Three Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 Music history has always fascinated me. I wanted to point out a tend that has recently caught my attention, which was the degree to which shame, self loathing and suicidality was so prevalent during these years. Whenever I see trends like this I can't help but ask questions like, "Why the early ninties?" "Why was the mainstream so willing to consume this kind of music with similar lyrical content accompanied by dreary melodies? What was different in parenting at the time?"I'm not suggesting that these subjects didn't exist in music prior to the early ninties, of course. But, what makes this interesting is that these were all hits and received massive airplay within a just 4 years. Why did this not occur between 1980 to 1984? And maybe the songs listed have nothing to do with suicide or self loathing and the artist was just using those words an metaphors, but even if every song was a metaphor about something else, the fact that they would use similar language is still fascinating.Radiohead’s Creep “But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here” Silverchair’s Suicidal Dreams“The rope is here, now I'll find a use. I'll kill myself, I'll put my head in a noose.” Smashing Pumpkins- Today Stone Temple Pilots -Creep“I’m half the man I use to be” Alice In Chains’s- Dirt “I want to taste dirty, stinging pistol In my mouth, on my tongue” Beck Loser“Soy un perdedor I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me? ” Soundgarden’s Let Me Drown“Drown me in you, drown me in you, drown me in you” The Offspring’s-Self Esteem“I’m just a sucker with no self esteem” Nirvana-I Hate Myself And I Want To die 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagnumPI Posted April 5, 2015 Share Posted April 5, 2015 I was thinking about this a lot recently. A couple thoughts:If you go back 25-ish years, you get a sense of who raised them, and how, to a certain degree. So, people who were born in the late 60's/early 70's to parents who were... baby boomers. That alone says a lot. Then, look at the target audience. The hippie and first-wave feminist generation was raising the teenagers of the time, people born in the late 70's/early 80's to a lot of single and/or particularly young parents. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegahero09 Posted April 5, 2015 Share Posted April 5, 2015 I always thought it was due to the market opening up, and music becoming more readily consumable to kids/teenagers. The market for appealing to the struggles of the young everyman had value- and it went against the mainstream. Society and the music industry resented the angsty, true-to-self grunge scene. No one understood why or how Nirvana passed Michael Jackson on the charts. People hated the grunge crowd, politicians, priests, everyone. "It doesn't make sense" they would say. I think those themes changed after those 4 years because music genres live and die off. People change and so does their music. I mean look at Maynard of Tool, the music they made was his therapy, and after he healed he had no desire to write more, because he felt he had healed the worst of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tservitive Posted April 6, 2015 Share Posted April 6, 2015 I do think that its a combination of what MagnumPI and Omegahero09 are saying. Grunge reveals the terrible results of first wave feminist parenting and the politicians, who represented those that were part of the 1960's protests were in office at the time. Meanwhile, conservatives would have disliked the messages due to the opposition of Christianity and suicide as well as the opening up of male emotions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Three Posted April 18, 2015 Author Share Posted April 18, 2015 I was thinking about this a lot recently. A couple thoughts: If you go back 25-ish years, you get a sense of who raised them, and how, to a certain degree. So, people who were born in the late 60's/early 70's to parents who were... baby boomers. That alone says a lot. Then, look at the target audience. The hippie and first-wave feminist generation was raising the teenagers of the time, people born in the late 70's/early 80's to a lot of single and/or particularly young parents. I always thought it was due to the market opening up, and music becoming more readily consumable to kids/teenagers. The market for appealing to the struggles of the young everyman had value- and it went against the mainstream. Society and the music industry resented the angsty, true-to-self grunge scene. No one understood why or how Nirvana passed Michael Jackson on the charts. People hated the grunge crowd, politicians, priests, everyone. "It doesn't make sense" they would say. I think those themes changed after those 4 years because music genres live and die off. People change and so does their music. I mean look at Maynard of Tool, the music they made was his therapy, and after he healed he had no desire to write more, because he felt he had healed the worst of it. I do think that its a combination of what MagnumPI and Omegahero09 are saying. Grunge reveals the terrible results of first wave feminist parenting and the politicians, who represented those that were part of the 1960's protests were in office at the time. Meanwhile, conservatives would have disliked the messages due to the opposition of Christianity and suicide as well as the opening up of male emotions. Thank you guys so much for your very insightful feedback. the suggestion that the self loathing was a by product of the first wave of feminist parenting really struck a chord with me. My mother was in fact a feminist and a baby boomer (born in like 1954), so I can attest to just how toxic that sort of parenting is. She would often have these monolouges in the car about how impotent and awful men were with me being the only person in the car, which had an incredibly damaging effect on my self esteem. Another interesting fact that could support the theory is that many of the songs were mentioned are in some way are talking about women. The Offsprings -Self Esteem Chris Cornell mentioned that "Let me Drown" was about going back to the womb to die According to wiki Radiohead's Creep was was inspired by a woman who Thom Yorke had an attraction to. Also, Beck is singing the lines "I'm a loser Baby". That isn't usually the kind of language one would use towards another guy. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagnumPI Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Thought I'd put this here. Ive been listening to certain music lately. For whatever reasons, they've been resonating with me of late. New city, new place, new job, without the familiarity of friends, and all the old places. So, I've been reflecting a lot. Trying to find some presence, and unfortunately, not succeeding. I can only expect so much and with all this taking place, I'm OK with surviving for now. Regardless, that's the back story if anyone cares or needs a reason to read my post.Some more 90s and one 80's song that are awfully real in my life. offspring was already mentioned, but this one hits me harder. And then Jim Carroll, it's got a more upbeat tune but the material is deep. Then Social Distortion. Anything Mike Ness means a lot to me. For a lot of reasons I can't explain and don't really need to, in addition to the ones I can point out, his music has been extremely important to me. Social D is great, but even the honky-tonk oriented solo stuff is awesome to me. Just the man's whole musical career is like its own growing organism. If I have a long drive, I can put it on, and get angst, pain, regret, empathy, fun and redemption. It's all there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrZ4sMRYimw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PatrickC Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 You make a great point Joel. Which is why I struggle to now relisten to much of it. This was the music of my era in my 20's I suppose. I've often reflected in recent years on the depressing lyrical content that was highly popular back then. Musically it was one of the better era's I think. Certainly an improvement from much of the 80's new wave. Although it was probably heavily influenced by 80's bands like Joy Divsion and The Smiths. Both of which thrived on melancholy. Lyrically it reminds me a lot of the blaxploitation and northern soul greats of the 60's and 70's. Music I still love, singing which was often some of the most supreme, but lyrics of which will often leave me feeling quite empty and make it quite unlistenable. An example of which is here. Where is the agency ladee. With mothers like this, who needs enemies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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