Being a child of the 1990s is something that I've never been proud of. There are very few events in that decade that stand out for me. The only ones that really do are Nelson Mandela becoming President of South Africa, the death of Princess Diana, France winning the 1998 World Cup, Tony Blair becoming Prime Minister, the releases of Jurassic Park and Schindler's List, the death of Ayrton Senna; that's it. Apart from that it was all a big let down. But do you know what the biggest letdown of all was? Music...
At the time, I had no interest at all in music. It was just one of these things in life that I took for granted. Now that I am much older, music has become something important to me because of what it can give. "Excitement. Gratification. Empathy. And comfort" - to quote Dougie Anderson. It makes me feels confident in myself and my diverse collection of music sums me up. After all, as I said once in a piece of AS Level French coursework "La variété est l'épice de la vie" (variety is the spice of life). However, I recently took a quiz on the website Sporcle in which they played pieces of music from the 90s. The thought that came to my head when I heard some of these clips - this sounds s***. Listening to some of these reminded me how awful and depressing the 90s was for music. The score I got on that quiz was 17/36. I then had a look at what Digital Dream Door called the 100 greatest songs of the 90s. Why the f*** is Coolio's
Gangsta's Paradise at number 12? It's s****. In my opinion, it makes
Don't Come Home Too Soon by Del Amitri sound like Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Over half the music in this poll isn't music; it's just noise. And that's what's wrong with modern day music. How many modern songs are there that open with the lyrics "You were workin' as a waitress in a cocktail bar"? That's a classic, from a time when music was great. It's not that I dislike all rap music or anything like that. It's just not what I'd call music. The only things close to rap music that I like are Weird Al Yankovic and the Beastie Boys: at least the Beastie Boys know what a guitar looks like and how to play it properly.
However, despite all the rubbish and the MTV influence at the time, there were some positives to come out of all this misery and woe in the US. In 1991, Nirvana popularized both alternative rock and grunge when they released
Nevermind and this encouraged more and more alternative rock to come along and sign to major record labels. However, grunge went into decline due to Pearl Jam's touring problems and Kurt Cobain's death, which shook the music world. Another important group of this genre were the Red Hot Chili Peppers. By the start of the 1990s, they had released four albums, their original guitarist Hillel Slovak had died in 1988 and original drummer Jack Irons had left soon after that. The band now consisted of Anthony Kiedis, Flea, John Frusciante and Chad Smith. They enjoy mixed success with
Mother's Milk in 1989, which included their first UK top 10 hit,
Higher Ground. However, in 1991 they brought worldwide attention to alternative rock with
Blood Sugar Sex Magik, which was recorded in Rick Rubin's haunted Holywood mansion. After that John Frusciante left the band, but returned in 1998 to help the band have just as much success with
Californication. Don't get me wrong. Dave Navarro was alright, but in my opinion
One Hot Minute isn't the best album they ever released.
Apart from Nirvana and the Peppers, another American alternative rock band that stands out for me was R.E.M. and they saw large success with two albums in the early 90s -
Out Of Time and
Automatic For The People. Anyone who says that the Helping Haiti version of
Everybody Hurts is better than the original deserves to be shot. Simon Cowell doesn't care about earthquake victims; he only cares about his wallet. The number of untalented musicians they let loose on it was unbelievable. None of them can write a song, apart from Bon Jovi. Why weren't R.E.M involved in it? That would have been the only redeeming feature of it. It's hard to believe that song was released in 1993. Besides from that,
Losing My Religion,
Shiny Happy People and
Man On The Moon were other classic hits of theirs.
Britain's answer to alternative rock came in the form of a band from Oxfordshire, who formed in 1985, but released their first single in 1992. It was, of course, Radiohead with
Creep.
Creep was initially unsuccessful but became famous all around the world several months later after they released
Pablo Honey in 1993.
The Bends (1995) increased their popularity in the UK and they received greater international fame with
OK Computer (1997). They're still going today and even famous outside of music. They performed at Glastonbury this year; in 2005, in a poll set up by Blender and MTV2, Thom Yorke was voted the 18th greatest singer of all time; Ed O'Brien appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live's
Fighting Talk and won; Jonny Greenwood composed the score for the 2007 film
There Will Be Blood and appeared along with Phil Selway in
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire.
Green Day were also one of those bands who were pioneers in their genre (pop punk) along with Blink 182 and they brought in a new audience for it. Out of all the albums they released in the 90s, the one that stands out for me is
International Superhits, with its memorable hits like
Basket Case,
Longview,
Minority and
Good Riddance.
Whereas bands from the 80s such as Guns N' Roses only had success within the first half of the decade, U2 remained popular and successful throughout the 90s as well. It's fair to say that there was a bit of tension within the band at the beginning of the decade, but despite this, they were able to release
Achtung Baby and it is without doubt one the greatest albums ever released. A large part of its success was the fact it was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, but also due to the improvised writing that we know as the song
One. In my opinion, out of all their albums it is second only to
The Joshua Tree. This was followed up by
Zooropa and
Pop.
Being a fan of rock music, I'm going to pretend that British acts such as the Spice Girls, Westlife, Boyzone and Take That didn't exist. They were crap then and they're crap now. Why do girls in their early 20s fancy 5 blokes who are nearly twice as old? The only thing to say about the Spice Girls was that their singles went zig-a-zagging through the charts. Thank you Q magazine. I've wanted to use that quote in general conversation for ages. The only things that I'm concerned about from Britain in the 90s in terms of music are Britpop and Post-Britpop.
I like Britpop for many reasons, but one of the main ones is the influences. There were genres/movements of the past which inspired and influenced Britpop artists, which included the British Invasion (artists such as The Beatles, The Who and The Kinks), glam rock (T. Rex, Roxy Music and David Bowie) and punk rock (the Sex Pistols, The Clash, the Buzzcocks and Joy Division). It was Britain's alternative to grunge music, "a reaction against various musical and cultural trends in the late 1980s and early 1990s". The earliest bands used to refer to previous British guitar music and the majority of songs were about topics that were uniquely British. One example of these early Britpop bands was Blur, who drew influence from The Kinks and The Beatles. Blur were soon followed onto the scene by the likes of Oasis, Supergrass and Pulp. In 1995 there was "The Battle of Britpop", which gripped the whole nation. It was a battle for No. 1 in the charts between
Roll With It by Oasis and Blur's
Country House. NME dubbed it the "British Heavyweight Championship" and the conflict was as much about British class and regional divisions (Blur representing the south and Oasis the north). Blur won the battle, but Oasis would go on to win the war, becoming more commercially successful.
And then, there was Pulp. Pulp was the best thing to come from Sheffield since The Human League. Personally, I take my hat off to Jarvis Cocker and what he did for us. The same goes out to Damon Albarn, Gaz Coombes and the Gallaghers, but it was Jarvis who famously mooned Michael Jackson at the Brits for his "Christ-like figure with the power of healing". Noel Gallagher said following this, "Jarvis Cocker is a star and he should be given an MBE". Jarvis famously appeared on Question Time on 2nd July 2009 and was asked if "media coverage of Michael Jackson's death has been over the top". He said "Well, yes..." He also said that the greatest tradegy was that Jackson hadn't continued to make great records like he did in the 80s. When asked if he thought Jackson was a genius, he replied "Yeah, he invented the moonwalk." Personally, you can keep
Thriller,
Beat It and
Billie Jean. They are OK, but
Common People,
Sorted For E's & Wizz and
Disco 2000 are masterpieces.
Unfortunately, Britpop went into decline thanks largely to the Spice Girls. Bitches. However, in the late 90s Post-Britpop came along. Even though the lyrics weren't so concerned about British life and the bands had more of an American rock influence, they followed the same principles and presented rock stars as ordinary people. The bands which were particularly successful worldwide included The Verve, Travis, Stereophonics, Feeder and Coldplay - the most commercially successful post-Britpop band to date.
Anyway, here are my top 20 hits of the 1990s:
- R.E.M. - Losing My Religion (1991)
- The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony (1997)
- U2 - One (1992)
- Blur - Song 2 (1997)
- R.E.M. - Everybody Hurts (1993)
- Pulp - Common People (1995)
- Red Hot Chili Peppers - Under The Bridge (1991)
- Smashing Pumpkins - Tonight, Tonight (1996)
- Guns N' Roses - November Rain (1992)
- Supergrass - Alright (1995)
- Radiohead - Creep (1992)
- Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication (1999)
- Travis - Why Does It Always Rain On Me? (1999)
- Social Distortion - Story Of My Life (1990)
- Blur - The Universal (1995)
- Oasis - Wonderwall (1995)
- Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991)
- Pulp - Disco 2000 (1995)
- Green Day - Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) (1997)
- The Cranberries - Zombie (1994)
Honourable mentions: R.E.M -
Shiny Happy People, Inspiral Carpets -
This Is How It Feels, Red Hot Chili Peppers -
Scar Tissue, Pulp -
Sorted For E's & Wizz, Beastie Boys -
Sabotage
You are entitled to your opinion about music from the 1990s, but this is mine. My taste in music will never change and, to be honest, I prefer the 70s and 80s. That was for me the golden age for music, but it wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for what the Beatles did. They did something that no other British band/artist had done before them - conquer America and then the world. However, I want to pay tribute to two great musicians who unfortunately died during the 90s. The first, as I have already mentioned in this, is Kurt Cobain and the other is Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen (perhaps one of the greatest bands of all time). Out of all the rubbish from the 90s, these 20 songs are my only exceptions. Most of the rest was s***...
Some people are amazed that even uncut the film is still only a 15 certificate, not an 18. The BBFC actually say "Contains strong language, once very strong, & strong bloody comic violence". The violence is well justified because it doesn't dwell too much on the infliction of pain and suffering. The main issue is the language, especially the scene in which Hit Girl says "Okay you c***s, let's see what you can do now." Is it appropriate for an eleven year old to be using this kind of language? Probably not, but there are example of other great films which include kids swearing, like Linda Blair in "Dr" Mark Kermode's favourite film The Exorcist. The BBFC also say that it was used as a "comic" effect. That's fine by me, but there are some 18 certificate films which you might question because that is how modern teenagers talk and behave, particularly in Sweet Sixteen by Ken Loach and Shane Meadows' This Is England (which did receive a 15 certificate in Bristol).
In terms of the cast, the stand out performance for me is that of Chloe Grace Moretz. She gets all the best lines, she gets all the action scenes and she is the most dominant character on the scene. Vaughn said that she is part of "the ultimate father-daughter relationship, where Barbie dolls are replaced with knives, and unicorns become hand grenades." She does outshine Aaron Johnson in my opinion, even though it is a very good performance from him. It's still fairly early in his career, so I wouldn't be surprised if we see him in another blockbuster movie in the near future. The other performance I thought was good was that of Nicolas Cage. For ages, he has appeared in some awful movies, but this is probably the role he has been most suited for in a long time. Vaughn describes Big Daddy as being a little bit Elvis and a little bit Adam West and Cage does deliver some of the lines with that kind of style. Plus there are the Batman links.
