the 90s revival
(posted on 2009-11-17 00:42:39)
Some people are saying that a 90s revival is imminent. They base this on the previous pop-music decades having usually been reprised around 15 to 20 years after they ended, and on signs of incipient revival, such as the Pavement tour. I got to thinking about the music-decade-revivals we've had to date, and mused about why they happen and what a 90s revival might look like. Well-known blogger Momus discussed revivals earlier this year: I add a 'cause' to his model, as detailed below.
Of course this discussion relies on it being meaningful to divide pop-music history into ten-year chunks, rather than some other quantum. This seems to be a common convention. However it would be interesting to consider whether genres have a different lifespan: I have speculated at other times that it is either 7 or 15 years. I also choose to focus on music rather than movies, clothing, zines or other genres. This may be personal bias, but I think music has had the most social impact of these, and been a primary driver of pop culture.
Each musical decade from the 50s to the 80s has been revived. But what about the decades before? There was pop music before World War 2, and fashion and record industries, but pre-war styles seem not to have survived well in post-war pop-culrure. There was a folk revival in the early 60s, and the Beatles and Joe Jackson indulged in some pillaging of the 20-40s, but this wasn't taken up by many.
The first major pop decade revival occurred when the 1950s were revived in the 70s. Its signs included the tv show Happy Days, stage musical the Rocky Horror Show, pop musicians such as Racey and Suzi Quatro (and in Australia Daddy Cool, Silver Studs and Ol' 55), and some of the memes of punk rock such as its rejection of hippy culture and a propensity to cover 50s songs (for example Sid Vicious' interpretation of Eddie Cochrane). The original bodgies and rockers were reaching their early forties, an age when one sheds one's last hopes of being glamorous. With nothing to lose, forty-somethings are at risk of shamelessly reliving their youth in public, thus creating a market for nostalgia.
In the mid 70s, with the solo Beatles gone to seed and the hippy movement mostly over, there was a distinct element of "we lost our way in the 60s" among both ex-rockers and working-class youth, and an unholy alliance of these groups brought us the 50s revival. I suggest that a similar meme-complex defined each subsequent decade-revival, and will define the 90s revival when it comes: that is, a nostalgia for one's youth, combined with a belief that music "went wrong" in the years between the original decade and the time in which it is revived.
The 60s were revived, in turn, during the 80s. Some genres became particularly influential. 'Garage' or 'Detroit' bands revived the sound of the Stooges and the MC5 and were influenced by the Pebbles compilations. In Australia this sound was indie-dominant for several years. The related 'psychedelic' scene, including the Church, the Stems, the Sunnyboys and others, did a kind of Revolver / Byrds sound wearing pointy boots and paisley shirts. At the time I thought musicians were exhibiting a tendency to revive the music their parents played when they were toddlers. Since then I've realized that cultural politics as much as sound drives revivals.
A major but often-forgotten theme in early-80s culture was the widespread denigration of 'rockism'. The long hair and swagger of 70s bands was ridiculed in the punk and post-punk scenes, and many bands who had been riding high fell out of favour (to witness this, compare the Rolling Stones' confident clip for Miss You, made at the peak of their popularity, with the nervous self-parody of Start Me Up, made just a few years later after a drubbing from punks.) Guitar became an uncool instrument, and bands stopped holding them like phalluses. Some scenesters complained even that the Birthday Party were 'too rock'. Many contemporary musicians were unhappy with this state of affairs. The 60s revival allowed young upcoming bands to 'play rock' without looking too much like the 70s dinosaurs that were on the nose. This became the thin edge of a wedge of a rock counter-revolution that developed during the 80s, via the American hardcore scene, the Australian grunge scene, and bands such as REM and Sonic Youth.
The 70s revival happened on cue in the 90s. While it began innocuously with ironic op-shop clothes and Abba parties, the fast-building rock revival soon exploded in the Seattle scene and worldwide grunge movement, which mined the look and sound of 70s hard rock. This hair-and-guitar revival so dominated all levels of pop music that other genres of the era can be seen to an extent as being reactions to it. I argue that, politically, this revival's purpose was the same as that of the previous two. Grunge rolled back the English-dominated, anti-rockist 80s, making space for a new generation of musicians taking their cues from America. Praising the past to criticize contemporary developments is not new: Luddites, Romantics and other activists have used the same strategy.
Subsequently, round 2000 we saw rumblings of an 80s revival. Bands such as Interpol appeared, doing the 80s sound and making it popular among young fans. Compilations of early-80s post-punk were released (Australia's Can't Stop It was an early example). This new/old sound built momentum, and before long all the popular young bands sounded like Joy Division, The Fall, Gang of Four, Wire, etc. Classic-rock stations added the Human League and Depeche Mode to their playlists, and K-Mart bought Counting the Beat for ads designed to make the new cohort of 40-somethings think about their happy days while shopping. A generation of young 80s-reviving bands swept the old 70s-reviving 90s stars aside, in the process offering aging actual-80s bands, who had been dormant for a decade, an opportunity to reform.
So what is the anatomy of a musical revival? It seems that the first moves get under way about ten years after the decade in question ends, in the form of ironic fashion, club theme nights and novelty cover bands (perhaps earlier: David Nichols recalls 80s nights, focusing on especially ridiculous bands such as Duran Duran, being held in Sydney in the mid 90s). By about 15 years post original decade, the revival is well under way, with young bands doing the sound and clothes shops selling the look. By the 20-year mark it is mainstream and has run its course.
The key difference between this essay and Momus' lies in what we think motivates revivals. Momus says that people revive because an insatiable demand for 'new' styles exceeds the supply of ideas, leading people to pillage old material as early as they can get away with it. (He then answers the question, "how early?".) I agree, but add that revival can also be a political strategy: in the struggle for cultural supremacy, generation 'next' conspires with generation 'previous' against generation 'current'. They are not just plundering a past style, but holding it up as superior to the current style they are trying to displace.
Nothing in real life follows clean patterns of course. Music revivals have a wide adoption curve. Some bands do it early (Jesus Lizard, 80s in the 90s), others do it late (The Darkness and Wolfmother, 70s in the 00s). Musical decades are not genre monoliths, but encompass parallel threads of musical evolution: for example in the 90s grunge, indie-pop, techno and trip-hop co-existed, each with its own internal dynamics. Some argue that 00s music consists only of revivals. There are exceptions to every rule: still, I think the pattern I'm describing can be discerned among the noise.
The 80s revival has lasted most of the 00s, a decade which is about to end. If the pattern plays out, we should see a 90s revival some time soon, driven by the desire of forty-somethings to relive youth, reform bands, re-issue albums and have one last tread of the boards, and by the desire of new bands to deflate the currently popular 80s-revivalists. There are incipient signs, with '90s nights' already a feature in clubs, and reformations of Pavement, Dinosaur Jr, and some of the Seattle bands under way. The next step would be re-issues, theme compilations in which current bands cover early-90s songs, and young bands who don't really remember the sound spontaneously emulating it. Has enough time passed for people to perceive "the 90s" as a revival, rather than an old sound that is not-quite-dead? Until recently I'd have thought not. Then I happened to listen to a Chapter compilation from 1994, and ate my unspoken words. There is most definitely an 'early 90s sound', it is distinct from today's, and it is copy-able.
What will a 90s revival look like? Will different sub-cultures emerge along the original fault-lines, such as "new grunge", "new indie-pop", or "new rock-techno-crossover" (or for that matter "new techno", "new triphop" or "new drum-and-bass")? Will there (again) be recognizable Nirvana bands, Pavement bands, and Nine Inch Nails bands? Will it be driven partly by nostalgia for the comfortable days of America between the wars? Will there be an accompanying ironic resurgence of dial-up Internet, skateboarding, tattoos and post-modernism? And will it be curtains for the 80s-revivalists who have ruled the roost this past decade?
(Thanks to David Nichols, Ian Wadley, Andrew Bulhak and Keith Urquhart for advice on this piece.)
reply 1 from James Earthenware: I like your theory, although it's not just 40-something's reviving...it seems many of the 20-something hipsters are really obsessed with reviving 90's fashion. Possibly they are bored with reviving 80's fashion, but I don't think there's much politics involved in this, probably just nostalgia for movies and music of their growing up, yet now they are old enough to consume products, so stores are selling products with 90's icons on them. I think revivals are always "innocent" or "apolitical" because if we are talking about nostalgia for youth, most of our youth is spent ignorant of these political realities. ie: I didn't see any kids holding 80's parties calling for a return of Thatcher or Reagan. In fact the reason I hated most 80's revivalist bands is that they had completely lost the political motivations / awareness that inspired the original sounds. "Edgy" / "abrasive" guitars are not so edgy without the "edgy" lyrics and "cold" / "gothic" synthesizer sounds are not as frightening without the political back-drop of mutually assured destruction. Besides, the generation Y, who are buying-into all these revivals are too self-obsessed to consider sociological/political issues. A lot of indie bands seem to be re-claiming these 90's sounds, I was listening to a show on PBS recently and was really enjoying the 90's revival sounds. But I guess my question will always be why were these sounds forgotten in the first place? Why is the market so superficial and fickle? Most of the CD's I purchased 1995-98 I still listen to and enjoy...and I'm still discovering music from that era that I missed because I was too obsessed with particular artists or couldn't afford ALL the bands records that I liked. I think most of the 80's revival bands were garbage, and there's just too much new music that we are bombarded with to begin with...so there's no need at all to mine the past for ideas...there's too much music already...so I have to avoid it to maintain any enthusiasm for it. I guess my opinions on this don't count, most of my peers have careers and jobs so they can afford to participate economically in the 90's revival. I can't, so while I am happy that the Pixies, Pavement, Big Heavy Stuff, Screamfeeder etc. can achieve recognition they may have missed out on I won't personally be supporting this. I mean, I've been buying 90's CD's for the past 20 years...maybe I will switch to selling if they are suddenly deemed "collectable" instead of filling up the $2 bin at dixons where I usually find all my "classic" 90's Australian albums. Again, economically, like the 80's little band scene...the records start selling for a lot on Ebay...so it becomes viable to re-issue the album whereas before it wasn't. Sorry for this badly constructed contribution, I am not well and too hot to think clearly, hopefully you will get the point of what I am saying...that it's more an economic shift and is really pointless artistically. I do agree it's a real phenomenon and worth analysing from all perspectives however and I commend your efforts in this regard! ;) Great work!
reply 2 from Greg: I agree, some of it is driven by 20-somethings' nostalgia for the music they heard as young kids. This is in conjunction with 40-something' looking to make a comeback - nostalgia of a slightly different kind. It's a "music scene politics" I'm referring to rather than "government politics" - the politics of what is in or out and by extension who is wired or tired. A large chunk of the music business is geared to manipulating that.
reply 3 from James Earthenware: Wow, I keep looking at everything regarding the 20 year cycle thing, it seems so correct. From Devo's covers of Hendrix/Stones to Sid Vicious doing My Way and that other 50's track he recorded. Perhaps it is just that humans have such short memories, that they can only rebel against what has immediately preceded them, and after 20 years, the fashion or culture has depreciated to such an extent that it is cheaply/freely availible. ie: the idea has lost all it's currency, value and relevance and hence it may be appropriated/recycled and given new value/meaning. SO this may be a positive thing, in that we are not about "wasting" cultural artefacts. It could also be an expression/manifestation of the human condition which seems perpetually discontent with it's present. Musical forms are imported from other cultures because we cringe at our own culture, so perhaps if people cringe at the present state of the world, they can look forward, or backward for comfort or inspiration. For all intents and purposes we may consider that the previous ten years to be a part of the "present" hence the "past" falls into the 20 year period. I would like to look up some psychological studies or experiments to try and understand better how human beings perceive or define time and memory. When I have more time I will try and find some studies in the area and if I find any relevant results I will forward them to you. Which reminds me that I really liked Brian Eno's ideas when he was talking about his involvement in the development of the Millennium clock, a device built to help humans re-define their concept/perception of time. Eno was very interested in the issues of time, originally because he would compose by slowing down tapes so instruments changed timbre and then when he had to compose the 3 second microsoft sound, this also made him think of time differently. I guess the ambient works also fall into that category, because he was increasing the time/space between notes, but I think that exercise was mainly about space, but it COULD have been a time based exercise as well. I realised after i wrote my comment, the type of politics you meant. Sorry for being a bit out of it and closed minded when I wrote the post!
reply 4 from what's your name?: Hello! I`m from Norway (born in 1973). I have just been throwned out from a program in the style of the Idol for the fourth time. I think it`s because of the fact: I have a handicap (a little bit). My talking voice has always sounded a bit strange, that`s why I don`t reach 99 points at the karaoke-game SING STAR (I have reached 97). I don`t have any records by Dave Graney yet. My VISA card got robbed after I had bought three compilations by the Scientists. Now I have learned the paypal. (I have more than 2000 cd`s). I got a backstage-passport and a free ticket from Daniel Johnston. I met him outside the hall. I didn`t knew that Kurt Cobain was a fan of Daniel until after the meeting. Kurt had a Breeders-cd on top of his 100 fave-albums. Breeders are very similar to the Bangles. Dave Faulkner is a good friend of the Bangles and Kim Salmon. I`ve got a lot of e-mails from one of Dave`s friend, Rod Radalj. I hope anyone will meet me on my vocal-session trip to your studio in 2010.
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