Music Talk : The 90s, when it all went to Hell

According to some white people who I rather like, but who probably don’t know anything about Chinese culture, there is an old Chinese saying, “may you live in interesting times”. It’s supposed to be a curse, something you say to someone that you wish ill.

Get it? Clever, right?

I have a feeling that if I asked someone who grew up in China about that, they might tell me they’d rather live in times where white people stop making shit up about “ancient Chinese sayings”. Just sayin.

That all said, the late 80s and early 90s were definitely “interesting times” in modern pop music. It was a time when the industry was certainly changing, and there were some things that happened that changed everything…and generally, there was some incredibly good music, and a lot that sucked.

For example, Nirvana happened, which was wonderful…and then they were gone and the wave of suck rolled on in.

Let me take you back to the late 80s. While Nirvana had put out Bleach and was part of the grunge scene out on the west coast (no, they didn’t completely invent the genre out of a test tube and everyone else is a copying shithead. But, whoa momma…there were a LOT of copying shitheads to come. Stay with me), there were still some singer-songwriters out there, and the beginnings of alternate, or “college” rock coming out.

There were other really popular bands that were terrible, but very hot. Van Halen had booted Diamond Dave and brought on  Sammy Hagar. Now, I like Eddie and much as anybody…but it wasn’t exactly an artistic renaissance, now was it?

Suzanne Vega had her huge hit years before (Luka), and had been quietly putting out brilliant albums with less and less notice and radio play.

The Smiths, one of the more important English bands of the 80s was getting ready to split. Morrissey writing intelligent lyrics, and he can sing, even if he’s annoying as hell…and Johnny Marr wrote the music. The smiths ignored the synth heavy electronics of the time for guitars and drums, which gave them a kind of post-punk drive and brilliant stuff.

Other bands were still floating around. MTV still showed some music videos, but that was going away. Mettalica, who I had just recently discovered around that time, was already getting weird.

Around 1990 was when I had fallen into the Jazz hole in a big way. I went through swing, then bebop, then avant garde…then decided I wasn’t smart enough for that and landed in the 50s or so as my sweet spot. Sinatra, Ella, Miles, Trane…and I was (and am) obsessed with Louis Armstrong (greatest musician of the 20th century, don’t let anyone tell you different).

Meanwhile, I was catching Violent Femmes at the Beacon theater in Manhattan when I could, and trying to decide what I thought about Soundgarden.

Then Nevermind happened, and everything went kablooie.

When I think of that time, I can’t help but imagine a young Crider and a young Morris sitting on a couch, Beavis and Butthead style, jamming out on Alice in Chains or some shit like that…

“Dammit, Crider, just because a video has a bear in it doesn’t mean it’s cool”

“hu huh…but what if the bear is taking a dump?”

“Whoa… that would be COOL!”

Anyway, when I was in high school, listening to music had as much to do with defining yourself and creating your brand as it did with actually liking the music. Usually, you and the people you hung out with had their bands they were into. You wore the t shirts, slept out for concert tickets… all of that. But I didn’t actually know anything about music then.

The late 80s and early 90s was when I learned about music, and I came to a similar conclusion to the one I came to about poetry.

See, back then I thought I was going to be a poet. Imagine that. Through some luck and a mutual friends I managed to get a poet-in-residence at a local college to look at my poetry (he is a big deal and I don’t want to name him , because he had no business wasting time  reading my stuff and I have no business pretending to be connected to him). He was gracious, and suggested I read a LOT more poetry in order to get my head around it a bit better.

So I did. I read all kinds of poetry, bought used college text books about poetry, went to poetry readings at dipshitty little coffee shops…for three solid years.

What I decided was, I’m no poet. But neither are most other people. Of all the poetry on earth, 10 percent of it is sublime…truly one of the greatest achievements of humanity. Dead serious.

The other 90 percent…well, it sucks. There’s not a lot of gray area.

The first time I heard a Live song… it was the “angel opens her eyes” one…I don’t want to name it because to do so corrodes my soul. I heard that and I realized that 90 percent of the music I was hearing, sucked.

Nirvana was great. Innovative. Funny that people think of them as “simple”… Kurt was very sophisticated in his musical knowledge and the sound he got from his guitar, both with how he played with all kinds of tunings, and the instruments themselves, in a lot of cases Fender offsets.

Everyone loves offsets. Hell, Morris even plays one sometimes.

The problem I have with music from this period isn’t that it mostly sucked…though it did. Any era of music had their dingers… I’m sure there was some soul crushingly bad Live-type bands in the 70s too. But the problem is the whole music industry changed at that time, and the bands that came out after nirvana were remarkably influential, even though they sucked.

Part of it was the Alanis syndrome… Alanis Morrisette does not suck…though her songwriting is a little on the nose, and it’s hard to take someone seriously who’s obviously trying to be taken seriously, and has no idea what the term “ironic” actually means.  That said, she can sing, had a great band, and put on a tremendous live show. But after Jagged Little Pill, records labels started signing people who sounded and (preferably) looked just like her. And lordy, did a lot of them ever suck.

Similar things happened with Nirvana, of course. Bands that would have died under their own weight in the real world suddenly were thrust upon us. And that went on long enough that shitty bands eventually because the “big” influential bands of the time.

And this is why I like jazz as much as I do. I’ll talk more about a few of the “didn’t suck” acts from that time as we move along. The rest of them should just be constantly goofed on by South Park.

Last note, I missed Evan Crider’s birthday last week, so happy belated birthday to the man. I have some fun at his expense, but he’s good people and does good things other than play music for people all around him and he deserves better than I give him. Funny, though, his birthday is on cinco de mayo…even though I think of him as the whitest guy walking the earth. I don’t actually know his genetics, but based on what he listens to, it’s all mayo on his wonder bread cheese sandwiches, far as the eye can see. Makes Morris look like Carlos f**ing Santana!

Love you, brother!