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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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the only thing that gave me pause was that “songs in the key of life” came out in 76 💔
Mar 14, 2025
@ACTUALLYASLEEP Stevie’s imperial phase also coincides with the Stones‘ (roughly 68-76) so believe me I am right there with you. you’re on a roll!
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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.
Rec
🎭Every new piece of technology was so exciting, because of the monoculture every new release felt like an Event, everything was shiny and glittery and in fun colors. Listening to music for the first time on an iPod was crazy. Getting a portable DVD player to watch Buffy the Vampire slayer DVDs on long road trips made me feel like I lived in the future. Seeing digital cable for the first time where it would display the programming schedule with descriptions blew my mind.
I played so many games on CD-ROM on a clunky beige monitor attached to a giant tower running Windows 98–a lot of my parents’ friends were educators so they were constantly giving me new ones to play. Neopets was my life and I loved exploring new sites. I remember frequenting many websites that were just lists of other sites lol. I did also spend a lot of time playing outside and just imagining things. Everything you see on Buzzfeed 90s kid remember the 2000s articles is accurate. The high of optimism when Obama got elected after eight years of Bush was unparalleled!
That said yeah the forced conformity was incredibly stifling and social groups were still cliquish (though this was starting to dissolve by the time I got into high school). Things that would make you cool now would lead you to be mocked or become an outcast so it was nice that emo kids existed because they were a lot more accepting of idiosyncrasies and quirks. Gender nonconformity was frowned upon—I got my hair cut short in eighth grade and was made fun of by so many people, and my male gym coach called me sir!
The beauty standards were insane and also so narrow. I remember being in a Kohl’s dressing room when I was like 12 and crying as I tried on increasingly larger pants sizes because my butt wouldn’t fit into anything I tried on and wondering why I was cursed with this body.
HONESTLY the hardest thing for me was that I needed glasses and the only ones that were really available at my local glasses shops were very ugly and nerdy (or if there were cool ones they were designer and cost like $600) and you couldn’t just buy them online so I was walking around looking like Harry Potter for most of my childhood and early adolescence and feeling very insecure about it.
The good thing about personal style, culture, and taste is that i truly had to figure it all out on my own by seeking out and curating sources of inspiration, or by word of mouth from other people, rather than having inspiration algorithmically fed to me.
I remember going trick or treating in the mall after 9/11 because some parents including my mother were very paranoid that something (?) would happen? My mom was very paranoid in general because of her own childhood experiences and seeing all of the news stories about child abductions but I wasn’t helicoptered and my parents would let me walk around the neighborhood with my friends as I got older. We spent so much time just walking from strip mall to strip mall and like loitering at Barnes and Noble lol.
So it was a mixed bag really but I wouldn’t go back and my nostalgia is usually only in passing. This is controversial but I don’t have any fondness for physical media other than vinyl records because I remember just thinking CDs DVDs and VHSs sucked and I hated when they would get damaged. When I realized that I could acquire any digital media I wanted on the internet it felt like the world was my oyster and I never looked back.
You know what though actually I just remembered how much cheaper everything was and I got mad so…
I played so many games on CD-ROM on a clunky beige monitor attached to a giant tower running Windows 98–a lot of my parents’ friends were educators so they were constantly giving me new ones to play. Neopets was my life and I loved exploring new sites. I remember frequenting many websites that were just lists of other sites lol. I did also spend a lot of time playing outside and just imagining things. Everything you see on Buzzfeed 90s kid remember the 2000s articles is accurate. The high of optimism when Obama got elected after eight years of Bush was unparalleled!
That said yeah the forced conformity was incredibly stifling and social groups were still cliquish (though this was starting to dissolve by the time I got into high school). Things that would make you cool now would lead you to be mocked or become an outcast so it was nice that emo kids existed because they were a lot more accepting of idiosyncrasies and quirks. Gender nonconformity was frowned upon—I got my hair cut short in eighth grade and was made fun of by so many people, and my male gym coach called me sir!
The beauty standards were insane and also so narrow. I remember being in a Kohl’s dressing room when I was like 12 and crying as I tried on increasingly larger pants sizes because my butt wouldn’t fit into anything I tried on and wondering why I was cursed with this body.
HONESTLY the hardest thing for me was that I needed glasses and the only ones that were really available at my local glasses shops were very ugly and nerdy (or if there were cool ones they were designer and cost like $600) and you couldn’t just buy them online so I was walking around looking like Harry Potter for most of my childhood and early adolescence and feeling very insecure about it.
The good thing about personal style, culture, and taste is that i truly had to figure it all out on my own by seeking out and curating sources of inspiration, or by word of mouth from other people, rather than having inspiration algorithmically fed to me.
I remember going trick or treating in the mall after 9/11 because some parents including my mother were very paranoid that something (?) would happen? My mom was very paranoid in general because of her own childhood experiences and seeing all of the news stories about child abductions but I wasn’t helicoptered and my parents would let me walk around the neighborhood with my friends as I got older. We spent so much time just walking from strip mall to strip mall and like loitering at Barnes and Noble lol.
So it was a mixed bag really but I wouldn’t go back and my nostalgia is usually only in passing. This is controversial but I don’t have any fondness for physical media other than vinyl records because I remember just thinking CDs DVDs and VHSs sucked and I hated when they would get damaged. When I realized that I could acquire any digital media I wanted on the internet it felt like the world was my oyster and I never looked back.
You know what though actually I just remembered how much cheaper everything was and I got mad so…
Jul 20, 2025
Rec
😃i am (early?) gen z so i was very much a child during this period
with that said, don’t be fooled by youtube drum and bass playlists or weepy-eyed disney channel retrospectives - much of the mainstream culture of this era was insanely bad. that is obviously still true today, but the difference is that the monoculture was still alive in the 2000s, so your ability to opt-out and find subcultural niches that had cool stuff going on was significantly curtailed compared to today. you basically *had* to be literally anorexic to be conventionally attractive, there was no political “left” to speak of (not that it mattered to me when i was a literal child but still), and as others have mentioned, insane 9/11 hysteria lasted well into the obama era.
with all that said the thought of having to grow up today is honestly terrifying. i am old enough that social media did not become culturally dominant until high school (i had a dumbphone until freshman year), and i do feel blessed to have grown up on a pre-web 2.0 internet. you still were able to buy things and own them. a huge number of the greatest games of all time came out during this period, and every mainstream multiplayer release wasn’t just a casino with a mid fps attached to it. amazon had yet to completely conquer the earth. the government kind of worked. i don’t think i would go back because i’ve been spoiled by the sheer volume of amazing things that i have access to today and i do think we’ve made some solid sociopolitical progress, but there are definitely some things i miss
with that said, don’t be fooled by youtube drum and bass playlists or weepy-eyed disney channel retrospectives - much of the mainstream culture of this era was insanely bad. that is obviously still true today, but the difference is that the monoculture was still alive in the 2000s, so your ability to opt-out and find subcultural niches that had cool stuff going on was significantly curtailed compared to today. you basically *had* to be literally anorexic to be conventionally attractive, there was no political “left” to speak of (not that it mattered to me when i was a literal child but still), and as others have mentioned, insane 9/11 hysteria lasted well into the obama era.
with all that said the thought of having to grow up today is honestly terrifying. i am old enough that social media did not become culturally dominant until high school (i had a dumbphone until freshman year), and i do feel blessed to have grown up on a pre-web 2.0 internet. you still were able to buy things and own them. a huge number of the greatest games of all time came out during this period, and every mainstream multiplayer release wasn’t just a casino with a mid fps attached to it. amazon had yet to completely conquer the earth. the government kind of worked. i don’t think i would go back because i’ve been spoiled by the sheer volume of amazing things that i have access to today and i do think we’ve made some solid sociopolitical progress, but there are definitely some things i miss
Jul 20, 2025
Top Recs from @coreydubrowa
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The man responsible for dozens of Teenage Symphonies to God
"Sad songs about happy things" (the first time, as a kid, I can recall the sweet/sour combo of melodies that could make you cry attached to songs about endless, bottomless love)
I've long since lost track of how many weddings and funerals I've attended that have featured this song; suffice it to say, "a lot."
God only knows what we'd been without him 🙏🏻
Jun 11, 2025
May 22, 2025
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Hey tyler hopefully this doesn’t violate some PI.FYI golden rule
But after nearly two years of writing, editing and arguing, my book about the EP is coming out in May and can be preordered here:
https://hozacrecords.com/product/aifl/
The book is about the origins, history and cultural impact of the EP since these little objects first started coming out in the 50s. Over 50 of my music biz friends then helped me shape the list and review the top 200 ever released, according to us (ha). For those of you who are into this kind of geekery/snobbery, I can’t wait to hear what you think. A labor of love, as all books are! ❤️
https://hozacrecords.com/product/aifl/
The book is about the origins, history and cultural impact of the EP since these little objects first started coming out in the 50s. Over 50 of my music biz friends then helped me shape the list and review the top 200 ever released, according to us (ha). For those of you who are into this kind of geekery/snobbery, I can’t wait to hear what you think. A labor of love, as all books are! ❤️
Mar 27, 2024