
The emergence of bands like Third Eye Blind, Everclear, and The Counting Crows marks an era of great rock: not too not to hot, not too mellow, just right. Disco Superfly, if you will. I might still be milking some nostalgia here, but that music is still in the upper echelons of my favorites and always a reliable Pandora station.
But in my mind this era of rock is characterized mainly by one-hit-wonders that are probably still being released on CDs one can only buy on TV, something like the prolific Buzz Ballads. Marcy Playground’s first single, Sex and Candy, came out in 1997 – third grade for ’07 high school grads, if you’re counting – and is one of my favorite throwbacks. Those guys might not technically be classified as one-hit-wonderers, but Sex and Candy is the only one that I really remember.
Semisonic’s Closing Time and The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony (now owned by Mick Jagger and the Stones) also fit into the awesome-ninties-one-hit-wonder category. I’d group Everlast’s What Its Like with the likes of them although it stands out, blending rap beats and vocal style with acoustic guitar licks that, solo, might sound akin to Dave Matthews and (eventually) Jack Johnson.
Run DMC and Aerosmith did something similar about ten years prior. I’ll get into that whole blend later, but I digress. Also, Stephen Tyler’s real last name is Tallarico.
Of course, such gems as the (fabulous) Foo Fighters and Incubus made it big in the nineties, but their overall success has propelled them far beyond such a quaint characterization. Though its been tough for them, Sugar Ray, too, has managed to survive into the millennium. And for reasons I can’t quite explain, as more time increases between the release of Every Morning and the present I find myself enjoying it more and more. They do call that stuff “adult alternative.” Maybe I’m just growing up.
There’s something specific that just makes the genre for me. Maybe its just an association with the radio at the neighborhood pool, or playing Pogs, or something. But when I think nineties party, right away I think Vertical Horizon, Goo Goo Dolls, and Chumbawumba, and making Legends of the Hidden Temple T-Shirts, and dark basements.
In any case, this musical epoch still does it for me after all these years. Try putting on a nineties playlist at your next party. And skip the Brittany Spears. I guarantee, given an appropriate course of the evening, both a positive response and, probably, plenty of people singing along.
Mamma, this surely is a dream.
Think of the links as my gifts to you.
