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Most golden ages are not obvious at the time. I lucked out being in high school in a moment where grunge matured, hip hop got amazing and edm started to rise.
Smells Like Teen Spirit exploded freshman year. The grunge wave got east soon after that. On the other end of the parking lot Wu Tang was played again and again as Biggie and Tupac battled. And the skaters were shifting from punk rock to this new vibe they heard at warehouse raves as techno was escaping from the lab in Dallas and NYC.
The movie Kids catches this time really well. Words don’t quite do it justice.
Smells Like Teen Spirit exploded freshman year. The grunge wave got east soon after that. On the other end of the parking lot Wu Tang was played again and again as Biggie and Tupac battled. And the skaters were shifting from punk rock to this new vibe they heard at warehouse raves as techno was escaping from the lab in Dallas and NYC.
The movie Kids catches this time really well. Words don’t quite do it justice.
May 26, 2025
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🎮My younger brother and I grew up playing outside and spending countless hours exploring what the natural world around us had to offer. This was the era of Osiris D3’s, World Industries, Obama ‘08, playing Flash games on LEGO’s website, playing Pokémon Diamond & Pearl, a game which, upon buying, I immediately cheated using the Action Replay to duplicate Master Balls and obtain multiple Dialgas, Palkias, and a shiny Arceus all before even beating the first gym leader. I remember having an obsession with Zumiez and skateboarding despite being a huge poser. I knew kids who had Bapestas, but as I was too poor to afford those, I was gifted the infamous FUBU Dunks, and instead of Bape hoodies and denim, I had Rocawear hoodies and denim, both of which I used to think of as incredibly cringe, but now I think these may have been the peak of my childhood swagger. It then, should come as no surprise that another massive influence was Kanye West’s Graduation, which caused a massive cultural snowball for me. The music video for Stronger holds the distinction of being the first YouTube video I ever watched, and first overall exposure to YouTube which in turn exposed me to anime, Akira, Interstella 5555, French house and Daft Punk, and more hip hop music. This would influence me going to car shows and looking at the Scion booth and grabbing their CD Samplers, specifically the Dubstep one and the Stones Throw Records one. I was too young to experience the full indie sleaze era, but was young enough to get the media and clothing that came out of it. Overall, a lot of stuff I have fond memories of til this day.
4d ago
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I think I am on board with your assessment @ACTUALLYASLEEP
Four reasons:
* stylistic diversity: punk was born and commercialized at one end, hip hop at the other. We take this for granted today but at the time the jaggedness of going from the Clash to Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, the Treacherous Three, and ESG (all of whom they collaborated with at one point) was exhilarating. The sheer confluence of everything was unprecedented.
* MTV as a cultural force: I mean, it was called Music Television 😉 and this was its finest hour. The assumption was that music mattered more than everything else, otherwise why would you watch it?
* legacy icons: Prince, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Bruce, Bowie. I could go on. You may not like them all but you’ve gotta respect the bodies of work over decades.
* the roots of indie culture were born then: bands like R.E.M., Husker Du, Replacements, the Smiths and a million others were blazing a trail (radio, live DIY tours, etc) that created “College Rock” and ultimately indie and here we are today staring in awe at what they made from scratch.
The Reagan era sucked to live through but a lot of great music came out of the struggle.
💞
Mar 14, 2025
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🥲being young is hard, you’re full of intense and volatile emotions, the world is an overwhelming and scary place, adults often lack patience or compassion for the intense experiences of youth, and music makes people feel less alone.
when i was in middle school/high school, people would make fun of me for listening to “wrist cutter music” (this was over 10 years ago). emo/alt rock/pop punk was pretty big then and a lot of it was pretty angsty and/or sad.
grunge was huge with young people in the 90s, and that was a pretty angsty/disillusioned movement too.
i’m not sure i see this as a new trend? i think the music itself changes but the appetite for art that speaks to these big feelings remains.
when i was in middle school/high school, people would make fun of me for listening to “wrist cutter music” (this was over 10 years ago). emo/alt rock/pop punk was pretty big then and a lot of it was pretty angsty and/or sad.
grunge was huge with young people in the 90s, and that was a pretty angsty/disillusioned movement too.
i’m not sure i see this as a new trend? i think the music itself changes but the appetite for art that speaks to these big feelings remains.
Apr 21, 2024
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I blew some winnings at Paul Fredrick and now I am rocking some awesome Gaudy old man golf shirts that just drip.
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This is a cookbook with no recipes that will teach you how to cook everything. It covers everything there is to know about food -- from how it was discovered, how man changed it, how it is grown, how it is harvested and how to prepare and cook it. It dramatically changed my cooking life.
