Common theme in late 90's and early 2000's music

[Three]

As I've been listening to the older music from the late 90's and early 2000's that I grew up with around my preteen years, I've been really fascinated by some of the themes in the lyrics and music videos that keep showing up. These themes include explicit anger towards parents, family dysfunction or some kind of sympathy toward children in these environments. Not that it makes these people philosophers. It just interests me that these themes were present in these popular songs and makes me wonder why they were popular when they were. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrZ4sMRYimw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkcbxjWG9Mc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1BFHYtZlAU

 

[aFireInside]

Great observation

 

 

I have noticed this also with the films !

The Matrix , office space , fight club, american beauty.. all came around the same year 

Well the films have a theme about breaking from the system. 

[MysterionMuffles]

Look at the top comments for Falling Away From Me. Ton of abuse excusers. I was the only person pointing it out.

There's missing comments because the douchebag in defense of spanking kept deleting my questions about his childhood.

[Ancient Mariner]

The Kids Aren't Alright song is very especial to me. I used to love some of The Offsping's songs during my last years of high school but i never really paid attention to their lyrics. I bumped into the video by chance (or by the grace of YouTube's suggestions algorithm) a few weeks ago. After watching the video and reading the lyrics, I was so emotionally connected with it again. I've tried to understand why my unconscious is drawn to it. The song is a general description of how kids, whose lifes apparently started with a lot of hope, end up with horrific adult lifes. Now, my adult life is actually for the most part stable and I was lucky enough to dodge a lot of bullets (horrible ex-gfs, no substance abuse, etc) So, I think what I am actually attracted to is that the video illustrates my emotions as I look at how my relationships have turned out. In it, a skinny young man walks into a room that seems abandoned (I assume it is his former home) and has flashbacks of his friends and family when they were young and as they grow up.  I was emotionally neglected as a child and emotionally abandoned by my parents since my late teens. When I was a kid, my family was sort of a role model family. Financially successful father, stay home "caring" mother, etc. Thus there were high expectations when I was young. Later, when I hit my early 20s, I started to realize that it was all a facade and that in reality there was no real family intimacy. The empty abandoned room is a graphical representation of my family life. The skinny young man walking into it represents me processing and realizing how empty it really was. The flashbacks of the family are reminders of the false image that my family portrayed to the outer world. The flashbacks of the kids growing up represent the various addictions that I've battled throughout the years. The people standing in the middle of the room towards the end of the song with theirs mouths wide open screaming represent my inner self screaming out in anger, frustration and the desire to be allowed to express what I truly feel.

[Magnus]

Why did these songs and movies occur at that time?

 

I believe the timing is due to the fact that the left-wing Free Love counter-culture movement was just about 30 years old. These artists were part of Generation X -- the product of families where no-fault divorce was common (no fault divorce was legislated in 1969-70). Rampant middle-class drug abuse.

 

Plus, the early 1970s was a period of extremely low birth rates, so that generation was put through a government school system in which districts were consolidated into fewer (but individually more populous) facilities. I went to an extremely small school, but there was one high school in my town that had 5,000 students.

 

It's hard to explain how different a childhood in the 1970s was from one in the 1940s. The postwar freeway system had created suburbs, television had taken over as the dominant media, crime rates were many multiples higher. It was a different world.

[MysterionMuffles]

 

Don't forget this maturity in Blink 182

 

This was such a change from their early goofiness.

[jester7707]

That is a good observation. I know almost all of the songs posted here. I was, and still am drawn to listen to them from time to time.Here are a couple more to add to the list:

 

 

 

[Three]

The Kids Aren't Alright song is very especial to me. I used to love some of The Offsping's songs during my last years of high school but i never really paid attention to their lyrics. I bumped into the video by chance (or by the grace of YouTube's suggestions algorithm) a few weeks ago. After watching the video and reading the lyrics, I was so emotionally connected with it again.

 

 

The Offspring has many cool lyrics that my unconscious has been drawn to. For example, from the song have you ever he says

 

When the truth walks away

Everybody stays

'Cause the truth about the world is that crime does pay

So if you walk away

Who is gonna stay

'Cause I'd like to think the world is a better place

When the truth walks away

Everybody stays

'Cause the truth about the world is that crime does pay

So if you walk away

Who is gonna stay

'Cause I'd like to make the world be a better place

When the truth walks away

Everybody stays

'Cause the truth about the world is that crime does pay

So if you walk away

Who is gonna stay

'Cause I'd like to think the world is a better place

I'd like to leave the world as a better place

I'd like to think the world

 

This resonated with me at a time when I tried to forget about all that I learned here. I just got out of a bad break up, was being abused at home, I didn't think I had the strength to be a philosopher. So, I took Stef's podcasts off my ipod and listened to the offspring while at the gym. 

 

 

These lyrics too resonated with me at that time. It is also a great song against the concept of collective guilt.

From Were Not the Ones:

 

Im not the one who made the world what it is today

Im not the one who caused the problems started long ago

But now I deal with all the consequence that troubles our times

I carry on and never once have even questioned why

Im innocent

But the weight of the world is on my shoulders

Im innocent

But the battles started are far from over

Were not the ones who leave the homeless in the streets at night

Were not the ones whove kept minorities and women down

Still we grow and then the problems they become our own

We carry on without even realizing why

Were innocent

But the weight of the world is on our shoulders

Were innocent

But the battles left us are far from over

Were not the ones whose pollution blackened our skies

And ruined our streams

Were not the ones who made the nuclear bombs

That threaten our lives

Were not the ones who let the children starve in faraway lands

Were not the ones who made the streets unsafe to walk at night

And even if we try and not become so overwhelmed

And if we make some contribution to the plight we see

Still our descendants will inherit our mistakes of today

Theyll suffer just the same as we and never wonder why

 

 

 

And this is about the cycle of abuse. From Way Down the Line

 

Nothing changes cause it's all the same

The world you get's the one you give away

It all just happens again

Way down the line

There is a chain that's never broken

You know the story it's sad but true

An angry man gets drunk and beats his kids

The same old way his drunken father did

What comes around well it goes around

Nothing changes cause it's all the same

The world you get's the one you give away

It all just happens again

Way down the line

 

At 17 Shannon is pregnant

As young as her mom when she had her

Her kid is never gonna have a dad

The same old way that Shannon never had

What comes around well it goes around

Nothing changes cause it's all the same

The world you get's the one you give away

It all just happens again

Way down the line

And all the things you learn when you're a kid

You'll fuck up just like your parents did

It all just happens again

Way down the line

 

And welfare moms have kids on welfare

And fat parents they have fat kids too

You know it's never gonna end

The same old cycle's gonna start again

What comes around well it goes around

 

Why did these songs and movies occur at that time?

 

I believe the timing is due to the fact that the left-wing Free Love counter-culture movement was just about 30 years old. These artists were part of Generation X -- the product of families where no-fault divorce was common (no fault divorce was legislated in 1969-70). Rampant middle-class drug abuse.

 

Plus, the early 1970s was a period of extremely low birth rates, so that generation was put through a government school system in which districts were consolidated into fewer (but individually more populous) facilities. I went to an extremely small school, but there was one high school in my town that had 5,000 students.

 

It's hard to explain how different a childhood in the 1970s was from one in the 1940s. The postwar freeway system had created suburbs, television had taken over as the dominant media, crime rates were many multiples higher. It was a different world.

 

That's interesting. I'm curious to know why do you think that the topic of broken homes and such became so marketable?

[Ancient Mariner]

The Offspring has many cool lyrics that my unconscious has been drawn to. For example, from the song have you ever he says

 

Wow! My head is blown!

 

First, you just mentally transported me back to my late teen years. I am literally listening to the Americana album as I write this (which I have not listened to in probably a decade) Apart from "The Kids Aren't Alright", I forgot there were other songs i really liked. Man, i wonder what I will dream tonight.

 

Second, those lyrics tell so much truth. The offspring was a pretty mainstream band. Heck, I knew of them when i was back in Latin America in the 90s. So, I wonder how conscious most people really are of the "photocopier of history". Everybody talks about parents being heroes for putting up with misbehaving kids when in reality it is the parents themselves creating those behaviors in their own kids.

[Aaron727]

As I've been listening to the older music from the late 90's and early 2000's that I grew up with around my preteen years, I've been really fascinated by some of the themes in the lyrics and music videos that keep showing up. These themes include explicit anger towards parents, family dysfunction or some kind of sympathy toward children in these environments. Not that it makes these people philosophers. It just interests me that these themes were present in these popular songs and makes me wonder why they were popular when they were. 

 

 

For as long humans have been around they have been abusing their kids. Almost all the music I listen to is from the 60's and 70's and themes like anger towards parents and family dysfunction are very prevalent.  A simple answer could be that It wasn't that those themes were so popular in the 90's but they were popular to you because of your history. You could of been been drawn to the dysfunctional music that just happened to becoming out at the time you were young. I know this sounds obvious but I just thought I would point it out.

David Bowie - Big Brother/Chant of the ever circling skeletal family was favorite song when I was 16. He is talking about the state but it applies to the family as well.

 

 

Don't talk of dust and roses

Or should we powder our noses?

Don't live for last year's capers

Give me steel, give me steel, give me pulsars unreal

 

He'll build a glass asylum

With just a hint of mayhem

He'll build a better whirlpool

We'll be living from sin, 

then we can really begin

 

Please saviour, saviour, show us

Hear me, I'm graphically yours

 

[CHORUS]

Someone to claim us, someone to follow

 

Someone to shame us, some brave Apollo

 

Someone to fool us, someone like you 

We want you Big Brother, Big Brother

 

I know you think you're awful square

 

But you made everyone and you've been every where

Lord, I'd take an overdose if you knew what's going down

 

[CHORUS (3 times)]

 

We want you Big Brother

 

 

Something kind of hit me today

I looked at you and wondered if you saw things my way

 

People will hold us to blame

It hit me today, it hit me today

 

We're taking it hard all the time

Why don't we pass it by?

Just reply, you've changed your mind

We're fighting with the eyes of the blind

Taking it hard, taking it hard

 

Yet now

We feel that we are papers, choking on you nightly

They tell me "Son, we want you, be elusive, but don't walk far"

For we're breaking in the new boys, deceive your next of kin

For you're dancing where the dogs decay, defecating ecstasy

You're just an ally of the leecher

Locator for the virgin King, but I love you in your fuck-me pumps

And your nimble dress that trails

Oh, dress yourself, my urchin one, for I hear them on the rails

Because of all we've seen, because of all we've said

We are the dead

 

One thing kind of touched me today

 

I looked at you and counted all the times we had laid

Pressing our love through the night

 

Knowing it's right, knowing it's right

 

Now I'm hoping some one will care

Living on the breath of a hope to be shared

 

Trusting on the sons of our love

That someone will care, someone will care

 

But now

We're today's scrambled creatures, locked in tomorrow's double feature

Heaven's on the pillow, its silence competes with hell

It's a twenty-four hour service, guaranteed to make you tell

 

And the streets are full of press men

Bent on getting hung and buried

And the legendary curtains are drawn 'round Baby Bankrupt

Who sucks you while you're sleeping

It's the theater of financiers

Count them, fifty 'round a table

White and dressed to kill

 

Oh caress yourself, my juicy

For my hands have all but withered

Oh dress yourself my urchin one, for I hear them on the stairs

Because of all we've seen, because of all we've said

 

We are the dead

We are the dead

We are the dead

 

 

[Three]

I appreciate your feedback, Aaron. I have considered whether or not I'm mistaking a subsconscious attraction for an objective trend, which would mean I've gravitated towards these songs because I can relate to them and then ex post facto declaring "it's a theme." There are a few thoughts which come to mind. One of which is that I and many other kids were exposed to music via MTV, VH1, CMT, or BET in the form of music videos. These channels still had significant influence over what was considered mainstream. Mainstream and MTV were  pretty much synonymous. Eventually, digital cable allowed for numorous sister channels like MTV2, FUSE, VH1, classic ect. The internet was there, but prior to youtube, the internet was just another place to find the songs you were already introduced to through the TV. And  many of the songs mentioned I rarely heard on the radio Because these bands were on these channels, because they not only had songs about that subject matter, but were able to spend anywhere from 3000$ to 200k on music videos to show images of that subject matter, means that they were already in fact popular. I might have been attracted to them unconsciously, but the fact they they were on MTV and played incessantly before I discovered the songs, means that objectively, they were getting multiple views.  I cant be attracted to something I don't have exposure too. Prior to my existence, there might be a song or two on Twisted Sister's, Motley Crue's, or Duran Duran most popular albums released in the 80's, about dysfunctional families. I would be interested to see a collection of music videos like that from the years 83-87. Now that I think about it, Motley crew had videos like  "smoking in the boys room" and Twisted sister had 'We're not gonna take it. But, in my opinion, that's not quite like showing a girl getting beat by her father or a little girl crying into the camera. And, again, that's quite different from multiple bands within the time frame of 4 years all having songs and music videos which played incessantly that showed images of the above mentioned subject matter. That I think can at least be considered a trend in the music videos at that time. Or maybe it's not any more or less prevalent than any other decade, but part of me still thinks it was more concentrated songs around the late 90's/early 2000's. To add to your observation, in the year 1970 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q29YR5-t3gg

, the year Mother came out, this was released. 

[Aaron727]

I think your point about mtv is a great one. Tons of kids were watching and those dysfunctional songs were popular with other people for a reason. I never watched music videos when I was a kid but I would listen to the radio a lot, which is probably why I like 70's music so much. I think your right about it being a trend in the 90's,I'm just wondering If it had been a trend in music for a very long time. I could be totally wrong as I only listen to a few bands from the 90's and maybe the trend was bigger during that time.

 

I have no clue about the bands from the 80's but here is a small list of some songs from my library that were made in the 70's

 

mother-pink floyd

the logical song- supertamp

hide in your shell-supertramp

I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier Mama-lennon

Repetition- David bowie

Cat's In The Cradle - Harry Chapin

House of the rising sun- the animals

The Sounds of Silence-Simon and Garfunkel(I always thought of my family when I hear this song but im not sure if thats how it was meant)

 

PS. From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen! Cat stevens was so cool back then

[Three]

While I do accept the similarities shared between the 70's music and the videos I posted, after giving a few of the songs a listen I think the differences put it into a different category. 

The best analogy I can come up with is that, yes rock has been around since the 70's and 90's rock has a lot in common with it. But the music was so different by that time that it earned a different category. 


While it's true that john lennon was talking about his mother and father and that makes the song about the family, parents and dysfunction, it doesn't leave the same kind of shocking, overt, striking and disturbing impact as this







So, I guess I should have been more specific. It's not just the subject matter, it's the way the subject matter was expessed that changed. They cut out any mention of government and included images of a self mutilated arm. 


saying "we are dead"

is more distant and metaphorical than the overt

"i've become so numb"

When you listen to john lennon you get the sense that something in his family was not right and that he has suffered. 

But not in the same way this does 










Interestingly, another rap metal band that came from the time even makes reference to the trend. 

in the song click click boom


"What the hell is wrong with me? 

My mom and dad weren't perfect, 
but still you don't hear no cryin ass bitchin from me, 

like there seems to be on everybody's CD "





In conclusion, by the time this theme got to the late ninties, because of its inclusion of more explicit language, striking imagry and louder sound, it had evolved into something entirely different. 

[TheMatrixHasMe]

Interesting thread.

 

I guess it goes without saying that IF there wasn't a target market and profit margin for the type of cultural production featured here, a considerable amount of it probably would not have been created.

[GRosado]

Fantastic find, really this is so interesting to see, I grew up on this music so it's really interesting to see.

[crops]

The first papa roach album was so raw. I was thinking about this few days ago , depressing music appeald th e most to me because it felt like the only authentic and honest expression around at the time , it didnt feel depressing , it was nourishing. A conspiracy theorist still remains in me when it comes to the music industry , culture control agendas , gender specific.

[Duderio]

goodbye

[...]

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