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A Shot of 90s Nostalgia

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The babies of the '80s have achieved enough temporal distance from their upbringing that they can now look back on the 1990s with nostalgia. It's only in hindsight, over a decade removed, that we can actually recognize the characteristics that made the time: our fashion, our technology and, of course, our music. But just talking about '90s music is boring. We all know the big names, the ones that have superseded the decade that wrought them and become established acts that are still active today. The fun in nostalgia is looking back at the ones that you've forgotten. In a way, by rising to fame and then disappearing all within a few years establishes you as a cultural anchor. You can bet that when a “Classic 1990s” radio station surfaces, it's going to feature these guys. Near and dear to my heart is Silverchair, best known in the '90s for being a poor man's Nirvana. Their first claim to fame was through their album Frogstomp and their single "Tomorrow." If that doesn't ring any bells, you might remember “Ana's Song (Open Fire)”, a dark,  personal ballad about anorexia struggles, which got them real MTV traction. The stateside success made them our quintessential Australian band for a good couple of years until The Vines took it all away. They didn't make it up to us in the year 2000, but they remained a megaband that filled stadiums in their native Australia when most Americans traded them in. I'll always remember them for their later highly orchestrated work and lyrics that still make no sense to me. Seven Mary Three, or 7M3 as superfans would call them, are the band responsible for such 1996 alternative rock jams as “Cumbersome” and “Water's Edge.” If, after listening to these songs, you can't remember them filling the airwaves, that is forgivable. They sound like every other band who wished they were Pearl Jam in the '90s. Yet there was a time when these guys were the new hotness, and they reached platinum status in less than a year on that wave of popularity. But all waves crest, and what was once a platinum-level band eventually charts new at #178 in 2001. This is the darkness that awaits us all. The 1990s were an especially exciting time for hip-hop, then a much younger genre that was still developing its canon. When people get nostalgic about '90s rap, (read: VH1's “I Love The 90's” and throwback DJ sets) they always go to the humor of Skee-Lo and “I Wish.” But there doesn't seem to be nearly enough talk about Ini Kamoze and reggae/rap hit, ”Here Comes The Hot Stepper.” Even today, that's still a cool bass groove and it's full of hooks. It’s become one of those songs that people would recognize if they heard it, but don’t know the artist or the song name, if they ever knew it at all. Even fewer people remember the R&B group, 4PM. They had the misfortune of coming up in the time of Blackstreet, 112 and Boyz II Men, so it's no surprise that time has swallowed them whole. Their hit, ”Sukiyaki” is an English cover of a Japanese song and exemplary of everything that was popular in R&B at the time: the group harmonies, the snap-along intro, and of course, the baritone guy doing a spoken word interlude that refers to you as “girl.” It was a simpler time! There are some that say nostalgia is a poisonous idea, that looking to and rehashing the past is a lazy endeavor for people who don't want to make the future. There's something to that! Retromania has its limits, and the future always has the potential to be better than the past ever was. So while I'm always in favor of progress and the cutting edge of now, I can’t help but appreciate the harmlessness of self-contained nostalgia. Not necessarily reverent or condescending, but the type of nostalgia used for looking at washed out family photos. It's more about remembering the old times with our new brains and seeing what they've evolved into: strange landmarks of a time that grow continuously further away.

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The Map of Developing Music Tastes

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What was the first album you ever bought for yourself? If you can't answer without feeling a pang of embarrassment, you understand that the evolution of your personal music taste can take many twists and turns. What was once close to your heart in your adolescence may have you selling records in your teenage years. What if we were able to chart the way people grow to develop their musical taste? What if we could identify the different stages and when to expect them? Well, that ship has come in. I present to you the greatest cartographic accomplishment since the mapping of the human genome: The map of developing music tastes. This is science. Childhood: Kids Music & Your Parents' Music Until about the age of 8, the only music you can conceivably like is kids music, like the songs Sesame Street teaches you. Otherwise, you'll grow a tiny affinity for whatever your parents listen to, whether it's their intent or not. That means that you can grow up listening to anything from AC/DC to Boyz II Men. This is important to note for your current/future babies. Pre-Teens: Whatever's Popular With Teenagers Kids always get their hooks into pop music earlier than people think they're supposed to. For some generations, that means 4th graders that are super into Nirvana. For people of my generation, that meant a bunch of 9 year olds rapping along to Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. Middle School: Whatever Makes You Cool Middle School, typically ages 11 through 14, is sometimes called The Great In-Between Darkness. It's a time when kids retain the cruelty of small children, but are beginning to manifest the need to fit in. This intersection of selfish apathy and desire produces some strange years, and no, I don't know what projection is. In music taste, this is where most kids conform to whatever makes them cool in their circle: if they're on the fast track to being cool outsiders, they'll hear their first punk song. If they're going to be the top of the social ladder, they'll get into the top pop act of the day, whether that's Michael Jackson or Lady Gaga. High School: The Divergence At long last, people begin to really define their music tastes (and themselves), and the results can be wildly different. What's new is that teenagers begin to realize that music has existed for a while – even before they were born! It's when people start to learn music backwards, as we all do, finding the influences of our favorites and the kings of the genres we love. It's when kids start wearing The Doors t-shirts and memorize Beatles lyrics, things they couldn't pull off before. College and Post-Grad: Eclecticism You know those weirdos that say they like everything except rap? Or those oddballs that hate all country music without having given its rich history a listen? This is when they start listening to a little bit of rap and country. For the rest of us, this is where we get in-depth with our tastes, which, depending on the branching path you took, can mean a Miles Davis phase or brand new genres with names like “Witch house.” And that's where I'm at so far. In the interest of space and saving the rest for medical journals, I'm going to have to cut it off here. Hopefully, with further research and, of course, a ton of grant money, we'll be able to further unlock the secrets of why we like what we like, and perhaps prevent some unfortunate choices before they happen.

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