I saw this movie in a small art house type theater in the middle of winter right after a big blizzard, and when my friends dropped me off at my house afterwards I was still so pumped up that I got out of the car and began moshing with the snow covered spruces in the front yard, haha. Ahhh, youth...
~'87 - '92 was insane. Like a '64 - '69 redux. RIP Slovak, Wood, Cobain, Cornell, Staley, Hoon, Weiland, Roback, et al., ad nauseam. Revolutionaries rarely survive the revolutions they start.
The late 80s & early 90s were amazing musically and culturally but yeah, as the 90s went along there were a whole lot of casualties on the roadside. Those who were there know that the Butthole Surfers' "Pepper" wasn't an exaggeration, all that death, damage, and craziness is just how it was as so many Gen X artists and fans spiraled out of control. Like you said, 1964-69 redux, if the 60s peaks died at Altamont then Gen X's final death knell was Woodstock 1999 (though I didn't go, I lived within an hour of there, had good friends who went, and afterwards they said the sexual assaults were way, way worse than anyone was reporting. They said the media frenzy still didn't come close to the sickening reality of what was happening to girls there.)
@@xesfoureyes502 well said. In concurrence with the original comment... in this contributor's eyes there were three components to the 90's music scene: 1. '86 - '92 when "Alternative" was truly an alternative to the saccharine pop and glam metal that dominated FM radio across the 1980's. 2. '93 - '96 when the recording industry figured out what was going on and cashed in, effectively trademarking "grunge" and providing bands that offered the sound, but none of the feel, energy, or honesty of the founders of that movement. Cobain's departure was sort of a green light for the ascension of the fake. MTV also sank into irrelevance during this time, trading in music videos for "reality" TV series and crap content. 3. '97 - '99 proved a sort of free-for-all as far as the US music scene when "NuMetal" and urban rap effectively took over i.e. Korn, Marilyn Manson, Limp Biskit, Tupac, Eminem, etc. 4. The rise of the internet, Napster, realtime digital content, etc. probably was the death knell for all of this, permanently relegating some aspect of serendipitous fun to the dustheap of history. The internet still hadn't taken off, cell phones were virtually nonexistent in the US, social media had not yet been invented, but the writing was on the wall. That's how this Xer remembers the evolution of the 1990's. Not pleasantly. It seemed like one minute it was 1991/1992 and you could go to shows and see Blues Traveler, Spin Doctors, Sonic Youth, Peppers, Pumpkins, and so on and the crowds were spirited, happy, kind... in that way it was very mid-60's-esque. But the latter part of the decade... idk, something changed and it got dark and one might say, violent, paralleling the development in the youth culture of gun violence (active shooters) and so on. Woodstock '99 served as a sort of bellwether as to where we were at. The drugs were always there but probably like every iteration of the drug culture, it starts out fun and carefree at weekend high school parties and next thing you know you're 27, unemployed, with a hardcore addiction, locked in life or death struggle. Didn't even think of the Altamont parallel but great point!
@@m-funkshun Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts, great post! I think we have very similar perceptions of how the the 90s progressed and like you said, it wasn't pleasant. There were a ton of factors for how things seemingly devolved, I think some of it was due to the media marketing, branding, and homogenization and mass popularity. I totally agree about that feeling of happy, creative vibes in those early days of truely "alternative" artists. In that later 80s-early 90s period music in every genre was exploding with new amazing talents, from hip hop, thrash and metal, grunge, jam bands, even just straightup hard rocknroll like the Black Crowes (and how I always felt about Guns N Roses too.) If I was going to pick out a Gen X version of the 1967's Summer of Love, I guess I'd say it was somewhere between the first Lollapalooza, those first Monsters of Rock metal tours, the jam band Horde tours, and as weird as it sounds now, those MTV Music Awards and special concerts around 1992-93 with some instant legend performances from Nirvana and the Neil Young & Pearl Jam "Keep on Rocking in the Free World." But then, yeah, things began going down the slippery slope. Along with the deaths of Kurt Cobain, Kristin Pfaff and all the others, drugs were seriously debilitating other artists and of course fans too. Mark Arm's struggles began to really hurt Mudhoney, the Breeders collapsed right at their peak, Perry Farrell pretty much moved into a crack pipe, lol, while Dave Navarro had his own demons, etc. And similar was happening among Gen Xers; like you said, relatively innocent weed & shrooms were being swapped out for hard drugs. Freaking steroids became a thing too as the decade wore on, remember how college dudes and 20 something's wanted to be ripped like pro athletes and started roiding like crazy? Roids weren't even hard to get, the nutrient-supplement stores at the malls were selling steroids right over the counter. Ephedrine was also still legal and available at just about any corner store, plus that whole "smart drug" fad where folks didn't even know what was in their "energy" or "relaxation" shake, they just knew that whatever was poured out of those shake blenders & juicers definitely had a buzz. Anyway all those factors led into Woodstock 99's miserable end to what had been such a promising decade. The mass marketing & popularity of once alternative music spread by word of mouth, stapled punk zines hot off somebody's work place copier , late night college radio, and murky Memorex cassettes that had already been dubbed, erased and redubbed three times, lol, became almost like pop music. The same dudes who once sneered at the "weirdos" and "freaks" listening to the Pixies and Dinosaur Jr were suddenly all about being mosh pit kings at Korn shows. Jacked on roids, booze, ephies, and everything else under the sun, and thinking a mosh pit meant "I can do anything violent I want!" as well, they didn't exactly make for a good, positive scene. Especially by the time of 1999, when the genuine early fans of the scene were sunk in "Pepper" type personal struggles (or learning to become software programmers and web designers ha.)
there's good music out there. You just gotta look in the right places. I'd recommend watching anything on KEXP, that's how found out about newer bands and musicians. This comment is 3 years old, hopefully you have found some good music already.
@mothra454 😄it is. We got backstage because of this encounter, dedicated encore of my suggestion, met nirvana, got a ride on SY tour bus back to city centre... 😪I thought the world was magic when I was 17😆
I'm not the "every new music bad" guy like I used to be but goddamn I just want a new music revolution. A new sound that no one has ever heard before, something different but good
I'm planning my attack. Keep watch for a group with me involved for the next 2 years. I'm trying to find a couple guitar players I like around here in Arkansas.
I feel like the reason more young people turn to making rap type music rather than rock is because everyone wants escape. Back then it was the same, I'd guess. In the 70s, the quickest way to do that was to get a band together and turn up loud. Now, to afford a drum kit, get about, have a place to rehearse, places to play, etc, it's so difficult for such small pay-off. For working class kids, it's simply not an option unless you have some stars-align luck. To make a beat and croon over it and put it on the internet is so much easier and can be more gratifying, a more introspective process with less bullshit to deal with. The same emotions and sentiments of youth, rebellion and escape are expressed nonetheless. It seems like most indie rock bands about these days are middle class privileged people with nothing really to kick back against. Maybe it was the same back then. Not to say there aren't good indie bands. Anyway, my point is that young people with something to say will always find a way to say it.
I beg to differ, punk rock broke in the UK and in New York in 1977 but it took a few years for some to catch up to speed, here is a random example of that from 1977 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ogypBUCb7DA.html
The year punk broke is the name of the documentary. I’m sure they know about the history of punk, since Thurston was a part of the New York music scene back in 1976.
@@juandhaltrich yeah but it sort of made way for more alternative acts like punk and ska music to become more popular. without grunge we probs would've been stuck with hair metal bands for the 90s
