Is it time for a post-modern interpretation of nineties music?

[tehlord]

The 90's was quite special, it was the peak of the music industry

[Dasheesh]

Well, the 50’s, The 70’s, the 90’s... if you are any good at trig you can see a cycle there. I happened to have lived threw the 70’s and the 90’s booms with the 80’s inbetween. The 80’s weren’t not such a bad decade as far as a downturn goes... in large part because of synthesizers. IMO I happened to have been lucky enough to see great decades of music. My expectations are that the 2020’s will be a banner decade of music as this generation becomes better musicians and learn what the hell they are doing. It’s up to you guys to bring the fire now. I’m getting too old for more the crowd anymore.

That whole download ela carte style of consuming music is part of a bigger problem. It’s that the music has been taken out of the hands of the listener. They are force fed what ever the publisher wants to push on them with less choice and less ability to interpret the music. It’s no longer relevant to their lives because it’s not THEIR music anymore. The lack of dynamics and understanding of noise in a great recording also plays a part in that. People can no longer interpret the music and make it personal to their lives. Everything is spelled out for them.

[ghettosynth]

That stretch from 2000-2010 may have been the worst stretch of, and lowest point in music history. .

The best years in electronic music history imo. After 2010 it all started going donwnhill.

Perhaps I'm just about a decade younger than people obsessed with 90's and those who are stuck in 80's are resectively about 20 years older than me

Yeah, I think that there's something there to your tastes and age group or experiences that surround your music consumption. I agree with Dasheesh, electronic music really lost something between 2000 and 2010.

[wagtunes]

Well, the 50’s, The 70’s, the 90’s... if you are any good at trig you can see a cycle there. I happened to have lived threw the 70’s and the 90’s booms with the 80’s inbetween. The 80’s weren’t not such a bad decade as far as a downturn goes... in large part because of synthesizers. IMO I happened to have been lucky enough to see great decades of music. My expectations are that the 2020’s will be a banner decade of music as this generation becomes better musicians and learn what the hell they are doing. It’s up to you guys to bring the fire now. I’m getting too old for more the crowd anymore.

That whole download ela carte style of consuming music is part of a bigger problem. It’s that the music has been taken out of the hands of the listener. They are force fed what ever the publisher wants to push on them with less choice and less ability to interpret the music. It’s no longer relevant to their lives because it’s not THEIR music anymore. The lack of dynamics and understanding of noise in a great recording also plays a part in that. People can no longer interpret the music and make it personal to their lives. Everything is spelled out for them.

I don't know. You seem to have left out the British Invasion of the 60s and how it changed music drastically from the C-AM-F-G song after song mundane structure of the 50s, which bored the hell out of me.

The 60s were just as innovative as the 70s IMO.

[recursive one]

IMHO this perspective of "everything was great when I was younger" is so limited.

I believe there is great music now, ten, twenty, 30 years ago and there will be much more in the future. I am always discovering good music new and old.

What changes are the genres, some go mainstream and start losing their edge. Artists start going dry with time, some reborn after some albums. Some genres die, others are born, but always somewhere there is someone making interesting music.

Perhaps you are right, but when I'm thinking about my own listening habits, I'm mostly listening to new releases but the genres I pick are more or less the same I was listening to in 00's. Recent releases have more complex arrangements, tighter, loder and cleaner production, but I'm often finding the actual musical content weaker than it was a deacde ago - I mean that to MY ears there are less memorable melodies, less exciting sound design (MORE different sounds but less actually GREAT ones), the musical development in new tracks often seems weak and bland to me. But actually I think I'm just getting old and it's now much harder for me to be actually impressed with anything. It happens to me quite often that I stumble upon some track or album from circa 2005 which I thought was utterly exciting back then - just to discover that it is actually quite mediocre.

As for the electronic music genres which came into existence after 2010 I'm pretty ignorant. I can think of futurebass, future garage, perhaps moombahton and Melbourne bounce (not sure if the latter two are actual genres or just subgenres/variations of something that already existed). To my ears all these sound absolutely repulsive. I understand that the most mainstream subspecies of dance music always were the lowest common denominator but still, even compared to dancecore, euro-trance or whatever was mainstream in mid-00's this new generation of EDM sounds horrendous to me. But I can understand that for younger folks it may be "the sound of today" - fresh, inspiring and innovative.

[Dasheesh]

“Yeah, I think that there's something there to your tastes and age group or experiences that surround your music consumption. I agree with Dasheesh, electronic music really lost something between 2000 and 2010.”

I kid you not... this is no joke. I have creates of cd’s from that decade. I have whole cd’s... whole albums that I bought and kept...that have nothing but silence on them. whole albums devoted to the idea of the abscence of sound.

[Dasheesh]

Sorry for spelling I’m on phone. Ta for now.

[ghettosynth]

IMHO this perspective of "everything was great when I was younger" is so limited.

I'm not getting that from this conversation. I agree that there is great music in every decade, but, some genres stagnate or shift owing to cultural changes. The rave act in 2003 definitely had an impact on dance music in the states. Leading up to that were various city ordinances and clampdowns on raves which were the result of them becoming popular. All of that had an impact on how music was consumed and shared.

Of course we have to be careful where we draw the dividing line. It's often convenient to draw it on 10 year boundaries but that's not always useful.

[noiseboyuk]

It's very difficult to pick meaningful trends tbh. Right now there are at least 30,000 new songs released every single day, the vast majority of which never get any kind of exposure, even on playlists. And as we all retreat into our musical bubbles, its very hard to say with any kind of objectivity what music is or isn't out there. I hear loads of fantastic electronica made now, songs I adore, which never really get on most people's radar. Then again, what did Joy Division have in common with Earth Wind and Fire, except they both released great records in 1979?

The 90s in the UK was an explosion of BritPop, a stripped down indie sound by and large. But you can trace those roots back 10 years and many before before that. Then there was Madchester and the Indie/dance crossover. Grunge. Trip Hop. The thousands of spawned dance or metal subgenres, all virtually indistinguishable to all but the diehard devoted. Rap and HipHop splintered every which way while the mainstream went all bling and gansgsta (I mourn the lack of development of the likes of De La Soul, Arrested Development).

It's almost meaningless to talk about 90s music I guess. Ever since, we're all floating about in this vast melting pot, endlessly combining flavours and strands, but with very little that's genuinely new.

[egbert101]

<delete>

[cron]

One thing I certainly wasn't expecting was the cultural rehabilitation of cheesy 90s supersaw Eurotrance over the last few years. I remember my jaw dropping when Warp signed Lorenzo Senni, although his output for the label turned out to be a lot more accessible than his older stuff. He still only uses a rack full of JP-8080s to make it though... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFKOMhu88bY

TCF has been doing a lot of interesting stuff with trancey arps and the classic supersaw patch too, although he's gone quiet of late. Shame his recorded output is so small as it's all hugely exciting and idiosyncratic to me. I treasure my folder full of his download-enabled Soundcloud tunes before he deleted it all. There was an amazing track that combined trance manoeuvres with what sounded like Philip Glass samples stacked and looped. A match made in heaven. This isn't it though... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAReI63G1nE

IMHO this perspective of "everything was great when I was younger" is so limited.

I'm not getting that from this conversation. I agree that there is great music in every decade, but, some genres stagnate or shift owing to cultural changes. The rave act in 2003 definitely had an impact on dance music in the states. Leading up to that were various city ordinances and clampdowns on raves which were the result of them becoming popular. All of that had an impact on how music was consumed and shared.

Of course we have to be careful where we draw the dividing line. It's often convenient to draw it on 10 year boundaries but that's not always useful.

I had no idea there was a US equivalent to the UK's Criminal Justice And Public Order Act 1994. Just reading about it now. Interesting stuff. It was framed more as a public order thing over here (open air raves in particular, a messy rave at Castlemorton in 1992 being likely the final straw) rather than a war on drugs thing though. Autechre semi-famously made their first track containing highly irregular beats in response to a section of the Act defining rave music by its repetitive nature.

[sinemotor]

But I can understand that for younger folks it may be "the sound of today" - fresh, inspiring and innovative.

Yes it is. I also think it's a mindset. To be curious about new trends, new music. Being interested about what's going on in the music scene. Whether it's the underground scene or the mainstream. I'm not very old and barely experienced the 90's but I find a lot of really great music from that decade, the same for the 80s, 70s... Meanwhile, there are so much new amazing music being released constantly ever year.

The difference is that now we've the Internet so you have decades and decades of music plus new music on the same buffet. You just have to pick up what you like. So as a result, music today is, more than ever, some kind of hybrid mosaic of cultural moments and techniques and whatever...

But this thread just shows that eternal cycle where some conservative old guys are telling that "back in my days, music was good and real. You kids just listen to viral disposable crap noise blabla". So much bitterness, I don't understand. Especially when this discussion happens in a forum where people share their enthusiasm for new technologies : synths, softwares, sound design, electronic music...

[wagtunes]

But I can understand that for younger folks it may be "the sound of today" - fresh, inspiring and innovative.

Yes it is. I also think it's a mindset. To be curious about new trends, new music. Being interested about what's going on in the music scene. Whether it's the underground scene or the mainstream. I'm not very old and barely experienced the 90's but I find a lot of really great music from that decade, the same for the 80s, 70s... Meanwhile, there are so much new amazing music being released constantly ever year.

But this thread just shows that eternal cycle where some conservative old guys are telling that "back in my days, music was good and real. You kids just listen to viral disposable crap noise blabla". So much bitterness, I don't understand. Especially when this discussion happens in a forum where people share their enthusiasm for new technologies : synths, softwares, sound design, electronic music...

Because many people have their prejudices. Their music was the best and everything else is crap. My best friend is like that. He is still stuck in the 60s and thinks it all went downhill from there.

I try to keep an open mind. That's why I listen to as much music from as many eras as I can.

It's just that not everybody is like that.

Welcome to human nature.

[ghettosynth]

I had no idea there was a US equivalent to the UK's Criminal Justice And Public Order Act 1994. Just reading about it now. Interesting stuff. It was framed more as a public order thing over here (open air raves in particular, a messy rave at Castlemorton in 1992 being likely the final straw) rather than a war on drugs thing though.

Yeah, my sense is that the UK tolerated the push into clubs better than we did here. Of course in most of the big cities there were enough venues to at least keep things going, but this was much less so in the smaller U.S. cities, many of which had thriving scenes.

[vurt]

So much bitterness, I don't understand. Especially when this discussion happens in a forum where people share their enthusiasm for new technologies : synths, softwares, sound design, electronic music...

when youre old enough, that when your significant other says "shall we get an early night" they just actually mean "lets get some sleep" youll become a little bitter about life too.