In Defense Of...90s Rock

Prior to the writing of this entry, I listened to a song released in 1998 from Shawn Mullins called "Lullaby." This is a song that no one remembers in the slightest unless you heard the chorus with its comfortable inflection of "rock-a-bye", despite the fact the song's called "Lullaby". "Lullaby" is a wretched horrible song, but it's great at the same time because I remember it from when I was a kid. The same would go for the Verve Pipe's "The Freshman" and New Radicals' "You Only Get What You Give".

Now when I define 90s rock, I don't really mean stuff like Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Rage Against The Machine, etc. that became beloved music that also was popular. No, I mean the era in the late 1990s where Bush's "Glycerine" and "Machinehead" ruled rock radio. And yet no one talks about how great of a band Bush is. Which...they're really not. But they made simply great songs, and "Glycerine" even stands the test of time as a simple, well-composed pop song that I'd gladly play in amongst (PRETENTIOUSNESS WARNING) my playlist of Sonic Youth, Caribou, St. Vincent, and The Shins.

In fairness, these songs are products of their time. There was a small time in the 1990s where pop music could contain depressing content as long as the song had a happy sound at the end of the day. After all one of my favorite songs from the era was Third Eye Blind's "Semi Charmed Life". And about 2% (at most) who listened to that song got that it was talking about continued drug use building up to an overdose. I'm guessing slightly more people figured out their later hit "Jumper" was about talking down a potential suicide case.

Now, I'll gladly reminisce a song like "Semi Charmed Life" but I mostly can't stand popular radio, and the reason is pretty obvious. These songs are comfortable because they were the music you heard as a kid. The great advantage to being a kid is that most kids would listen to anything they had put in front of them. I even *gasp* bought a Backstreet Boys cassette tape when I was around 10. Oh, the things I'll shamefully admit on the internet to an audience of 2.

So, did I like these crappy songs because they had a safe radio sound when I denounce music today for having that same sound? Yeah, pretty much. But there is a perfectly fine place for nostalgia. Just because you hate rock radio's mix of Hinder, Nickelback, and Three Days Grace doesn't mean you have to throw away that long lost Lemonheads record (though, the Lemonheads are legitimately solid all the same), and listen to it. Nostalgia has its place. After all, people still ironically love hair metal.